Karen backs petition against post office closures

Perry Barr constituency Liberal Democrat spokeswoman Karen Hamilton has declared full support for the campaign against post office closures which will devastate Handsworth and Perry Barr.

Meanwhile Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood states he is opposed to post office closures - and yet that's not how he voted in Parliament.

Quoted in the Evening Mail he says: "This restructuring of the Royal Mail is an absolute nonsense."

Could he explain then why he voted AGAINST the following motion which was supported by as many as 19 rebel Labour MPs?

A few more rebels could have changed the whole situation, as it has done on other issues recently.

No wonder the Post Office proposes to slash the number of offices in his constituency by four. The proposed closures are:

• Church Vale, 60 Robert Road, Birmingham B20 3RU, Birmingham, Perry Barr.
• Coopers Road, 53 Coopers Road, Birmingham B20 2JU, Birmingham,Perry Barr.
• Greenholm Road, 210 Kingstanding Road, Birmingham B44 8JP,Birmingham, Perry Barr.
• Sandwell Road (Temporarily closed), 225 Sandwell Road, Birmingham B21 8PD, Birmingham, Perry Barr.

Constituency Lib Dem spokeswoman Karen Hamilton said: "This closure programme is indeed a nonsense and our party has consistently said so in parliament and locally over the years.

"It will devastate local communities, undermining local shopping centres.

"Our local MP says one thing in Birmingham and does something else in London. It's time he explained himself properly."

This was the motion that Khalid Mahmood voted against:

Post Office Closures — Suspend for issues to be re-assessed — rejected — 19 Mar 2008 at 18:45

* This House -
* regrets the proposal to close up to 2,500 post offices;
* recognises the vital role post offices play in local communities;
* notes the concern and unpopularity amongst the general public of closing such a large portion of the network;
* has concerns that the access criteria laid down for the closures consultation do not adequately take into account local geographical factors and public transport networks;
* is concerned that the consultation period is only for six weeks rather than three months, as recommended by Cabinet Office guidelines;
* believes that post offices must move with the times in the services they offer and that options for business expansion and developing business opportunities with local authorities should be explored further; and
* calls upon the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to instruct Post Office Limited to suspend the compulsory closure of sub-post offices while these issues are re-assessed.

An alternative motion was proposed and voted through in the following vote.[2]

The alternative motion which Mr Mahmood and most Labour MPs backed appeared to endorse the restructuring programme. This is what it says:

The majority of MPs voted in favour of the motion:[1]

* This House
* recognises the vital social and economic role of post offices, in particular in rural and deprived urban communities;
* notes the decline in post office customer numbers in recent years and the financial losses of £174 million incurred by the network in 2007;
* further recognises the effect of changes such as direct debit facilities and increased use of the internet for payment and communication;
* commends the Government's action to support the post office network with investment of up to £1.7 billion up until 2011, including an annual subsidy of £150 million;
* further notes that this subsidy did not exist under the last government and that without it thousands more post offices would be under threat; and
* urges the Government to continue working with Post Office Limited to ensure a viable and sustainable network for the future.

You can find the Evening Mail petition forms here.

Source: publicwhip.org.uk

Midsummer morris dancing

Here's some midsummer madness...Ray Hassall morris dancing with the Bishop of Birmingham!

This occurred at the 175th anniversary of St John's Church, Perry Barr, last weekend. The video's not very clear but Ray's in the light purple shirt on the left and the Bishop in the dark purple towards the right. Father Crispin Pailing of the church can also be spotted in the line-up.



St John's has an interesting history and a fellow blogger at Liberal England explored some of it recently:
the rock musician who was a choir boy
the Villa player who was murdered

Ward-based cleaning

We had some good news last night.

We circulated a freepost survey to about 8,000 homes over the spring as part of an exercise to find out resident priorities. It's an exercise we've done by different means most years - but this was one of the most wide-ranging surveys we've done.

In the past these surveys have shown anti-social behaviour to be the major public concern. With neighbourhood policing teams, improved youth facilities and police community support officers - along with a focus on solving problems - you would hope this had improved. And it has a little.

So this year street cleanliness has emerged as the major issue. ASB is still a concern and we're going to do some more analysis of what people are telling us about this.

Now last night we heard that preparations to introduce "ward-based cleaning" in Perry Barr ward are nearing completion. This is an idea that has been tested in one or two areas in the city with success.

