Sustainable Community Strategy
Strategic Priority 2: Neighbourhood Nottingham
Transform Nottingham’s neighbourhoods
2020 objectives
By 2020, across Nottingham:
Every neighbourhood will have a distinctive
identity and provide a great place to live, with:
- An appropriate mix of housing, meeting the
needs of young people, families and older
people of all incomes
- Good access to employment, public services,
shops and leisure within the neighbourhood,
the city centre and further afield
- Attractive, clean and safe environments,
including high quality, well designed and
sustainable buildings, public realm and
green spaces
- Residents who are proud of their city, take
responsibility for their communities and who
respect and value their neighbours and
where they live
Greater balance will be achieved in the city’s
housing market with an increased choice
of quality housing meeting the needs of a
diverse population and enabling the city
to retain more of its aspiring residents
Public service delivery will be better integrated
and appropriately devolved, ensuring more
accessible and responsive services for
all and giving residents more control over what happens in their neighbourhoods
2020 Headline Targets
- Raise resident satisfaction with their neighbourhood (across the city).
- Raise resident satisfaction with their neighbourhood to no less than 5% below the city average in every neighbourhood.
- 11,500 net new homes from 2008 to 2020.
- Increase family housing stock outside of the city centre (as defined in the Nottingham Local Plan) to at least 33% of all housing stock.
- Increase the percentage of people who believe that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area.
- Increase the percentage of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality to 40%.
- Increase the use of public transport by 2 million trips to 58 million trips per year by 2020.
- Eradicate fuel poverty by 2016.
The Story: From Today to Tomorrow
The City of Nottingham is home to 286,000
people, 44% of Greater Nottingham, and has
been growing again in recent years. The city has a
relatively high proportion of young adults (aged 15-
29) refl ecting the presence of two universities, and
a relatively low proportion of adults aged 40-64,
largely refl ecting the lack of family housing in the
city. The city is becoming increasingly diverse, with
23% from black and minority ethnic backgrounds,
and with good cohesion. Nottingham is a compact
city, with good public transport links into the
city centre. The city’s housing infrastructure,
however, presents a series of challenges. There
is a relatively high proportion of social rented and
private rented housing in Nottingham (44% of all
housing) and much of the city’s housing is low
value with some in poor repair, including some
large social housing estates that are deteriorating.
Despite this, affordability is still a problem as
many are on low incomes, reflecting Nottingham’s
position as England’s 13th most deprived local
authority area. Although some neighbourhoods
are popular, satisfaction on the whole is low,
and some neighbourhoods have many needs.
Our 2020 challenge is to work with Nottingham’s
communities to transform those neighbourhoods
that need change and to ensure that the city
can provide good quality homes for all incomes
through a network of neighbourhoods that are
attractive, safe and retain their own character.
A full range of quality services and amenities
must also be available from every neighbourhood.
Every community should be stronger, more active
and better able to influence what happens to it.
Our intention is to improve the city’s housing
offer to meet present needs and also to support
the economic development of the city, helping
to attract and retain wealth within Nottingham.
The city’s housing stock should help people
meet their aspirations by providing high quality
homes from which households can take
advantage of what the city has to offer, in terms
of economic, educational, social and cultural
opportunities. Such homes will be at the heart
of neighbourhoods where people will thrive.
We will provide more good quality housing
so that we can retain more of our graduates
and attract new workers to the city. Within
this, we also need more quality family housing
so that aspiring families can stay in the city.
We will also invest in the refurbishment and
improvement of tired housing and ensure that
every neighbourhood has an appropriate mix of
housing and good connections to jobs, services
and leisure opportunities. We want to raise
design standards too, not least to lower our
carbon footprint and increase the generation of
renewable energy locally. All of this will require
effective strategies and public investment to
lever in further private investment. Clearly, the
present difficulties in the housing market will
slow our progress for the next few years, but
public investment will continue, creating jobs and
homes, and rebuilding confidence for investors.
We will also work alongside the people of
Nottingham to build stronger communities – where
more neighbours know and trust each other, where
more people volunteer to make a difference locally
and where local initiative, creativity and enterprise
can flourish. We will also provide opportunities
for communities to take more control over their
neighbourhoods and the services that are delivered
there, helping to rebuild civic pride and establish
better forms of governance for the 21st century.