Paused on 7 September. Our settlement check of the plan: 29 Rushcliffe places into the Nottingham unitary, 27 towards Newark and Mansfield.

Update, 10 September 2026. This plan has been paused. On 7 September the Government put Nottingham and Nottinghamshire into a national review of local government reorganisation, told councils to stop implementation work, and confirmed that the election due on 6 May 2027 goes ahead on existing council boundaries. The split described below has not been cancelled and has not been made law. Read what the pause changes. The rest of this article records the decision as it stood, and our own check of which side each settlement was put on.

Rushcliffe borough was to be cut in half under the reorganisation decision given in July, and the line ran through the middle of the borough.

West Bridgford, Ruddington, Keyworth, Cotgrave, Radcliffe on Trent and East Leake were all to go into the new unitary council built around Nottingham City. Bingham, East Bridgford, Cropwell Bishop, Aslockton and the Vale villages were to go into the other one, alongside Mansfield, Newark, Ashfield and Bassetlaw.

The borough council’s own Quarter 1 finance report, published on Friday and going to Cabinet on Tuesday 8 September, puts it plainly. The decision “will disaggregate Rushcliffe between the two new authorities”, which it names as Greater Nottingham Council and Nottinghamshire Council. It adds that “this level of complexity has not been seen in any prior structural change”.

Which side is your village on

The councils have published an address checker rather than a list. It is a map tool: you type your address and it tells you which of two areas, labelled only Unitary 1 and Unitary 2, you land in.

West Bridgford Live ran 56 Rushcliffe towns and villages through the boundary layer behind that checker, using each settlement’s own map reference. The split came out 29 to 27.

Allocated to Unitary 2, with Nottingham City and parts of Broxtowe and Gedling:

Barton in Fabis, Bradmore, Bunny, Clipston, Costock, Cotgrave, East Leake, Edwalton, Gamston, Gotham, Holme Pierrepont, Keyworth, Kingston on Soar, Normanton on Soar, Normanton on the Wolds, Plumtree, Radcliffe on Trent, Rempstone, Ruddington, Stanford on Soar, Stanton on the Wolds, Sutton Bonington, Thrumpton, Tollerton, West Bridgford, West Leake, Widmerpool, Willoughby on the Wolds, Wysall.

Allocated to Unitary 1, with Ashfield, Bassetlaw, Mansfield and Newark and Sherwood:

Aslockton, Barnstone, Bingham, Car Colston, Colston Bassett, Cropwell Bishop, Cropwell Butler, East Bridgford, Elton on the Hill, Flintham, Granby, Hawksworth, Hickling, Kinoulton, Kneeton, Langar, Orston, Owthorpe, Scarrington, Screveton, Shelford, Shelton, Sibthorpe, Thoroton, Tithby, Upper Broughton, Whatton in the Vale.

Two columns showing which Rushcliffe places go into each new unitary council
Chart by West Bridgford Live
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Radcliffe on Trent stayed on the Nottingham side. Shelford, two miles further up the Trent, did not. Bingham, the borough’s second town, went with Newark and Mansfield.

This is a settlement-by-settlement check, not a property-by-property one. Anyone near the line should put their own full address into the checker, which warns that a postcode alone can give the wrong answer.

What has actually been decided

Government officials met the nine Nottingham and Nottinghamshire council leaders and chief executives on 16 July and confirmed the decision verbally, according to Rushcliffe’s own account. A formal written decision is still to come. The Secretary of State also announced it in Parliament.

The option chosen was the one put forward by Nottingham City Council. Rushcliffe Borough Council had backed a different proposal, submitted jointly with Nottinghamshire County Council. The timetable is:

  • May 2027: elections to the two new councils
  • after that: shadow authorities
  • April 2028: the nine existing councils are abolished and the two new ones take over

None of that now applies. The 7 September pause reinstates the ordinary borough election on 6 May 2027 and sets no new date for anything else. The council’s position on services is unchanged and stronger for the delay: bin collections, council tax and every other service carry on as now.

What it is costing before it starts

Rushcliffe began building a reserve for reorganisation in 2024/25. The Q1 report sets out where that money stands:

  • the LGR reserve held £1.199m on 1 April 2026
  • £132,000 has already been drawn down this quarter to pay for extra posts
  • the council proposes to top it back up with £378,000 of in-year savings, a net increase of £246,000
  • two of the new posts are in Finance, a data analyst and a finance business partner, costing £57,000 this year

The report is candid that this is a guess. It says the full costs “remain unknown” and that available underspends will be used to supplement the reserve.

The wider Q1 picture is comfortable. The council projects a £379,000 revenue underspend for the year and a £1.203m capital underspend, with schemes pushed into 2027/28. The biggest single gain is £175,000 from renegotiating the glass recycling contract. Against that sit a £174,000 overspend on homelessness prevention and £146,000 on fuel, because the bin lorries run on hydrotreated vegetable oil rather than diesel.

The West Bridgford question buried at paragraph 6.3

West Bridgford has no parish or town council. It is the only part of the borough that pays a special expenses charge instead, £67.40 on a band D bill this year, because the borough runs the parks and recreation grounds a parish council would run elsewhere.

Reorganisation has revived the argument about that. Tucked into the risks section of the Q1 report, the council writes:

The petition and any subsequent Community Governance Review (CGR) for the potential creation of a West Bridgford Town Council could result in additional costs falling on West Bridgford Special Expenses, including consultation, governance, election and implementation costs.

In other words: if the petition forces a review, the bill for running that process would land on West Bridgford council tax payers rather than the borough as a whole. The report says the timing and financial impact “remain uncertain”.

There is no e-petition open on the council’s own petitions page at the time of writing, so any petition in circulation is on paper.

What it means for you

Nothing changes on the ground, and now there is no date at which it would. What follows was written before the pause and the meeting deadlines in it have passed.

  • Check your own address on the address checker. Use the full address, not just the postcode.
  • Ask Cabinet about it. The 8 September meeting opens with Citizens’ Questions. The deadline to submit one is 5pm on Thursday 3 September, by email to democraticservices@rushcliffe.gov.uk or by post to Democratic Services, Rushcliffe Borough Council, Rushcliffe Arena, Rugby Road, West Bridgford NG2 7YG. One question per person per meeting, and you must give your name and address.
  • For the 17 September full Council meeting, the deadline for motions and petitions is also 5pm on Thursday 3 September; questions can go in until 5pm on Monday 14 September.
  • Watch it. Cabinet meets at 7pm on Tuesday 8 September in Council Chamber Area B at Rushcliffe Arena, and is live streamed on the council’s YouTube channel.

If you live in Bingham, Cropwell Bishop or the Vale villages, the plan would have put your council in a different part of the county, with a different set of neighbours setting its budget. That is now on hold rather than settled.

Sources

Village allocations were checked on 3 September 2026 by testing each settlement’s map reference against the councils’ published boundary layer. Council areas are decided by address, so check yours before relying on this.

Updated 10 September 2026 to record the Government’s pause of 7 September 2026. The original article was published on 3 September 2026 and has not been altered other than to change tense and add this note.