The council's own figures showed why our residents are reporting a problem. Dirt levels on the street in our ward are about half as high as in neighbouring Oscott where ward-based cleaning was piloted.

The reasons: well we get repeated complaints about refuse ending up on the street. One or two neighbourhoods were also especially littered - notably the Serpentine site used as a car park by Villa. We've been deploying the monthly Xtra clean up teams effectively and they've been picking up about three times as much litter as in other wards.

We have fought fly-tipping vigorously, fencing off affected areas. But sometimes these areas continue to be blighted by one or two anti-social residents - and this is a hard problem to tackle on what is defined as private land.

What the new teams will do: all street cleaners and refuse collectors will have a single Perry Barr ward manager, supported by a team leader in charge of street cleaners.

They will clean on the streets and off them. There should be a notable impact on neighbourhoods such as Trehurst Avenue where different bits belong to highways, housing and local services. They will seek to follow the refuse crews round, cleaning up after them.

That's what we know so far. We are waiting to find out more and work with the new manager. There are for instance a number of public alleyways that are a constant battle to keep clean - that should change. Examples are the path from Rowdale Road to Perry Park Crescent and the path from Northolt Grove to Scott Arms.

We also intend to keep the enviromnental warden based in the ward. We were out with him the other weekend assisting with a neighbourhood clean-up in Witton organised by the churches' group Hope 08. There's a discussion about how the post is funded but we are keeping the money aside from community chest until it's resolved.

Hopefully the warden will be able to spend more time on jobs such as education in schools and making sure dog fouling does not happen.

Here's hoping our next round of surveys shows people really feeling the difference!

Speedway

The planning application amendments for the Speedway at Perry Barr were agreed by planning this week.

Residents living around the Speedway track were concerned that shifting some events to Sundays and Bank Holidays would cause disturbance on rest days.

There was as big a battle over this amendment as there was over the original application although, in fact, it won't mean additional races, just some changes of dates. However by the time it was submitted residents had experienced regular events - and quite a few did not like it, including Speedway's immediate neighbour, the City University.

However the real debate is likely to be later this year when Speedway puts in an application for permanent planning permission.

Coincidentally, Jon went round the area with the noise consultants employed by the Speedway on Wednesday night. One concession has been that the Speedway withdrew their request to cease noise monitoring and this was part of regular monitoring.

Jon says: "I learnt a lot from walking round the area during the race and getting information about what was happening at each moment.

"In terms of excessive noise, it peaked at about 85 decibels at the front of the City University. That's above industrial safety levels - although only very briefly. However you can see why the university is objecting so strongly.

"It was also notable that 100 yds away at the student flats quite a few windows were open. Up here the noise is dampened by the stadium and clearly the students aren' t too bothered by it.

"At Nash Square, where residents have suffered particularly, it is not excessively loud - but it is irritating. The noise is like that of a Spitfire diving and that happens 60 times during a match. It is almost certainly caused when the bikes come round a bend at one end of a track where there are no buildings shielding the square from the track.

"There was a similar noise at the Seventh Trap, at the back of Teddington Grove, but it was a little louder.

"I also went into the pits when the bikes were warming up and the noise was deafening. But the pits are sound-protected and the noise doesn't carry far so far as I can tell."

So where does this leave the Speedway?

It's pretty clear that buildings and sound-damping walls make a massive difference. During continuous racing the sound in each direction is intermittent, when the bikes go past gaps in the sound barriers.

So there's a good chance that a complete circle of sound barriers - including, for instance, more advertising hoardings to the south of the site - would make all the difference.

The Speedway say they will put them in if they get permanent planning permission - because that will justify the investment. But if they don't put them in now, and the university and some residents have some bad nights over the summer - especially if it's sunny and still - there will be a battle royal when they come up for renewal.

Jon will be writing to the Speedway reiterating his advice that they put extra sound barriers in now - to show they can work.

Queslett Road safety

Good News today!

Highways are moving ahead with the installation of two speed cameras on the Queslett Road.

Here's the map showing the location of the one in Perry Barr ward - just west of Tyler Grove.

This is progress of a kind. We're still waiting for the installation of the traffic light junction just east of this to enable safe access to the roads off Queslett Road.

Highways confirm that the number of serious accidents on this road makes it a priority for road safety measures. The new traffic lights went in for the St Margarets site about a year ago and although that made many speeders stop they still tend to accelerate once they get away from the lights.

