Combined authority plan could lead to higher council tax bills in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire

Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby and Derbyshire residents could see their tax bills increased through the creation of a new super authority across the four areas. The four authorities, which cover two cities and two counties, three of which are Conservative-controlled and one of which is Labour-led, are seeking to create a new combined organisation.

This authority, if approved, would be the third largest in England, overseeing 2.2 million people. A copy of a confidential and restricted bid to central government has been seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

This bid does not propose a full “scrap and merge” of the two city and two county authorities and deletion of the district and borough councils, but opposition to the plans suspect this is the direction of travel. The bid calls for a large number of extra powers to be given to the East Midlands Mayoral Combined Authority (the East Midlands MCA) from central Government.