Views sought on Nottinghamshire councils shake-up plans
The decision to launch a local government reorganisation process was taken by central government, which wrote to local authorities in February.The aim is to create more efficient and effective local government, potentially leading to streamlined services and cost savings.Councils were formally asked to submit proposals to create new structures of unitary authorities, which is a single tier of local government responsible for all local services in an area.
Two core options are currently being considered in Nottinghamshire:A new unitary authority combining Nottingham, Broxtowe, and Gedling, with a second new unitary authority for the rest of Nottinghamshire; Mansfield, Ashfield, Newark and Sherwood, Bassetlaw and Rushcliffe. This is known as 1b.A new unitary authority combining Nottingham, Broxtowe, and Rushcliffe, with a second new unitary authority for the rest of Nottinghamshire; Mansfield, Ashfield, Newark and Sherwood, Bassetlaw and Gedling. This is known as 1e.
In Nottinghamshire, local services are currently delivered under what is known as a 'two-tier' council structure.Nottinghamshire County Council oversees county-wide services such as social care, education, and road maintenance while several smaller district and borough councils are responsible for more localised services including waste collection, and leisure centres.Nottingham City Council operates as a unitary authority, meaning it provides all council services within the city of Nottingham.At this stage, no final decision has been made on a single option, and some councils could still explore additional proposals alongside the two core options currently being considered.The views of people shared in the survey will feed into the development of final proposals which must be submitted to government by 28 November.Government officials will then review proposals before making a final decision next summer.
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The Sun
8 minutes ago
- The Sun
Three top hotels yards from Bournemouth beach being used as migrant accommodation sparking fury from tourists & locals
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'Scared to walk around' She told The Sun: 'I don't think they should be in hotels like that if they've come here illegally. "That they're on the seaside makes me cross. It makes me scared to walk around at night when we've paid so much to come somewhere nice. 'If they're trying to escape a warzone, then I understand why genuine asylum seekers would come here. "But the hotels for people who aren't here legally are a waste of money, especially if they cross from France, because it's a safe country. 'The billions on this are taking away money from the NHS — which I need because I haven't been well.' First migrants detained under Starmer's 'one-in-one-out' deal with France as MORE boats arrive in UK Stewart Brown, 34, and Philip Finch, 75, from Cambridge, said putting an asylum hotel by the seaside could scare off young families. PE teacher Stewart said: 'It doesn't sit nicely with me. We've spent about £1,200 to come here. Before I came down, my dad made me aware of the asylum hotels. 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'Labour promised to smash the gangs and end hotel use. 'Both promises lie in tatters and Bournemouth — along with the rest of the country — is paying the price for Labour's massive failures.' 9 Earlier this year local Labour MP Tom Hayes blasted the situation, telling Parliament: 'Bournemouth hotels cost the taxpayer eye-watering sums and everyone is stuck in a situation that nobody wants.' The Bournemouth Area Hospitality Association told The Sun that the Government's choice to use hotels in the town for asylum seeker accommodation was 'disappointing'. But hotelier Rosie Radwell, who is chair of the BAHA, claimed: 'Bournemouth and the South Coast remain a wonderful destination for visitors, and holidaymakers should rest assured of high standards and a warm welcome.' Yesterday The Sun caught an asylum seeker working as a Just Eat delivery rider near to one hotel — despite Labour promising a crackdown on illegal working. 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The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Shared prayers and tears: how Lammy wooed JD Vance and the White House
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Lammy had a further card to play. He has spoken about how Vance's bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, bore parallels to his own story of growing up with a single mother and an absent, alcoholic father. Lammy has said Vance's book 'reduced me to tears'. 'I said to JD: 'Look, we've got different politics, but we're both quite strong Christians and we both share quite a tough upbringing,'' Lammy said of an early meeting. He recently elaborated in an interview with the Guardian. During drinks with Vance and the deputy Labour leader, Angela Rayner, in the US ambassador's residence at the time of the new pope's inauguration, Lammy had an epiphany. It struck him that they were 'not just working-class politicians, but people with dysfunctional childhoods', he said. 'I had this great sense that JD completely relates to me and he completely relates to Angela.' 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'So I think he sort of clocked basically that that is the direction in which the country was going so built these relationships well before they came to power in the US. And I think that gives it, like, extra kind of credibility and authenticity as well, because you're not just calling them when you need them when you're both in post. He's an incredibly effective operator. Frankly, he's quite good company as well, which always helps.' There will be a formal bilateral meeting between the two politicians before Vance's wife, Usha, and their three children join Lammy, his wife and their children for the weekend. After their stay with the Lammys, the Vances are understood to be heading to a Cotswolds period property near Charlbury, about 12 miles (19km) north-west of Oxford. Martins, who was working in the US embassy at the time of Trump's first state visit, said he recalled the delight that the president took in the pomp and ceremony. 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Telegraph