We've given our whole-hearted and instant support to this latest proposal. It will now go to cabinet member Len Gregory for approval, once the Oscott ward councillors have also approved it, and hopefully the cameras will be up in a few weeks.

Celebration at the allotments

The Lord and Lady Mayoress paid a visit to Thornbridge Avenue Allotments on Saturday - as did respresentatives of the Air Ambulance.

The Lord Mayor Cllr Randall Brew was there to open a new community room. The ambulance staff were there to receive a cheque from some of the energetic fund-raising at this busy allotments site.

The first picture shows Ray Hassall with the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. The second shows the Lord Mayor making a presentation to the Ambulance, watched by allotments member Lyn Claxton.

There is plenty to celebrate at this centre. The allotments site has been extended towards Hassop Road and new plots added. And in addition to the community room, there's a new greenhouse. What is the greenhouse being used for? Volunteers are growing nursery plants in it and selling them on with proceeds being donated to the Air Ambulance.

Over the years this allotments site has raised thousands for the ambulance and for the Edward's Trust centre by the Children's Hospital from Christmas and summer fairs. We salute them!

Gates and gates

This is a reopened right of way on Calshot Road with security gates reinstalled.

It's a situation that has been dragging on since 2003 when somebody fenced off the right of way, top and bottom, with a view to claiming possession of the land.

You can see the remains of the fence, removed by the order of a judge in court last week.

The closure affected about 100 households in Calshot and Cramlington Roads, removing one of the accesses to the rear drives. Local residents took action, backed by the Booths Farm Neighbourhood Forum and the local councillors.

The forum is now planning to arrange for locks and keys on all the gates on this block and get it properly secured again. And as I write a tidy-up is getting under way to clear the drive and get it reopened.

This is great news and a sign of our commitment to ensuring that
a) residents can use the rear drives to get vehicles off the road
b) that these open areas are properly secured.

In the last year the ward has channeled some £21,000 into gating and fencing schemes in this ward and prior to that we'd been grant-funding resident initiatives up to 40 per cent since 2003, helping to kickstart many schemes.

Mostly it's great when residents can get together to organise one of these schemes. Sometimes it means there's a band of people willing to work together for the neighbourhood and, indeed, it was one such group which prompted the founding of the Forum...back in 2002. Many of its officers have devoted considerable energy and resources to the Calshot Road situation and deserve the gratitude of the whole community. We will now be encouraging the community to back the forum, alongside the Booths Farm neighbourhood watch - to ensure we continue to have a robust community.

But sometimes things go awry....

And the National Trust must be quaking following comments by the local MP in the Evening Mail yesterday. Mr Mahmood appears not to understand the difference between a public footpath and a public highway - even though it is the present government, which, to its credit, has done quite a lot to extend the footpath network over the countryside.

So the MP states that a public footpath has to be paved and lit. No it doesn't. Imagine lighting the coastpath network that the National Trust maintains! It's not practical and would defeat the object of many footpaths.

He's got involved on one side, five years late, in another situation that erupted in 2003 when some residents wanted to gate across a well established footpath linking Ipswich Crescent/Hatton Gardens to Beeches Road. At the time this led to crowded and noisy ward committee meetings and the ward councillors, regretfully, had to withdraw the grant we had proposed making to this gating scheme. It was a shame the organisers did not agree to look for compromise solutions to allow those residents continued use of the footpath - and at the time we indicated we would put more grant in if necessary.

As a result an application was made for it to be formally declared a public footpath. It doesn't necessarily mean the removal of the gates..it would still be possible to restrict vehicle access but in an openable side gate. As Jon stated in the paper, had they compromised originally it would have been possible to have a sidegate locked at night - or even with keys issued to other local residents. Now if it becomes declared a footpath, any side gate would have to remain open.

It's an unfortunate situation and since then we've tightened up on the guidelines for grants and applications. What happens to these patches of land is largely a private matter unless, in this case, there may be a public footpath involved. But we can influence people using grants and we can help share experience of what works and what doesn't. So several subsequent schemes have put in side gates to deal with this kind of problem.

Wardens saved

The annual city budget meeting on Tuesday...and quite a lot of good news.

For the third year in a row, the city has kept the council tax increase to 1.9 per cent.

At local level, we'd been worried about the loss of the neighbourhood renewal fund.

