Good News, Local Voices & Community Stories : Bassetlaw News Highlights from the Last Week

Local News that Matters from Bassetlaw's Favourite Newsletter. No Ads, No Paywall .... Just News

Well that's the end of another busy week of news from around Bassetlaw and the surrounding area - as usual we've taken a selection of our published content and shortened them, where possible into one catch-up newsletter.

Why not grab a Sunday morning brew, grab a garibaldi and take ten to catch up on our shortened highlights from this week's Bassetlaw Today newsletters.

Covering all things Bassetlaw the full articles can be accessed in our daily newsletters 100% FREE on https://bassetlaw-today.ghost.io/ .

I hope you enjoy the read, please email us if you have a story for us and have a great weekend wherever you are.

Justin Doddy, Editor

P.S. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter here if you haven't already and remember to forward our newsletter to your friends and family.

Reform take former Labour seat in north county by-election after MP’s resignation

Reform UK has gained another seat in Nottinghamshire after beating Labour to Bassetlaw District Council’s Worksop East ward in a by-election.

Nancy Wright pipped Labour’s Cameron Holt to the post with 600 votes – 45.9% of the vote – compared to her opponent’s 485 (37.1%), to take the victory and make it Reform’s third gain of a council seat in less than two months.

Newark Carer jailed after stealing £26k from vulnerable residents

A carer who stole more than £26,000 from two vulnerable residents she was entrusted to support has been jailed.

Michelle Flintoff, 50, exploited her position at a non-profit care provider to carry out more than 100 fraudulent cash withdrawals over a five-year period, as well as making numerous purchases through Amazon and high street retailers, including cosmetics company Sephora.

Nottingham Crown Court heard Flintoff was a team leader at a Newark residential property providing round-the-clock support to two adults with learning difficulties.

In addition to assisting with their day-to-day care, medication, cooking and household tasks, she was responsible for managing their finances and had access to both residents’ personal bank accounts, as well as a joint account used to pay shared household expenses.

Between 2020 and 2025, Flintoff fraudulently took £26,299.92 from the three accounts for her own benefit.

Announcement due ‘soon’ on scrapped A46 improvements after months of uncertainty, Mayor says

By Joseph Connolly, LDRS

An announcement on the future of the upgrades to the A46 Newark Bypass “is expected soon”, says East Midlands Mayor Claire Ward.

The project, which was set to involve a variety of work to reduce traffic bottlenecks and relieve congestion, was scrapped by former Prime Minister Keir Starmer in June, to free up funding for the defence sector.

The decision caused outcry at the time, coming after local leaders had been vocal in the media about how the trend of the East Midlands being “left behind” by central government in funding decisions looked like it might finally be beginning to change.

The scheme was one of only two highway infrastructure projects nationwide scrapped in the June announcement – with the other one also being in the East Midlands.

Pre-construction works to begin at Ollerton roundabout from November

The first works to improve Ollerton roundabout as part of the A614/A6097 major road network scheme are set to begin on site in November, with main works starting in Spring 2027.

Motorists and residents are likely to see teams on site between November 2026 and February 2027 completing vegetation clearance works, footway improvements and third-party utility diversions.

These works, which will be delivered by Galliford Try on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council and Via East Midlands, will enable main roundabout improvement works to start from March 2027.

Traffic management, including a single lane closure and temporary traffic lights, will be in place overnight once vegetation clearance works begin to allow teams to work safely.

Ollerton roundabout is one of five junctions included in the A614/A6097 major road network scheme and improvements will focus on reshaping the roundabout to give vehicles more room and widening approaches and exits to the roundabout.

Operation Nexus deployment planned for Harworth

A new policing initiative focused on tackling the issues that matter most to local communities is being launched across the policing areas of Nottinghamshire County.

Operation Nexus will see Nottinghamshire Police deploy enhanced resources into areas experiencing increased crime, anti-social behaviour, or other concerns identified through crime data, local intelligence and feedback from residents.

Unlike a traditional policing operation focused on a single location, Operation Nexus will move across the county, targeting neighbourhoods where additional support is needed most.

By concentrating resources in specific areas, the initiative aims to address local concerns, reduce crime and improve public confidence.

The operation is built around a Clear, Hold, Build approach. This means taking decisive action to address the immediate issue, maintaining a visible presence to prevent problems returning, and supporting longer-term improvements that help communities thrive.

Nottinghamshire Gritting Update

Nottinghamshire County Council teams go on full-time standby from this month.

To make sure that they fully prepared for when temperatures start to drop they have:

31 gritters ready for winterOur fleet of 31 gritting vehicles, plus an additional towable gritter for severe weather, is ready to keep Nottinghamshire moving.

