Nottingham Forest have confirmed that a date has finally been set for its long-awaited City Ground expansion plans to move to the next stage. The Reds hope their vision for the ground will be approved after technical updates were made to the plans - which were first given conditional planning permission in July 2022.

Fans have been waiting years for progress to be made - with the Reds first announcing their ambition to extend the ground on the banks of the River Trent back in 2019. The planning approval is seen as a crucial step in Forest signing a deal with the city council to buy the City Ground's freehold.

A joint statement from Nottingham Forest and Rushcliffe Borough Council was released on Wednesday (June 18) which said: "Nottingham Forest has been in regular dialogue with Rushcliffe Borough Council, Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council regarding the redevelopment of the City Ground. The parties can confirm they are working towards the Rushcliffe Borough Council Planning Committee date of Thursday 26 June to consider the application.

"There will be no further comment other than as required by the relevant legal process." The club recently appointed renowned architect Konstantinos Chatzimanolis as a principal executive to move forward its City Ground plans.

Nottinghamshire Live understand members of Rushcliffe's planning committee will be visiting the City Ground this Thursday (June 19) to hear more about Forest's plans. The June 26 meeting will then see the committee voting on whether or not to back the plans.

Key to Forest's vision for the City Ground is the demolition of the Peter Taylor Stand and a replacement which would increase its capacity from 5,000 to 10,000 seats. Next to the Peter Taylor Stand would be a residential apartment block with 169 units.

A hybrid application bringing together these two elements was approved by Rushcliffe in 2022. Nottinghamshire Live understands the plans being presented on June 26 will be broadly the same as those presented in 2022, apart from some technical updates.

A Rushcliffe Borough Council spokesperson previously said: "Due to the passage of time since the July 2022 planning committee, it was considered that necessary updates to the technical reports were undertaken by the club as the applicant in light of any material changes since the original committee considered the application." Approval for the plans would be key to unlocking a deal between Forest and the city council.

The Labour-run authority, the owner of the land on which the City Ground sits, had sought to increase rent in a move which caused a public row with Forest. The city council then offered the club the chance to buy the City Ground's freehold instead and the authority approved its side of the deal last year.

Forest still need to approve their side of the bargain and the club say that is dependent on it getting the plans through for stadium expansion. Forest's broader plans include improving and, in the case of the Bridgford Stand, extending the other three sides of the ground. The overall masterplan aims to get stadium capacity from just short of 30,000 up to 40,000.

Rushcliffe Borough Council has confirmed that if approved, full planning permission would be given to the stadium expansion element of the plans. The residential element of the plans, which has now been "delinked" from the stadium expansion, would receive outline planning permission if approved. This means councillors would be giving broad approval for the scheme, but that Forest would have to come back to the council with further detail on issues like appearance and landscaping before full planning permission was given.

Key Events

Reform UK's new Nottinghamshire leadership say they are trying to get 'up to speed' on a major shake-up of local government which they may need to make a decision on next month. Nottinghamshire County Council's Reform leader says he and his new councillors are meeting every two weeks to discuss the issue and accept that the local government reorganisation (LGR) programme is "going to happen".

The government is abolishing councils throughout the county in a bid to save money and make local government easier to understand. New councils are set to be created in the place of the nine authorities currently dotted across Nottinghamshire.

Options could include an expanded council covering Nottingham and surrounding areas. The leaders of all the current councils have been meeting regularly since the plans came out last December and, following the May 1 Nottinghamshire County Council election, Councillor Mick Barton will be in those talks rather than his Conservative predecessor Sam Smith.

The Reform leader previously told Nottinghamshire Live he was unable to "divulge" his view on LGR as he needed to discuss it with his councillors first. More than a month after Reform took office, Councillor Barton is still unable to confirm his position on the issue as he says he and others are getting his group of councillors fully briefed.

The council leader said: "We've had an informal meeting and we're still gathering the information about what's on the table that's come from officers. I know a little bit about it, but obviously the new members don't.

"At the minute we're still bringing everybody up to speed. We'll be having I would say at least fortnightly meetings just on LGR to bring everybody up to speed over the next few weeks because some decisions have got to be made."

The current system involves Nottingham City Council managing all services in its area, from schools to social care. The rest of Nottinghamshire is then split into two, with the big county council running major services across the area and seven smaller councils running localised services such as bin collections.

The government's plans will involve the two-tier system of local government being scrapped, creating a smaller number of new councils that manage all services in their area, like Nottingham. Debate therefore continues about how the new councils should be structured.

Three "workable options" have been presented to the government, one of which would leave the city council untouched and one new council covering all services in the rest of Nottinghamshire. There are then two combinations of options which would lead to a bigger Nottingham council.