This has been paying for, amongst other things:
the environmental warden;
skips used for residents' clean ups;
youth activities;
some of the gating and fencing schemes that have gone in in recent years.

The government had replaced this with a Working Neighbourhoods Fund, which, it is intended, will focus on employment.

However the council has now secured agreement that environmental wardens can be paid for from this fund...so that's good news. Over the last few years our wardens have led a great many initiatives. As well as performing statutory duties, they've worked with residents on neighbourhood clean ups and over the last year have taken the lead in identifying and putting in place the big gating and fencing project.

We've also been told we will get £100,000 "community chest" per ward, again. If we don't have to pay for the warden from this money, there may well be scope for developing some activities.

So we're planning to consult local residents on their views. Where do we need extra effort? Youth activities, younger children, street cleanliness, security?

Bin bags and boxes - update

We made a point of asking some precise questions about this project on Thursday night at the meeting of the Perry Barr Constituency Committee.

The situation is that:
the collection crews are now under very clear instructions to collect from people's properties;
the official colour leaflet that was meant to notify residents of this has not been delivered properly. Many households have not received it.

This means that residents can continue to insist on their rights to have their rubbish and recycling boxes collected from the front of our property. This is important because in our area many residents live up steps and have struggled to carry the boxes down to the road.

To sum up:

• The refuse collection contracts say collection should be from the property;
• the council policy says it should be from the property;
• the crews have been instructed to collect from the property.

So if you have any problems with collection, please let us know!

Most residents in Perry Barr ward know this now because we have nearly completed delivery of our Focus, which goes to every household.

The failure to deliver the leaflets means the second part of the project cannot be implemented for a while. The official leaflets warn that ultimately residents who continue to use the verge to deposit rubbish will be fined.

There've been more mixed messages in other quarters.
For instance I heard that a meeting of elderly residents was given recycling leaflets which tell them to put their boxes on the pavement. These leaflets are wrong! Very unfortunate, also, because these are the very people who need help in putting their boxes out.

The Evening Mail on Saturday states the scheme has been "suspended after residents ignored council notices."

That's misleading. The enforcement side has been suspended but would not in any case have started until a great more work was done to ensure residents understood not to use the pavements and verges - and indeed to ensure the crews were doing collections properly.

The reason for the delay is nothing to do with residents ignoring the official notices and everything to do with non-delivery of the leaflets themselves.

The piece quotes the vice-chair of the constituency committee Cllr Linnecor but was probably written before we clarified things on Thursday night. It may be that ours is the only ward where the councillors are taking the trouble to let residents know of their rights...

Well, it's not unusual for changes to refuse collection to cause mayhem and confusion. Thankfully the recycling schemes introduced in the last couple of years have largely gone without problems. This latest scheme is suffering from a few hiccups - but it also represents a turning of the tide against the the slack practices and tide of detritus that erupted when it became unofficial practice not to collect rubbish from bins.

PS We've now been passed a copy of the "offending" recycling leaflet. In fact it's ambiguous. It states recycling boxes should be left "on the edge of the property as near to the street as possible". This probably means on the end of your drive or footpath but it's far from clear. And residents who are elderly should be able to expect collection of the boxes from their front doors.

New buses

To St Phillips Square this morning for the launch of the new super-express buses that are now running down the Aldridge Road.

Of all the new bus services brought in over the last few months, this is the most exciting.

The new buses will afford luxury travel with leather seats and air freshening systems. The new buses also offer the first glimpse of TWM's new red and white livery. In time all TWM new buses will be incorporated into the National Express fleet - so a simple glance will indicate the quality of a bus.

These buses are travelling on the 997, 993 and 934 routes. So the only draw back is that to catch them you'll have to go to the City University stops at Perry Barr. These buses link Birmingham City Centre with Perry Barr and Walsall and its suburbs. If you can use these stops however you'll find a luxury bus service arriving every few minutes to take you into the city.

Chatting to National Express boss Richard Bowker I learn that the existing Aldridge Road buses - which are already quite good quality - will be shifted on to the new 51X service, which is providing high speed city centre travel from Great Barr and is also proving very popular.

The scale of change in the West Midlands is now so fast that we were graced with the presence of transport minister Rosie Winterton MP for the launch.

More good news came with the announcement that the new bus routes launched over the autumn are picking up more passengers, with increases ranging from eight per cent to ten per cent. That's terrific when you consider that on the Queslett Road, 451, there have been fairly small changes including new buses and bus shelters. And the improved 377 service, Walsall to Sutton Coldfield, has attracted its fair share of controversy because it got linked to changes in some other local bus services in the Kingstanding area.