Protecting 1,881km of roadsAround 35% of Nottinghamshire's road network is treated proactively, exceeding national recommendations for winter maintenance coverage.

17,500 tonnes of salt stockedWith salt stores fully replenished, approximately 17,500 tonnes are available across our depots for the winter season.

Four strategic winter depotsOperations are coordinated from four key locations: Gamston, Markham Moor, Bilsthorpe and Newark, ensuring county-wide coverage.

NFRS Charity Walk

This year, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service have decided to give the buckets and sponges a rest and swap their usual charity car wash for something slightly more ambitious… a 50km (32-mile) sponsored walk from Worksop Fire Station back to Collingham Fire Station!

They're taking on this challenge to raise money for two fantastic charities that mean a great deal to the fire service and the wider community: The Fire Fighters Charity and Cancer Research UK.Every donation counts and if you can do so, please click the link to make a donation towards Fire Fighters Charity and Cancer Research UK https://gvwhl.com/UNSMG

Some Information on Fraud and how to Prevent it

Fraud is when a person lies to you, or ‘scams’ you, to gain an advantage, such as taking your money or learning private information about you.

This could be via email, text, phone or in person, either on the street or on your doorstep.

Some adults may be especially vulnerable to fraud and financial abuse. If you’re concerned about someone you know, contact your local social services and ask for Adult Social Care.

With a little knowledge you can protect yourself from fraudsters too:Learn the ten golden rules to prevent fraud (see below).

Remember these ten golden rules to help you prevent fraud and beat the scammers.

Be suspicious of all ‘too good to be true’ offers and deals. There are no guaranteed get-rich-quick schemes.

Don’t agree to offers or deals immediately. Insist on time to get independent or legal advice before making a decision.

Don’t hand over money or sign anything until you’ve checked someone’s credentials and their company’s.

Never send money to anyone you don’t know or trust, whether in the UK or abroad, or use methods of payment you’re not comfortable with.

Never give banking or personal details to anyone you don’t know or trust. This information is valuable so make sure you protect it.

Always log on to a website directly rather than clicking on links in an email.

Don’t just rely on glowing testimonials. Find solid, independent evidence of a company’s success.

Always get independent or legal advice if an offer involves money, time or commitment.

If you spot a scam or have been scammed, report it and get help.

Don’t be embarrassed about reporting a scam. Because the scammers are cunning and clever there’s no shame in being deceived. By reporting it, you'll make it more difficult for them to deceive others.

Linc & Notts Air Ambulance Take on 'Beat the Bleep' Fundraising Challenge

The beep test, or bleep test, forms the Job-Related Fitness Test (JRFT) and is the official aerobic fitness assessment for police recruitment in the UK.

For potential applicants, the fitness test is one of the first practical hurdles they will face during the police constable recruitment process.

Lincolnshire Police’s Learning & Development (L&D) team are taking on a 24-hour bleep test challenge to raise money for the Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance (LNAA).

L&D, the team who are responsible for training new police recruits, will be leading the unique challenge on Wednesday 25 November to help raise money for a second air ambulance helicopter, enabling the charity to reach more patients and save more lives.

The team also aims to increase awareness of the fitness test to give potential applicants a better understanding of what’s involved while demonstrating how realistic and achievable the required fitness standard is.

If you’d like to make a donation, you can visit the JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/page/24-hour-bleep-test-challenge

Retford Rotary Swimathon Is Back

After a year off, the Swimathon will be back on Saturday, March 6th 2027.

The Rotary team are working hard to put the arrangements in place and some of that hard work has already borne fruit.

Nine Bassetlaw District Council Councillors have each given the Club £100 from the BDC Councillor Community Grant to help cover the cost of the event. Thank you for your support.

Five members of the Rotary team were handed a cheque for £900 by Retford Mayor Councillor Malachi Carroll - East Retford West and Councillor David Naylor- Retford South- Ordsall, representing the nine Councillors, with three members of Retford Leisure Centre team along.

Hospice invites local residents to attend “comforting” remembrance celebration this Christmas

Beaumond House Hospice Care’s Light up a Life service offers the opportunity to remember loved ones at a special time of year

Newark-based charity, Beaumond House Hospice Care, has announced details of its annual Light up a Life service, giving supporters the chance to remember those they’ve lost in the run-up to Christmas.

Taking place at St Mary Magdalene Church in Newark at 6:30pm on Wednesday 9 December, the service will incorporate readings, songs and time for reflection. Guests will also be able to light candles, hang personalised tags on the Christmas tree and make dedications to loved ones online, which will be displayed on a virtual tree of remembrance.

Holidays are Coming !

Vote for the Coca‑Cola Christmas Truck's Next Stop

Voting opened on October 20 on the Coca-Cola website, giving towns the chance to secure a stop during November and December.

It marks the first time members of the public have been given a direct say on the truck's tour route.

