Green tights and green lights for Sherwood

Ambitious plans to give Sherwood Forest a £10m overhaul have been given the green light. The centre will provide a better focal point for the forest and make the most of the Robin Hood legend. It’s expected to attract 500,000 people a year, boost tourism income by £7.5m, create 310 jobs and involve the planting of 3,000 trees. It will be the first visitor centre in the country to screen films with life-sized figures in an auditorium with a 360-degree projector. Events such as jousting and outdoor theatre will be laid on in a new outdoor activities area.The project is to be funded by the County Council and emda.

Nottingham ’s credit crunch resilience

Nottingham is better placed to weather the credit crunch than many cities, according to a new survey. Oxford Economics have carried out an assessment of which big cities are most vulnerable to the credit crunch. Nottingham is ranked below many cities such as Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester. Our wide spread of industries in different sectors helps protect the city from the excesses of the credit crunch, as well as our strength in sectors such as creative, science and technology. There ’s also around £1bn of public sector investment in the pipeline over the next seven years, to fund new schools, homes and transport.

Nottingham among best for cutting youth offending

country for cutting re-offending among children and young people since 2005. Latest figures show a 24% reduction in the number of new young offenders in Nottingham since 2005/2006, well above the national average. In the 12 months from September 2007 there has been a 29% fall in the number of children in care who offended and a drop in the overrepresentation of young black or black British people in the youth justice system.

Local films get international accolade

The 25th anniversary of the Sundance Film Festival will include premieres from two films made and financed in the East Midlands. The films have been selected for the highly contested World Cinema Dramatic Competition strand and join a selection of 16 films, chosen from a record 1,012 submissions. The two films are Bronson and Unmade Beds. Both films were shot in Nottinghamshire and received £250,000 of European Regional Development Funds through EM Media and join a strong slate of other co-financed award winning British independent films including Control, This Is England and Summer.

And far from finally…

Nottingham City Council in partnership with Nottingham City Transport and Trentbarton buses has won a special award at the UK Bus Awards for improvements along Derby Road to encourage people to use buses. The project has introduced new buses and bus lanes, personalised journey plans, electronic/real time information and better ticketing.