Travelling to the city centre this morning in the wake of the rush hour it was possible to see the impact of small changes. While cars got stuck at Newtown and traffic continued to pile up, the buses zipped by on the bus lanes.

TWM's attention is now shifting to Dudley and the Black Country. So there's still a great deal of improvement to be made in Birmingham. But it's still gratifying, during my short time as Passenger Transport Authority lead member for buses, to be involved in so much progress.

Jon

Jan 1st - B-Day!

The way our bin bags are collected in the Perry Barr area will change on January 1st - and we hope for the better.

If it works, there'll be no more sticking bags out on the verge, maybe less of foxes, cats, squirrels and drunks breaking them open and hopefully less litter left behind after the crews come round.

From this date crews will be instructed they must collect bags and recycling boxes from the front of residents' properties - that includes the old-fashioned bin of course.

Residents should be getting leaflets over the New Year period informing them of this - and advising them that they no longer need to put bags out on the verges.

Strictly speaking this is no change - the crews have always been required to collect from the property. But, of course, once bags started going out on the verge, those few people who insisted on their right not to put them out increasingly found themselves missed out - so everybody put out their rubbish and even official advice started telling them to.

So what's been organised is a "big bag bang" approach. Residents will keep the bags on their properties and the crews will have no excuse not to go looking for them.

We'll have to see how it goes. No doubt there will be teething problems - as there always are when anything changes.

The exercise is being applied across the Perry Barr constituency, we understand - that includes Perry Barr, Oscott, Handsworth Wood and Lozells wards. Obviously where the housing is terraced and has no front gardens, such as the Yew Tree estate, this won't be possible.

Councillors in action

Earlier this year Jon Hunt led a scrutiny consultation with parents about the future of special education.

A report was produced on the consultation and Jon presented its findings to the city council in October. It's helping to shape the review of special education that is taking place and showed how valued are the facilities are in many of these highly specialist schools - as well as areas for improvement.

This became the first city council debate ever to be videoed and so provides an opportunity to for people to see what councillors get up to in the council chamber. The video is an edited version of the debate but shows all speakers, including Ray Hassall who also spoke. You can view it by clicking on this link (it will probably ask you whether you want to download or open a video browser:
mms://helix.bgfl.org/scrutiny/debate.wmv

As it was the first video of its kind it's taken a little while to be published.

You can find out more about the consultation and the work scrutiny is doing on special needs by following this link here: www.birmingham.gov.uk/scrutiny

Red light jumpers

Jon Hunt writes:
In the last ten days or so I have witnessed at least five vehicles jump the red lights at my local traffic light junction, where Perry Avenue meets Walsall Road.

When I say jump the lights, I don't mean going through on orange, I mean going through on red.

This suggests there are some incredibly dangerous and stupid drivers on our roads. I wonder whether this is unique to this junction or whether it's happening elsewhere.

Either way I'll be writing to the Chief Constable asking for action. I'll also in future be taking notes and details of vehicles myself and reporting them.

The latest and possibly the worst incident happened today, Sunday, at about 10.30am. Six cyclists, in yellow jackets, including children, approached the junction. It was obvious they were intending to cross to Church Road. As I was turning left and was directly behind them, it would not have been possible to safely overtake them so I waited for them to cross through the lights before attempting to go through the lights myself.

As I waited I heard a hoot behind me. Then the lights changed to red and I stopped. A white car, racing-type saloon car with rear wings, shot past me, through the red lights and turned right onto the Walsall Road. The car was dusty and had scrawled on it something like "...kill" and "don't hunt" (ironically).

A few days ago I crossed the Walsall Road to catch a bus on the pelican crossing just past Perry Avenue. The pelican went on green (and its traffic lights on red - I checked) just as the exits from Perry Avenue and Church Road went onto green. As I was almost halfway across, a small white van with a woman driver shot out of Church Road and zipped past me, over the pelican crossing. The people of Perry Barr were mercifully spared a by-election!

On another recent occasion I was crossing on green from Church Road to Perry Avenue when two cars shot up the Walsall Road in my path. To be frank I didn't take in what was happening, but my teenaged children were with me and confirmed that in their view, those cars must have jumped the red lights on the Walsall Road.