For the first time EVER people across Great Britain can help shape where the iconic Coca‑Cola Christmas Truck brings its festive magic next.

Vote now to give your town the chance to be considered for a special visit from the Coca‑Cola Christmas Truck https://www.coca-cola.com/gb/en/offerings/christmas/truck-tour

Nottinghamshire Drug Dealer Caught in Skegness

Police closed in on a drug dealer with the help of the Lincolnshire Drone Team after he fled from Nottinghamshire to a caravan park in Skegness.

Jake Hawkins was locked up after pleading guilty to being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs - namely cocaine.

Through a police investigation it was suspected the 31-year-old was involved in drugs supply in the Worksop area. Neighbourhood officers seized multiple items linking Hawkins to drug dealing after executing a warrant at his home in Milton Drive, Worksop, on 4 March 2024.These included scales with white powder residue, deal bags with drug remnants and three Rolex watches.

At the same time another team of neighbourhood officers went to Hawkins' business unit in Worksop, arrested him and seized items including his mobile phone.

A digital examination of his phone found multiple incriminating messages between Hawkins and other contacts, including arrangements to buy wholesale quantities of cocaine for onward supply.

Hawkins had been due to be sentenced for his drugs charge at Nottingham Crown Court on 16 October this year but he left court before his sentencing that afternoon, prompting a bench warrant to be issued by the court for his arrest.

Thanks to some good intelligence work, Hawkins was tracked down to a caravan park in Skegness. With the help of Lincolnshire Police colleagues and their drone, which showed Hawkins enjoying a spot of fishing, he was arrested by Bassetlaw Neighbourhood Policing Team officers on Wednesday 28 October.

The next day Hawkins was back at Nottingham Crown Court where he was given a prison sentence of three years and nine months.

Worksop Plastics Recycling Facility narrowly approved by Council Planners

By Lauren Monaghan, LDRS

Plans for a new plastics recycling plant in Worksop have narrowly been approved despite more than 1,200 residents signing a petition against it.

Envale UK tabled plans for the new plastic chemical recycling facility, with an energy recovery facility, on an old recycling site in Worksop.

Nottinghamshire County Council’s planning committee gave the plans the go ahead on Tuesday (November 3), with a narrow vote of six in favour of the scheme and five against.

The brownfield site, located at the western edge of the town and accessed from Shireoaks Road, was historically used for the manufacturing of coal products and as a brickworks.

In 2006 permission was granted for a waste transfer and recycling facility on site, but this facility did not materialise. However, planning permission for the scheme remains in force to this day.

Mayor suggests she’ll stand again for election as she has ‘unfinished business’

East Midlands Mayor Claire Ward has all but confirmed she’ll stand for election again in 2028 after her inaugural four-year term comes to an end.

It’s been two and a half years since the former Labour MP took her post as head of the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA), beating Conservative candidate Ben Bradley to become the first Mayor of the East Midlands in May 2024.

Since then, she’s secured nearly £100m for housing projects on brownfield land, reinstated lost bus services and provided free bus passes to young people in rural areas.

Keep The Ball Rolling: Worksop bus operator launches miles of awareness for men’s mental health

Stagecoach East Midlands is inviting customers and communities across the region to help ‘Keep The Ball Rolling’ this November, as part of its partnership with Andy's Man Club and a campaign designed to raise miles of awareness for men's mental health.

The campaign launches this week to coincide with Men's Mental Health Awareness Month, with Sean Gill from Andy's Man Club handing over a specially branded awareness football to Leigh Barker, a local bus driver and passionate advocate for the charity. The ball is beginning a unique journey across the Stagecoach East Midlands bus network.

Inspired by the way a football is passed around during Andy's Man Club sessions to give every person the opportunity to speak, the awareness ball will travel from depot to depot, team to team, and role to role, helping to spark conversations about men's mental health along the way.

Drivers, engineers, office teams and frontline employees will take the ball on different parts of its journey, sharing stories, photos and conversations as they help spread the charity's message: #ITSOKAYTOTALK.

Shop Watch Radio Leads to Swift Arrest of Shoplifters

East Bassetlaw Neighbourhood Policing Team received a message over the Shop Watch radio from a local store reporting a theft - the suspects vehicle was still in the car park with two suspects leaving the area on foot.

Officers from both response and neighbourhoods attended the area within minutes and with assistance from Bassetlaw Council CCTV were able to locate the first suspect who, after a short foot chase was detained and arrested. Police remained in the area searching for the outstanding suspect and thanks to a tip off from a member of the public about a suspicious female loitering nearby police swiftly detained and arrested the second suspect.

Through subsequent enquiries it was established that the vehicle they had used to drive to Retford was being driven without a valid licence and so was also seized.

