Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says he is yet to be convinced a planned shake-up of councils across Nottinghamshire “is anything more than taking power away from people at local level”.
The Labour Government said in December last year that it wants to reorganise local authorities to cut costs and streamline services.
All nine Nottinghamshire councils have now developed three potential options, which have since been submitted to the Government for review.
In all options, the existing two-tiered structure used in the county would be scrapped, and the entire area would then be split into two unitary authorities.
The planned shake-up comes just as Nottinghamshire County Council heads towards an election on May 1, during which the electorate will vote for who they want representing them as one of 66 county councillors.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, was in Ashfield on Wednesday (April 9) ahead of the election.
“No one has convinced me devolution under [deputy Prime Minister] Angela Rayner’s plan is anything more than taking power away from people at local level and pushing it up,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“Nottinghamshire is divided up into its individual district councils, which in many cases people feel quite attached to. I can be convinced it is the right way, but as yet nobody has.”
His comments come after Gedling’s Labour MP Michael Payne also levelled some criticism at the Government’s devolution and local government reorganisation plans.
The politician said his constituents had told him “loud and clear” they did not want a change.
Some Labour MPs in the East Midlands differ on where the new boundaries should be drawn, but Payne has been first to publicly question the logic of the reorganisation.
He made the comments in a House of Commons debate on the importance of local government to the East Midlands economy.
He said: “Do we really want local authority staff to be focused on a multi-year reorganisation process or do we want them to be getting on with the job and growing their local economies?”
In response, Alex Norris, the Communities Minister and Nottingham North and Kimberley MP, argued it was time to simplify things.
“I am thinking of parts of my constituency that have five tiers of government,” he said.
“They have an elected mayor, they have me in this place, they have a county council, they have a borough council and they have a town council.”
Nottinghamshire County Council is currently led by a Conservative administration under its leader, Cllr Sam Smith.
Like many councils across the country, it has been attempting to tackle soaring costs in adults and children’s social care, rising demand to help children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) get to and from suitable school places, and to improve the state of the county’s roads.
On his visit, Mr Farage admitted there would be “no magic wand” under Reform leadership to help bring costs down in social care and SEND education and transport.
“Central Government funding is lower than it used to be, the SEND issue, particularly since the pandemic, I’m afraid the pandemic has damaged quite a lot of children,” he said.
“With social care we’ve got an ageing population. These are massive problems.
“If we can cut excess expenditure elsewhere, get more of a sense of thriving businesses, generating more in terms of rates, then maybe we can turn a corner on this.”
The Conservative administration says it made 25,000 pothole repairs in the first half of the previous financial year, which ran from March 2024 to April this year.
These were made as part of a £66m investment in road repairs the same year, such as resurfacing, pothole repairs, and gully cleaning.
Repairs are done by Via East Midlands, a council-owned company that is currently operating on a 10-year contract – that also has the option to be extended by a further five years to 2031.
Mr Farage claimed some councils were “stuck in failing long-term contracts” – and that Nottinghamshire was doing “pretty badly” on fixing potholes, despite what the Conservative administration argues has been record investment.
Questioned what a Reform leadership would do differently, Mr Farage said he would like to see a version of the US ‘Department Of Government Efficiency’ (Doge) set up in Nottinghamshire to cut expenditure.
Doge is a new advisory body created by US President Donald Trump – led by the world’s richest man Elon Musk – that has been tasked with cutting US government jobs and other spending.
“If we are in any position of power from May 2 onwards we want to come in with the auditors and go through the books and have a good look at this,” he added.
“We’d be hair-shirt in terms of how council tax money is spent.
“We would ask why half a dozen people are earning over £100,000 a year, while the chief executive earns a lot more than the Prime Minister, if they are not delivering on things like potholes.
“Work from home, forget it, that’s gone.
“New people, new culture, new ideas.”
A full list of all candidates standing in the May 2025 county council elections – including the names of people representing other politicial parties – can be found online.