The first incident didn't place me in any personal danger but rather dramatically drew my attention to the problem. In this case I was crossing on foot to Perry Park to catch a bus during the rush hour when a car skidded round the left hand bend from Walsall Road to Church Road just after the lights switched to red. As it happened a truck was turning into Church Road, doing the right turn from the Walsall Road, where there is a green filter light. Again a narrow escape.

These are several narrow escapes but given what I have seen I fear for the safety of people using this junction.

We all know that traffic lights can be a nuisance and frustrating. But if you don't understand that driving is about give and take you shouldn't be behind a wheel. Traffic lights are there to share road space out fairly - and that includes pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists.

So let's get reporting...

Wheelie bad idea part 2

It was Ray Hassall's turn to speak for Perry Barr in last week's city council debate on wheelie bins.

Ray stressed they are totally unsuitable for this word. A few years ago a resident, who did a lot of walking, surveyed the ward and counted the number of properties for which bins would be totally impractical. His estimate was about a third.

These are properties through which access is gained through steps and where there are no front drives. In many cases residents are elderly. Some roads are especially steep. In roads like Stanford Avenue the pavement itself is steep. Bins left on the pavement would soon topple over.

Proponents of wheelie bins say some households could stick with a bag collection. We say this would condemn most of Perry Barr to a second class service.

Our areas in Aston are not much better. In the Yew Tree area, residents live in terraced, two bed roomed housing with front doors directly on the pavement. Nowhere to put wheelie bins except massed on the pavement. We do need solutions in this area and maybe communal wheelie bins, collected a couple of times a week, would help residents dispose of surplus rubbish.

It's welcome that the Perry Barr constituency office has been looking at other solutions and may soon embark on a "keep bags off the verge" scheme. This would see both crews and householders being advised that rubbish collections are from the property where possible. According to city policy and bin collection contracts, residents are still entitled to a doorstep collection and cabinet member Len Gregory stressed this in last week's debate.

The council agreed to allow some constituencies to put forward proposals for pilot wheelie bin projects. We will oppose any such move in Perry Barr because, as we've stressed, we want collection services improved for everyone, not just a few.

Safer Travel

A respondent comments on the new high-tech CCTV on the new 451 buses. Fair comment but what's not readily appreciated is that Birmingham is way ahead of most of the rest of Britain (London excepting) in terms of bus security.

In 2004 the city council set aside some £700,000 for bus safety in a pioneering initiative. Half of this went to bus marshals in the city centre.

The other half went to the Safe Travel Team that was being created with some additional money from Centro and the Police Authority. This project means that police community support officers do indeed travel on buses where there are reports of antisocial behaviour.

They've had a special focus on school buses and on visiting schools to talk to children about behaviour. I've spent some time with them recently as part of my PTA role.

They are still spread quite thinly and will therefore organise themselves to investigate routes where problems have been reported.

You don't have to dial 999 or the other police number to report problems. You can also use their web site www.safertravel.info to report problems informally. I'd advise regular travellers to bookmark this page. You don't need to suffer in silence!

Jon

New gates and fences

This area has a proud tradition of resident self-help when people have banded together and created gating schemes to secure rear accesses and backland over the last 15 years. This has helped cut burglary rates and prevent flytipping.

Since 2003, the ward committee has been pump priming this by offering grants of up to 40 per cent of schemes. All schemes have been entitled to apply and almost all have been assisted. There's been further progress in the Aston part of our ward with help from Aston Pride

This year we've had a windfall and secured some £20,000 to secure some of the mopre complex areas. It's taken everyone by surprise and within days of the project being agreed contractors have been on site erecting posts!

Some large areas of back land off Foden Road, Perry Wood Road and Rocky Lane are among areas being secured.

And last night a telephone call illustrates exactly why this work is needed. A resident called to say he'd seen the posts and when were the gates going in - as somebody had been round with a truck and flytipped a lot of rubbish, including old heaters. This was on the land between Rocky Lane and Kingsdown Park. It's being secured with gates on Rocky Lane and Coleraine Road and a trip rail on the edge of the park. There's a whole area of wasteland here which does not belong to the council and is overgrown.

St Basils Sleep out

Karen writes:

This year's sleep out was a lot drier that last year. We only had a few showers but it was really windy. Some shelters did not survive the wind but there was help on hand from fellow rough sleepers. Around 3am it became really cold.