One would involve a new council covering the whole of Nottingham, Broxtowe and Gedling and the other would involve a new council covering the whole of Nottingham, Broxtowe and Rushcliffe. The government has set a deadline of November 2025 for final plans to be presented, yet leaders say individual councils will have to set out their preferences in July ready for a summer consultation and the November deadline.

Councillor Barton's predecessor, the Conservative Councillor Sam Smith, who now leads the county council opposition group, previously outlined his "worry" that Reform simply didn't want LGR to happen. Nigel Farage told Nottinghamshire Live during the local election campaign that he was not in favour of LGR, but Councillor Smith said Councillor Barton and colleagues needed to be a "strong voice" against an expanded city council.

Yet Councillor Barton denied he was trying to avoid the issue, adding: "We know it's going to happen, we know it's government legislation, we know there's a decision to be made by November. Then obviously we've got to sit down with all the districts, we've got to sit down with the city leader, I've already done that.

"We've had those conversations about how she sees it going forward and I gave her a very vague view on how I see it going forward, because obviously I've got to have those conversations with my own councillors."

GP practices in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are to receive a significant funding boost for the additional services they provide to patients, outside their standard contract.

The £2.3m in funding is part of a package of measures to support local GP surgeries in delivering better care to patients. The funding is being provided from the reallocation of existing NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) budgets.

Local Enhanced Service (LES) schemes are funded at the discretion of ICBs differently in each area of England. They include additional services to help people manage long term conditions, such as diabetes and frailty.

The package announced by NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire follows a comprehensive review of existing funding and the services provided. It includes:

As part of the new deal, NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire is also making a commitment to ensure GP practices are engaged with and play an integral role in new ways of neighbourhood working.

General Practice Provider Collaborative

Meanwhile, NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire is also working across the healthcare system to establish a General Practice Provider Collaborative. This will ensure Primary Care leadership is central to decision-making, strengthening integration with system partners and enhancing service design and delivery.

Amanda Sullivan, Chief Executive of NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire said: “Moving care from hospitals into the community is one of the cornerstones of the Government’s new 10 year-plan for the NHS. This new deal for GP practices helps to bolster that commitment locally, recognising the vital role that GP teams play as the front door to the NHS.

“And we continue to explore new ways of enabling our GP community to work together to improve patient care, enhance access and better coordinate services.”

Data has been released by the UK Government detailing how schools around the UK are performing in key subjects, with thousands of pupils currently sitting their GCSE exams. Each year, the government compiles all the performance data from each school and college across the country to check how pupils score in key subjects such as maths, reading and writing.

The maths score shows how well primary pupils performed in the Key Stage 2 maths test - and each school in the country has its own score. The overall progress scores are unable to be calculated as a result of disruption due to Covid-19, which the government also says will have affected individual schools and pupils differently.

Maths is scored using the maths 'scaled score', with each school's score showing the average across all its pupils. The expected standard is a score of 100 or more, with the higher standard being 110 or more.

We have taken a look at this data and identified the top five schools in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, as well as those at the other end of the list, based on their maths scaled score.

Edna G Olds Academy in Lenton has been named the best in the city with a score of 109, which is above average. Meanwhile, for Nottinghamshire, it is Bingham Primary School leading the way with an impressive score of 111 - the best of the two areas combined.

For our list, we have excluded SEN schools. You can see the top and bottom five schools below for each area, below:

Top five* primary schools in Nottingham for maths

*Four schools tied on 108

Bottom five* primary schools in Nottingham for maths

*Nine schools tied on 101

Top five* primary schools in Nottinghamshire for maths

*Three schools tied on 109

Bottom five primary schools in Nottinghamshire for maths

Hugh Casswell

Political reporter, BBC Nottingham

Reform UK has won two seats on Nottinghamshire County Council in a rescheduled election.

Voting in the Mansfield North division was originally due to take place along with all other council seats in early May, but was postponed after the death of Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate Karen Seymour.

The area's two council seats were previously held by the Conservatives and Labour respectively.

Reform's Gaynor Mann and David Smith won both by comfortable margins at the rearranged election held on Thursday.

Mann said the party's momentum "is increasing every day" and "it's onwards and upwards for Reform UK".

"I think Nigel Farage is going to be prime minister in another four years," she said.

Smith said it was "fantastic" to be elected.

"Whatever the residents' problems are, we will be there for them," he said.

The full results were:

Turnout for the rescheduled election was 28%.

The result does not change who is in control of the county council, because Reform already had enough seats for a majority, but the party now has 41 of the 66 seats.

The Conservatives are the next largest group with 17 seats, while Labour has four.

The Ashfield Independents, the Broxtowe Alliance and the Broxtowe Independent Group each have one seat.

A by-election is also due to be held in the Newark West division on 3 July after a Reform councillor stepped down a week after being elected.

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