Reform UK’s Nottinghamshire County Council leadership has lifted its Nottinghamshire Live ban in full as the authority says it remains “committed to the principles of openness”. A legal victory for Nottinghamshire Live following weeks of campaigning against the ban means we will again be invited to public council events and will again be added to the council’s distribution list for press releases.
The ban has been in place for more than a month and has been condemned since then by figures ranging from the Prime Minister to a leading US congressman, alongside more than 40,000 people who signed a petition raising concerns about the precedent the ban set in terms of press freedom. The lifting of the ban follows a legal challenge launched by Nottinghamshire Live, which saw the county council having to respond to a letter setting out the position adopted by Reach Midlands Media Limited, the publisher of Nottinghamshire Live and our print title, the Nottingham Post.
The letter, sent to the county council by CMS LLP on September 25 and written in conjunction with Nottinghamshire Live’s in-house legal team, set out the belief that the decision to issue the ban was without legal basis “due to its irrationality”. The county council’s team manager for litigation, Geoff Russell, responded to the letter late on Thursday (October 2).
The letter claimed the Reform ban may have been the subject of some “miscommunication or misunderstanding”. Mick Barton, the Reform leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, made clear from the issuing of the ban on August 26 that it applied to all Nottinghamshire Live journalists and the three BBC-funded local democracy reporters we manage.
The ban meant Nottinghamshire Live being removed from the council’s distribution list, stopped from being invited to council events and being banned from speaking to Councillor Barton. The ban was lifted in full for the local democracy reporters on Monday (September 29), but it remained in place for the rest of the Nottinghamshire Live team at that stage.
The legal reply on Thursday now means the ban is lifted in full for the whole Nottinghamshire Live team. Nottinghamshire County Council’s letter is explicit that the distribution list and events elements of the ban are lifted.
The situation is unclear for now in terms of speaking to Councillor Barton, but Nottinghamshire Live is committed to building a working relationship going forward. The ban was first introduced due to unhappiness from Reform’s county council leadership about an article on local government reorganisation, which contained a claim that those not voting for Councillor Barton’s preference on the issue could be suspended.
The claim was put to the councillors concerned and to Councillor Barton himself and none of them took the opportunity to publicly deny it before publication. Nottinghamshire County Council’s letter reads: “To the extent that the leader of the county council or any other elected member wishes to restrict or decide who may or may not be invited or interviewed for any private matter, function, or meeting, that is entirely a matter for the individual concerned.
“What I can state however, is that Nottinghamshire County Council confirms that your clients are and remain entitled to attend functions, meetings which are open to the public. In addition, I can confirm that your clients will receive publications to email distributions lists to which they and all other media outlets are ordinarily entitled.
“Finally, I would just like to reiterate that Nottinghamshire County Council remains committed to the principles of openness in Local Government. I hope this clarifies the matter which I now regard as closed.”
Nottinghamshire Live welcomes the lifting of the ban and hopes it serves as a precedent for any further potential attempts to restrict press coverage in the UK. We stand ready to continue providing the same fair yet scrutinising coverage on Reform UK’s running of the county council that we always have done and that we provide on all major authorities in our area, on behalf of our readers.
