We officially opened the doors this morning to our new flagship library for the city, as we welcomed residents, school children and partners to see inside the new facility for the first time.  

The Lord Mayor, Councillor Carole McCulloch, and I, were joined by children from Sneinton Church of England and Mellers Primary schools to officially open the facility in a ribbon-cutting ceremony.  

I had the pleasure of taking part in a storytelling session with the pupils before they went off to explore the building and the fantastic Immersive Storytelling room. 

It was great to see so many of you there and taking part in guided tours and following the audio trail with QR codes, which linked voice clips and interviews on stories from the local area spanning several decades.   

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 and has a café, learning labs, extensive book collection, meeting rooms, exhibition space and comfortable areas to sit and read. 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. 

I would encourage everyone to visit the new library and you can also book many of the upcoming events – including the Christmas Market and the performance event with Bafta-award winning TV writer and poet Henry Normal, DJ set from Bradley Jam from Jam Cafe and 7-piece band Salmagundi.  

More information about the library and our events can be found here  

The City Council has successfully secured £1.7million from Active Travel England and we are proposing to use the money we secured to design and build:  

• A segregated, two-way cycle path on Porchester Road – beginning at Burgass Road and finishing at Kenrick Road 
• The two-way cycle path is proposed to be on the southbound lane carriageway between Burgass Road and Cherrywood Gardens, before switching to the northbound lane carriageway between Cherrywood Gardens and Kenrick Road – this is in order to considerably reduce the interference this scheme could have with car parking 
• One-way cycle paths for northbound and southbound users from Kenrick Road to Emmanuel Avenue 

Take a look at the plans and tell us what you think in our online survey or come along to one of our two in-person events. Deadline is Friday 22 December. 

More here... 

The second round of support through the Government’s Household Support Fund (HSF) scheme has launched to help financially-vulnerable Nottingham residents over winter with  food and energy bills 

The Council secured £7.1m from the HSF earlier this year to help struggling families in Nottingham through to March 2024, with the funding split into two rounds to spread this support throughout the year. 

This comes on top of £8.5m we have received since 2021 through the scheme which has enabled us to provide help to households through supermarket and energy vouchers, holiday activity clubs, 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 here where you can find out what help we can provide and check if you are eligible. 

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