I was impressed with the number of young people who were taking part especially as they stayed for the whole night.

Cardboard is no subsitute for a mattress and no protection from the damp and cold. Though I have discovered that wrapping yourself in a wheelie bin liner is a good insulator. Thanks Dave for that tip!

The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress paid a visit during the night and talked to some of the rough sleepers. Nikki Tapper (BBC) and the Bishop of Birmingham the Rt Revd David Urquhart were also in attendance.

Although it was a really difficult night, I am really pleased that so far I have raised £420 in sponsorship and I have been told that some people donated directly to St Basils. This makes it all worthwhile.

Buses!

Jon Hunt writes:
I'm doing a couple of launches of the new or revamped bus services in my role as bus lead member with the Passenger Transport Authority.

It's timely as for 20 years or so bus use has been declining. I think this may change, automatically, in the near future because rising fuel prices and pinches on household budgets will make people seek out public transport and cut down on vehicle use. I've certainly resolved to use the bus and foot more than in the past. Running round all over the place, I'd got out of the habit of organising to use buses, which can be pretty convenient.

Today, aided by some Latin dancers, was the launch of number 1 service, which doesn't affect Perry Barr but now provides a frequent shopping service to the Town Hall through Moseley and Acocks Green.

Tomorrow Tuesday is the revamped 451 running on the Queslett Road to West Bromwich and Sutton Coldfield and the launch is to be at Asda Queslett at 10am . The key feature here is the revamped buses which, I understand, includes improved CCTV with screens which demonstrate it is really working!

At the same time we launched a big document on buses today at a PTA meeting. Nothing's set in stone but we're working to a new era where all routes are covered by agreements between the passenger authority and the bus companies. We're also working to create a more efficient network, which allows more people to go swiftly to wherever they want to go - not just the end point of some existing bus service.

The key to this is electronic signage and the smartcards that will surface next year for the first time and soon will enable new fare structures - allowing passengers to purchase a single "ticket" to go from one place to the next and also to change buses easily if necessary.

This is important because there's a lot of "turbulence" around at the moment and that's upsetting some existing bus users. For a number of reasons the companies are cutting back some of the smaller services, forcing the PTA to run round and assess the impact and if necessary to purchase subsidised services. In the Queslett Road area one or two passengers have been distressed through the loss of the 655 that ran from Booths Lane to Aldridge. This was carrying an average of two passengers a journey. Now, the Booths Lane estate is right off the Queslett Road and most people will benefit from better 451 services. It is steep and some people may struggle to make the walk and one of the challenges for the future is to ensure we identify these little estates and ensure that there are services to collect such people and get them safely to the main bus network - enabling them to go to all sorts of places.

In the near future, as I stated, the public authorities will get new powers. The bus companies know this and are keen to demonstrate they can provide better services. Hence the Latin dancers - "It Takes Two to Tango!". We're doing what we can to ensure this turns into instant benefits for travellers.

Coming up...

We've fallen behind on reporting local issues on this blog. That's not for want of things happening!

We hope to report soon on issues including the following:
-new gating and security schemes;
-ideas for improving street cleansing and bag collection;
-neighbourhood clean ups;
-the proposed Booths Lane development and (substantial) contributions that may arise for improving local facilities.

River Tame and Perry Hall Park

There was some alarm when the Environment Agency announced it wanted to rework the banks of the River Tame south of the central bridge in Perry Hall Park.

We had a useful meeting the park last week with Agency officials and a number of users.

The agency proposes to get the work done over the winter months with a view to stabilising the banks. The earth banks will be replaced with stone banks - as has been done further upstream. By using "natural" rocks, a good wildlife habitat is created with refuges for voles and other animals. Practice in the past has been to wiremesh foundations which prevents access for animals.

This will create a firm line of banks and prevent them encroaching into the river. There was some discussion about maintenance of the banks and concern that regular cutting may destroy bird nests.

Having looked at that part of the river we walked upstream and looked at the lake that was created during the Euro-funded work a couple of years ago. It had been hoped this would become another habitat for birds but it was plagued from the start by dumping. A shale island has silted up but has not sprouted any vegetation. Some of the park users feel that it never will as the river periodically rises over it, sweeping anything away.

So the Agency are going to get one of their experts to look at it and maybe suggest simple planting ideas that could move this lake forward. I think a bed of reeds would create a stable environment. We shall wait and see.

Jon Hunt