The two suspects have now been charged and are awaiting their day in court. Shop theft detection rates are at 81% in East Bassetlaw over the last three months. This means that every 8 in 10 reports of shop thefts investigated by East Bassetlaw Neighbourhoods Team have resulted in a positive outcome with the suspects either being charged to court or issued with an out of court disposal.

Curtain Comes Down on a Decade of Worksop's Got Talent

A Bassetlaw Councillor Community Grant has ensured that Worksop’s Got Talent goes out with a bang this week following 10 fantastic years of the show.

The Council has been a proud supporter of the talent show since its beginning in 2016 and a grant of £800 has helped the show to go on for one final year, contributing to the production costs of the event.

This year’s finale takes place on Friday 6^th November, with doors opening at 6pm and the show starting at 7pm. The event will bring together 700 audience members as 12 finalists take to the stage in pursuit of the coveted Worksop's Got Talent title.

Latest round of community funding is now open

Nottinghamshire groups and charities can apply for the latest round of community funding.

The Local Communities Fund (LCF) is all part of Nottinghamshire County Council’s continued commitment to encourage healthy and sustainable communities by financially supporting community groups and charities via a two-year programme (2026-28)

Eligible community groups can apply for a range of grants, worth more than £770,000 in total. including money which has been earmarked to support new or recently set-up grassroot organisations.

Applications can be made up until 4.30pm on Friday 11 December. The grants available are:

Small revenue grants of up to £5,000 to help towards vital running costs such as energy bills and staff costs.
Capital grants of up to £20,000. These are designed to support improvements to local facilities which have match-funding.
A one-off foundation grant targeted at new or recently set up organisations. These groups can apply for up to £1,000 to help them get more established.
A building financial resilience grant of up to £5,000 aimed at projects that address the root causes of financial crisis and help people build longer-term financial resilience, as part of a new government funding package.

Mayor likely to put money towards City Ground expansion – but still can’t say if it’d be a new Trent bridge

By Joseph Connolly, LDRS

East Midlands Mayor Claire Ward says her money is there specifically for projects like Nottingham Forest’s City Ground expansion, but she still cannot say whether a new bridge is exactly what she’d pay for.

Another new crossing over the River Trent has been proposed to accommodate the 20,000 extra fans expected at every home game as part of the Reds’ planned increase in stadium capacity.

But it is just one of the options, the Mayor asserted, while confirming that the East Midlands Combined Authority will likely use some of the transport money given to it by the government for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire to help ensure Forest’s plans go ahead.

The Premier League club were granted permission to boost the capacity from 31,000 to more than 52,000 in September by Rushcliffe Borough Council.

But increasing the number of seats inside the ground could not happen in isolation, with the knock-on effect of 20,000 more fans travelling to the ground every weekend needing to be accounted for by refurbishing existing parts of the stadium and providing new amenities and transport infrastructure.

Rushcliffe council, therefore, has demanded that the club meet a number of conditions to satisfy the terms of its permission – to ensure, for example, that local roads can handle the additional traffic the expansion could create.

To manage the extra fans travelling to the ground every week on foot, Forest had originally put forward a suggestion that two of the six vehicular lanes on Trent Bridge – one on each three-laned side – could be closed permanently to allow for more pedestrians.

But Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Council, which have a say in the project due to their responsibility for the region’s roads, rejected the idea and instead suggested building another new bridge across the Trent, in addition to the Waterside Bridge near Lady Bay, which only opened in June.

It would cost millions and likely be much more expensive than lane closures or other alternative options.

But recent documents published by EMCCA suggested that their cash – in the form of £2b, explicitly for spending on transport- could help Forest out.

Vape Shops lose Business Rates Relief

By: Eoin Ryan, LDRS

Vape shops in Bassetlaw are set to lose business rates relief in an announcement made weeks after a new vape tax was introduced.

The government said this is part of an effort to “clean up and strengthen high streets” and will help ensure support goes towards businesses that help local communities thrive.

Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey MP told MPs:

“I will carve out adult gaming centres and vape shops from business rate reliefs.”

Alongside this, the Chancellor announced a number of measures to support businesses in England including an increase in Small Business Rates Relief Thresholds for qualifying Retail, Hospitality and Leisure properties to £18,000 and £21,000.

Thanks so much for reading our local newsletter and for supporting us. We’re committed to providing Bassetlaw with the quality local news service it deserves, but sustaining this work may come with some challenges. Our team is currently discussing how to make Bassetlaw Today financially viable in the long term, and one option we’re considering is introducing a subscription model to help cover our costs.

We want to be open with you about these conversations so you’re aware that a fee may need to be introduced in the future. If that happens, we hope you’ll continue to stand with us and support the publication.

Have a great day and I look forward to seeing you read our next newsletter.