2025 in review: key achievements and a Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from CN28!

To reflect on the year just gone we've put together a roundup of some of the key achievements we have made towards improving the sustainability of our city in 2025💚

Nottingham’s new walking and cycling bridge successfully lifted into place🏗️

After the bridge was successfully lifted into place in November, Nottingham’s skyline has a new landmark. The bridge is set to open in Spring 2026 after ramps, steps, and walkways are installed. Once completed, the new walking and cycling bridge will form an important part of Nottingham’s active travel network – enabling new connections and routes that will be especially useful for sports fans and those wanting to take advantage of amenities on both sides of the river🚲

Nottingham’s Green Heart picked up a prestigious national accolade 💚

The Green Heart topped the Landscape and Public Realm Project category at this year’s Architects’ Journal Architect Awards. When handing out the award, they said the Green Heart ‘breathes Nottingham’, highlighting the ‘remarkably transformative effect of the landscape, which re-energises the city centre with a beautiful and biodiverse public space’. The Green Heart has been a welcomed edition to the space outside the Broadmarsh centre, bringing some wonderful nature to the centre of the city. We look forward to watching it bloom again next year!

Nottingham’s bus usage ranked second highest outside London 🚌

The Department for Transport’s annual bus statistics once again show Nottingham’s buses going from strength to strength, with the service ranking the second highest bus usage outside of London at 130 passenger journeys per head.

Nottingham is one of the few local authorities this year to exceed levels of patronage from 2010, which is when Department for Transport’s dataset began. As well as taking a huge number of journeys, it was revealed that Nottingham’s bus passengers are more satisfied than elsewhere - at 90% versus 83% satisfaction nationally. Building on this, the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) have launched ‘The Mayor's Big Transport Conversation’ to shape a new 15 year transport vision. You can have your say here: The Mayor's Big Transport Conversation - East Midlands Combined County Authority

Completion of the Solar Panels at Harvey Hadden Sports Village ☀️

Since the completion of phase 3 of the project this year, Harvey Hadden Sports Village is now believed to be the UK’s largest solar-powered leisure centre. In total, 571.5 kWp capacity of solar photovoltaic (PV) have been installed during the project. This groundbreaking milestone underscores Nottingham’s leadership in renewable energy and advances the city’s ambitious goal of achieving carbon neutrality.

Exciting solar projects are set to continue in 2026 with participating schools in Nottingham receiving solar panels as part of the Great British Energy solar panels scheme. Watch this space for updates!

Nottingham City Council continues to retrofit houses, making them warmer and reducing energy bills 🏠

Following on from the news of £18.2 million of funding under the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund earlier this year, Nottingham City Council has been awarded an additional grant for £7.4 million to improve homes across the city. This has been awarded as part of the Warm Homes: Local Grant scheme and work will begin in 2026 with a range of insulation measures, renewable energy, and low carbon heating measures.

Since 2021, measures have been installed on just over 1,200 privately owned homes! As well as this, we continue to improve our social housing stock too.

Nottingham City Council Leaders took on Climate training 🌍

In January, a combination of 13 Councillors, including the Council Leader and Deputy Leader, and officers at Nottingham City Council undertook Carbon Literacy Training. The course is designed to inform attendees about the causes and impacts of climate change and how they can take action to reduce emissions in their own organisation. 

As a globally recognised form of climate training, the valuable knowledge gained from this course will empower Nottingham City Council leaders and staff to continue vital work on reducing the Council’s organisational emissions.  

Over 2000 Households have signed up to Green Rewards – saving a total of 141,753 kg CO2 emissions in 2025 📱

Since beginning the Green Rewards scheme in 2021, over 2000 households in Nottingham city have signed up. In 2025 alone this has resulted in a total of 141,753 kg CO2 emissions being saved. We’re part of a Nottinghamshire consortium who uses Green Rewards including some Nottinghamshire Councils and Nottingham Trent University – together, the impact is even greater!

We also had our first ever community prize this year in June. For the challenge users from the same ward of Nottingham City had their points combined with the highest scoring ward winning the challenge. This time the winner was Bulwell Forest but watch this space for future opportunities to get involved and win prizes!

We had another year of excellent events in Nottingham, including both Green Hustle and the Nottingham Green Festival, raising awareness for how to make Nottingham more sustainable 💃

Nottingham knows how to throw an excellent green event and 2025 was no different! Our own Carbon Neutral Policy Team had a stall at the Green Hustle, supported by Marches Energy Agency, and it was a great day of interacting with the public and raising awareness of everything we do. We also made sure to try some of the tasty food and enjoy the brilliant entertainment

 Official Green Hustle snap by Tom Platinum Morley

Building Momentum for Nottingham’s First Climate Assembly 📣

This year, the Nottingham Climate Assembly group strengthened community engagement through a series of mini climate assemblies. These brought together residents, students, and businesses to shape practical solutions to make Nottingham more sustainable. The mini assemblies were a great success, and they lay the groundwork for a citywide assembly – hopefully next year!

With this in mind, the Assembly plans to host Nottingham’s first full-scale Climate Assembly in 2026. This will convene a representative group of residents to develop policy recommendations supporting the city’s sustainability ambitions. Key priorities include energy efficiency, sustainable transport, and waste reduction, cementing Nottingham’s role as a leader in inclusive, democratic climate action.

It's inspiring to look back on some of the achievements from 2025, which have been possible thanks to the hard work of people across our city. We’re looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together in 2026!