As I See It: Paul Peacock, Leader of Newark and Sherwood District Council, writes about the exciting plans for our district
We are nearly a quarter of the way through the year already, writes Paul Peacock, Leader of Newark and Sherwood District Council, and as I reflect on the first three months of 2025 I am filled with excitement at the plans and opportunities already in motion.
Newark and Balderton were recently selected by the UK government to be able to submit plans for up to £20 million funding to help drive growth over a ten-year period. We are now waiting for further guidance from Government so we can then be in a position to work with Neighbourhood Boards and communities to develop an exciting regeneration plan for the area.
We are also expecting another year of UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) to continue to support local projects in the district. The programme originally began in December 2022, when we successfully secured £3.29 million.
To date, the local impact of the scheme has been overwhelmingly positive, supporting 342 businesses, creating and safeguarding over 100 jobs, planting more than 3,000 trees, supporting over 250 residents to gain skills, helping more than 650 residents volunteer, delivering 120 community events, and much more.
Exciting plans are also also now in motion in Clipstone, with planning permission being granted to develop the former underused site at Clipstone Holdings into high quality space for businesses.
We’ve already received a number of enquiries about the new office and workshop spaces before they’ve even been built so we are pleased to be meeting this local demand.
We also recently had the green light to regenerate Yorke Drive in Newark, building new homes for residents, improving the safety in the area and deliver significant improvements to sports and recreational facilities.
As well as these exciting plans, we also run countless vital services for our residents, from investigating planning breaches to investigating noise problems and from keeping streets clean to managing food hygiene ratings on eating premises. I want to focus for a moment on just one of our vital services, collecting your bins.
Each year our fantastic teams collect your bins day in, day out, come rain or shine and it is probably the one service we deliver that everyone comes into contact with. During 2024 / 2025, a band A home paid £2.50 per week to us in Council Tax and a band D home paid £3.75 per week to us in Council Tax and for that you received all our services.
Even if you just received our bin collecting service from us, I think this is extremely good value for money.
As my final note, I wanted to remind residents of the upcoming Nottinghamshire County Council elections on Thursday May 1. Why not make it easy and register for a postal vote?
Find out more on our website!
