The Jubilee bank holiday is here and if you plan to mark this milestone of a British monarch?s 70-year reign, there are lots of events happening across the city.

• A special exhibition in Old Market Square is on now until June 9 called 70 Glorious Years - featuring pictures from our archives of The Queen in Nottingham during her visits to our city, sponsored by Geldards. The event is marked with a Coronation crown on the front of the Council House sponsored by Capital One and a giant floral 70 below in the Square with 5,100 silver, blue and purple plants grown at our Woodthorpe Park nurseries, sponsored by Nottingham BID.

I would like to express my thanks to our fantastic council staff who helped stage a wonderful celebration event in the Square for Nottingham Forest on Monday ? and have cleared it up and got it ready for the Jubilee celebrations. Brilliant work!

• On Thursday 2 June, beacon lightings take place at Woodthorpe Park, Green's Windmill and Clifton Flower Park
• There will be pop-up street entertainment along Albert Street/Lister Gate on Sunday
• At Wollaton Park - the Hall will be lit up red, white and blue from sunset 2nd - 5th June. Plus, new red white and blue floral displays, giant deckchairs for your picnic, giant outdoor games, jubilee treats in our cafes and a jubilee outdoor trail will all be available to enjoy
• At Newstead Abbey - tours, giant deckchairs for your picnic, jubilee treats and a flag-themed outdoor trail will mark the occasion
• At Nottingham Castle - Join in with the Jubilee Garden Party
• At St Mary?s Church ? a Service of Thanksgiving will take place at 11am.

Full details of all events are available here.

There are no changes to your bin collections this week ? please put your bins out as normal. Thank you to our clean crews for continuing to work over the long Jubilee weekend!

Over 650 households across the city will soon be saving hundreds of pounds on their energy bills and reducing their carbon emissions thanks to the free installation of solar panels and insulation. Work has started in the Bestwood area as homes that are expensive to power and difficult to keep warm are being targeted for installing energy efficiency improvements and renewable technologies.

The roll-out of the energy efficiency improvements comes at a time when energy prices are soaring and concerns about finding greener ways to power homes are increasing. Making these upgrades will save each household an estimated ?290 per year and will avoid approximately 332 tonnes of carbon emissions across all the homes annually. This scheme is part of the wider Greener HousiNG campaign which will improve quality of life and reduce bills for citizens, while also supporting Nottingham?s ambition to be the first carbon neutral city by 2028. Find out more

We?re taking steps to reduce smoking in Nottingham. As part of World No Tobacco Day yesterday, we encouraged people to contact our stop-smoking service Stub It! to get help and support. The service is available to anyone aged 16 or over who lives in Nottingham city, offering a 12-week personalised program with trained stop smoking advisors. Find out more here.

We are also targeting the sale of illegal cigarettes in our city. Trading Standards in Nottingham teamed up with Her Majesty?s Revenue and Customs to launch Operation CeCe in 2020. In that time, they seized 217,520 sticks (10,876 packets) of illegal cigarettes and 7,400kg (148 pouches) of illegal hand-rolling tobacco from shops and private addresses in Nottingham. This equates to a street value of ?55,712.

This is all part of our partnership approach to reducing smoking and illegal tobacco.

A consultation has begun on a new Selective Licensing scheme for landlords to improve standards in the private rented housing sector.

People renting privately have a right to expect a decent standard of accommodation. Many of the 45,000 plus privately rented properties in the city are well-managed but, as part of the first scheme we are still finding properties that are to a very poor standard. It is also proven that poorly managed properties cause problems for local neighbourhoods that see higher crime and anti-social behaviour rates.

The scheme allows the council to make sure licensed rented homes meet certain conditions, that they are safe, well managed and that the landlord is a ?fit and proper person? and a new scheme would continue the important work already carried out during the first scheme to improve homes and remove hazards like damp, mould, cold and dangerous homes.

I would encourage as many people has possible to have their say on the consultation, which runs until 21 August 2022. More information here