38 minutes ago
- Telegraph
We're witnessing the slow extinction of the human race
'When the facts change', economist JM Keynes is supposed to have said to a critic, 'I change my mind. What do you do, sir?' In a vast swathe of countries, there are more deaths each year than births. Across the world, annual population growth has dropped from more than 2 per cent 60 years ago to less than 1 per cent and falling. Populations are ageing and shrinking with calamitous ramifications for economic dynamism and for the viability of welfare states. The facts have certainly changed, but contra Keynes, opinion – never mind action – is lagging well behind. Only slowly is humanity waking up to the possibility of a future in which history comes to an end, not in the kind of liberal utopia imagined by political theorist Francis Fukuyama, nor in the bang of the nuclear apocalypse feared during the Cold War, but in the whimper of the last person turning off the lights. Somewhere, some group or other with a pro-natal urge is likely to keep humanity going. But if the examples of the worst performing societies in East Asia are replicated – where a hundred parents make 33 children who make 11 grandchildren – the end of the human race altogether is not impossible. In the UK, where fertility rates have been below replacement level for more than half a century, feeble demography lies at the root of many if not most of the country's woes. Britain's increasingly upside-down population pyramid means society is less creative, productive and entrepreneurial, suffering from stultifying economic growth and placing ever greater burdens on the state. But ministers have been cautious even to comment on the matter. Keir Starmer was one of the first frontline politicians to have anything to say about the birth rate and the best he could muster amounted to little more than 'nothing to do with me'. Although many governments are uneager to dip their toes into controversial and turbulent demographic waters, it is nevertheless incumbent on those of us who understand the issue to think about what policies might be adopted so that when, one day, the authorities in countries like the UK wake up to the population emergency (as they already have in many other places, from China to France) they have an idea of what to do about it. Unlike hiking up interest rates to clamp down on inflation, this is not an easy matter. The mechanisms required to e ncourage people to have more children are not obvious and the remedies will not feed through into the workforce for the best part of 20 years. But the fact that it is difficult should not be a counsel of despair or inaction. The first reaction of many identifying a problem is to demand the government throw money at it. But as we know, many governments have precious little money to throw at anything. So, as my fellow author Philip Pilkington and I will argue in a forthcoming book on demography and economics, the whole way that government spends money, the whole of the welfare state, will need to be redesigned around the family, encouraging, incentivising and nurturing the formation of the unit within which children can be born and flourish. And the tax system should be redesigned around it, too. Those bearing the costs of producing a future cohort of workers are effectively bearing the costs of the existence of a future economy. Without children today, there will be no workers or taxpayers when today's cohort of the economically active age and retire. Reorienting the state, nation and economy towards families and childbearing – that is, towards the state, nation and economy having any kind of future – will take multiple forms. Childcare will need to be made more available and affordable. Planning restrictions which prevent the widespread creation of housing suitable for families will have to be smashed. Un-means-tested benefits for the elderly will need to be amended. The tax and benefits system penalising those who want to have children will require a complete overhaul. But however important it is for governments to start acknowledging the problem of too few births and doing something about it, economic incentives alone will not fix this problem. There is evidence that a suitable tax system stimulates family formation, that affordable childcare encourages working mothers to have more children, and that baby bonuses do indeed stimulate childbearing. But the effects are modest. In the UK, plenty of young people today say that they cannot afford to have children, and with housing out of the reach of many, nurseries wildly expensive by international comparisons, and the tax burden on young families indefensible, they deserve our sympathy and assistance. But in parts of the UK where housing is relatively cheap, the birth rate is not noticeably higher than where it is expensive. In countries where childcare is highly subsidised (Germany, the Baltic States), the problem has not improved. Recent data from the US shows that, while the better-off still have more children than middle-earners, the drop-off in arrivals on the maternity wards is affecting even the wealthiest. What is required, above and beyond any changes to tax and spend, is a cultural revolution which transforms coupling-up and having children from a distant aspiration to an urgent priority. Films and novels, internet influencers and education should orient around this goal. So many influences from the cultural sphere today are negative. Sex education focuses on prevention and disease rather than positively encouraging planned pregnancy. Instagram accounts are more focused on kittens than kids. Changing the culture is even harder than changing the material incentive structure, but it is the only way we stand a realistic chance of returning to a world in which the average couple having an average of two or three children is the norm. It is the only alternative to a terminal decline and a long farewell.
