There is one more week to go to have your say on the council?s budget for 2024/25, with an online consultation session taking place this evening between 6pm and 7pm.

The council faces a shortfall in 2024/25 financial year and this is due to issues impacting many local authorities across the country, including:

• the cost of increased demand for adult care and children?s services
• more people presenting as homeless
• inflation and unfunded national pay increases

To bridge the large budget gap, there are unfortunately difficult decisions which have to be considered and it?s therefore really important that we hear the public?s views before any final decisions are taken.

Have your say in our online survey by 16 January and join us at an online consultation tonight via Microsoft Teams.

The return of freezing weather over the past few days means that our gritting fleet have returned to the roads.

Look out for the bright yellow lorries if you see them out and about ? they cover 227 miles every wintery night, making sure that key routes ? including those to hospitals and schools ? are kept safe.

• You can see the routes that we grit here, as well as the location of our grit bins
• Please drive carefully on icy roads and be aware of other road users
• Did you know ? since grit doesn?t work on top of snow, we grit in advance of any forecast snow and then once it?s began to melt

We are excited to have CBeebies star Dr Ranj joining children at Nottingham Central Library for a special Storytime tomorrow (Wednesday).

Dr Ranj, who is currently starring in this year?s Theatre Royal panto, Dick Whittington, will be at the Messy Play session at the new library from 10.30am to read from a selection of his latest children?s book.

Youngsters can come along and meet Dr Ranj, known to a generation of children for his CBeebies series?Get Well Soon?and?Get Well Soon Hospital?and to young and old alike for his fancy footwork in the ballroom during the 2018 series of?Strictly Come Dancing, where he made it through to the seventh week.

The Storytime session is free and you can drop in on the day, but as space is limited it?s best to secure your place by booking your FREE place here.

Read more here

More than 1,000 homes that are difficult and expensive to keep warm have received energy-efficiency upgrades in the latest part of a retrofitting scheme.

We?re continuing to support financially-vulnerable residents this winter through the Greener HousiNG programme using grant funding from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the European Regional Development Fund and with the support of the Midlands Net Zero Hub. Around 13,000 energy-efficiency improvements have been made since the council launched the programme in 2012. I was delighted to see this for myself recently during a visit with fellow councillors and officers.

You can read more here?