I am so excited to announce we are officially opening the fantastic new Central Library on Tuesday 28 November 2023.  

The library, which is part of the new Broad Marsh Car Park and Bus Station complex, puts children, young people and learning at the heart of its design, with a high-quality children’s section, immersive storytelling room, extensive book collection and comfortable areas to sit and read.  

Spread over three floors with full accessibility via lifts, the library also includes: 

• Feature-book walls  
• Free Wi-Fi and free access to computers, laptops and tablets   
• A café and ground floor performance space 
• Specialist and rare collections room  
• Learning lab for special activities and school class visits 
• Meeting rooms and exhibition space 
• Creative design areas 
• Business Intellectual Property Centre for the city.  

The new Central Library is a key element in the regeneration of Broad Marsh, which has already seen major transformation including new people-friendly, green public space created on Sussex Street next to Nottingham College as well as the Bus Station and Car Park. Outside the new Central Library building on the old Collin Street, work is nearing completion on a new child-friendly play space while nearby, the wildlife-rich Green Heart will soon begin to take shape. 

Find out more here 

Adoption East Midlands and Nottingham City Council are proudly supporting National Adoption Week.  

This year’s campaign from You Can Adopt celebrates different generations of adopted people to show how it has changed through the decades and to encourage potential adopters to come forward to change the life of children who are still waiting for a permanent home.  

A powerful set of portraits captured by royal, fashion and portrait photographer Philip Sinden, who was adopted himself in the 1970s, have been released.  

The portraits show striking imagery of eight different people who were adopted between the 1960s and 2010s, and bring to life how adoption has shaped, and continues to shape, their lives while highlighting how it has changed over the years. 

View the images here  and click here to watch the video.   

This week is Household Support Fund Awareness Week, highlighting the support that has been made available to vulnerable households to help with things such as food and energy bills during the cost-of-living crisis through the Government’s  scheme. 

The Council was successful earlier this year in securing £7.1m from the HSF to help struggling families in Nottingham in the fourth phase of the scheme which runs until March 2024. 

This comes on top of £8.5m we have received since 2021 which has allowed us to provide help to households through supermarket and energy vouchers, holiday activity clubs as well as support through food banks and social-eating projects. 

Support remains available for those who need it, so if you or someone you know is struggling financially I would urge you to visit our website where you can find out what help we can provide and check if you are eligible here 

Additional support, information and advice is also available on the AskLion website, including for those who may not be able to receive support through the HSF: https://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/householdsupportvouchers 

This week is Recycle Week, and we’re hunting out those items that are often forgotten. For example, aerosol cans, shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles, and cleaning product bottles are all made from materials that we can easily recycle, but we don’t see as many of these items in Nottingham’s brown recycling bins as we know are out there in our homes.  

So join us in the hunt – do you have any of these items hiding in your bathroom bin (or left empty around the side of the bath)? Give bottles a quick rinse and make sure aerosols are empty and you’re ready to recycle.  

Not sure if something can be recycled? Check our website to find out. 

This year for ‘Get Online Week’, we are holding small one-to-one drop-in sessions to help people improve their digital skills across some of our libraries. 

The Meadows and Dales Centre Libraries have Hublets that are available for both children and adults to use in the libraries. They offer access to a range of newspapers and magazines via the 'PressReader' app and family history searches through the 'Find My Past' website.