Next week at our Executive Board meeting, I?m delighted that we will have the chance to consider recommendations to reopen Nottingham Castle.

We know there is a lot of love for Nottingham Castle and we were all devastated when it closed last year after Nottingham Castle Trust went into liquidation and handed the site back to us. Since then we have been looking at ways to reopen the site as soon as possible ? and officers have put forward a recommendation that we do that by using the expertise of the council?s well-established Museums and Galleries service.

This is a team which has previously run the site and has the skills, specialist knowledge and cultural partnership connections to quickly mobilise and successfully animate the site with a programme of activities.

Other options, including mothballing the site and initially only reopening the grounds, are also outlined for consideration, but the recommendation is for reopening which, if approved next week, could see the whole site fully reopened in June, with some preview events taking place in May.

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It?s great news that Nottingham has been ranked by the Government?s Active Travel England organisation as among the best in the country at providing infrastructure promoting and encouraging walking and cycling.

We are one of only five places in the country rated three in newly-released rankings, by demonstrating very strong local leadership, comprehensive plans and a significant network in place with a growing number of people choosing to walk, wheel and cycle. Our efforts have been praised by Chris Boardman MBE, commissioner for Active Travel England, who called it ?sensational work.?

Nowhere has yet reached the top rate of four. We know we still have a long way to go to make Nottingham a truly inclusive city for active travel, and look forward to continuing to make Nottingham a great city to get around.

This position n the league tables reflects our work and ambition in this area and the hard work of colleagues in putting together bids for funding and managing projects. A recent scheme is the segregated cycle route across the city centre and we look forward to completing more schemes this year including our Hucknall Road cycleway, as well as beginning schemes in Beechdale and St Ann?s.

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