East Midlands Mayor vows to improve bus routes and roads of north Nottinghamshire

A public consultation is being drawn up to ask residents of the region where they think public transport needs improving.

In a wide-spanning conversation with the LDRS on a number of issues, Labour politician Ms Ward also expressed her confidence in a case to the government to secure funding for upgrades to the oft-slated A614 and Ollerton roundabout.

The Mayor herself lives in the upper part of the county, and says she speaks from personal experience when she says she knows what should be done.

She said: “I’d love to not take a car into the city sometimes in an evening to go and enjoy the things in Nottingham, like the theatre for example.

“But you can’t get a bus back out. I know lots of people who struggle with that problem. In some of the villages, there’s no bus services, but even the ones to key places that do exist will often finish early in the evening and maybe not run on a Sunday.

“How can you get to work? How can you do a shift? How can you go to see friends and family or access hospital services?

“We need to have good ways of moving people around that aren’t just about individual cars, because that, in the longer term, is not going to help us build our communities and put more homes in places.

“Some people can’t have cars, can’t afford to run them, if they’re younger or older or can’t drive for a range of different reasons. We can’t just exclude them because they don’t have a car.”

Upgrades have been proposed for the Ollerton roundabout and the A614 since 2019. The East Midlands Combined County Authority is already pushing the government for £26m in funding.

The roundabout, which has six exits, becomes severely congested during busy periods of the day, and the A614, which leads onto it, is the main route into Nottingham from the north.

The Mayor told the LDRS she is ‘very confident’ in the case for the funding.

She said: “It’s essential that we get the upgrades. If we don’t, it means that the extra homes that are planned for Thoresby can’t take place.

“There is a developer there now that cannot currently proceed with their next phase of homes because if you put hundreds more homes there, all the traffic will need to use the roundabout.

“I know what it’s like because I live there, but more importantly, I know how difficult it is when you want to see our communities develop and they can’t because the infrastructure, the roads and the roundabouts are just not up to spec to deliver greater traffic on them.

“No upgrades would also mean that the jobs on the commercial sites there can’t be brought into the area, and that more people are being blocked from travelling around our region.

“I’m very confident in the case, and I feel confident that the government will listen to us. I just want to get to that point where they’re making an announcement and giving us the green light.”

The consultation on public transport upgrades for the rest of the region, which will take place over the next few months, will have two parts. The first part will ask what and where priorities need to be established.

The second part will ask how it should be done. This could be in the form of tram extensions, new railway lines, or improved bus routes.

The Mayor said: “We want to know what is important from their public transport system. Where it needs to get them and how it serves them, not just for work and education but for things like public services or entertainment.

Derby and Nottingham’s city and county councils will devolve all their public transport responsibilities to the Mayor’s East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) by April 2026.

Having previously appeared to imply a priority on further linking the two main cities through a potential extension to the Nottingham Express Transit tram network, the Mayor played down a focus on that, noting that the two cities are quite well served via bus and train links already.

But she said that ultimately, decisions would be in the hands of the people.

She said: “Bringing together four transport authorities and four transport plans into one that works for the whole region is one of the biggest opportunities for us.

“We’re very different from some of the other mayoral areas which have got one big city, with a sort of gravitational pull where people all head towards there. Here, we’ve got two cities and lots of places and rural communities.

“People need to be able to get not just in and out of cities, but between and around the counties.”