Allens Croft Primary School and Children's Centre

For some unfounded reason, it seems that Birmingham City Council, believes that children and cars do mix, even when it comes to pavements, which at one time had been the sole preserve of pedestrians only.
Parents and family members contacted me over the matter of car parking and lack of railings around Allens Croft Primary School and Children's Centre, along with there being no safe crossing facility outside the school.
After holding a public meeting with these parents, local residents and school staff I have embarked upon getting additional parking facilities and railings installed around the school, raising the matter at The Selly Oak Constituency Committee meeting, obtaining their support and no I will be handing in a petition and arguing with the powers that be to get the work undertaken as a matter of great urgency.
As you will see for the video below, we aren't under estimating the problem.



Allens Croft School and Children's centre video

W.c 16th March

Monday

Attended a mother and toddler group run at The Oaks School Druids Heath, a fantastic time, which I really enjoyed and managed to pick up a number of cases, which I have dealt with, some of them there and then.

Here is a link to the latest planning applications for Brandwood Ward

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/media?media_id=284867

Followed up my visit at The Oaks School, by doing a walk and drive around the ward, meeting up with local residents.

Tuesday

Tuesday HUROS day, not a great deal on the agenda for today's meeting, but what was surprising was that John Lines didn't show his face, which is quite unusual. I did have a go about the time being taken by the Councils housing contractors to turn around void properties, these are not properties which need a great deal doing to them, perhaps a piece of skirting board replaced, a few damaged tiles replaced or even a light switch changed. We, (that is Birmingham's residents) are loosing more than £1.5million a year in lost rents, not to mention the 30,000 on the housing waiting list needing a new home. I daren't mention the time being taken on "MAJOR" voids, which often takes more than SIX MONTHS to get back in to the system.

Later in the day attended Druids Heath HLB at Manningford Hall. I had to congratulate them on the wise choice of purchasing new litter bins and the planters look a real treat, with the new spring plants already in bloom. The new trip railing also paid for by the HLB, whilst not completed will be a boon to the localised area.

We discussed the maintenance of Manningford Hall, with the assistance of "The unpaid workers" service, which if approved will make the hall a beacon of light in the area.

Michael F. announced that on Sunday we had been cleaning up again Chinn Brook.

Wednesday

Made several house calls in the ward today, most of those I attended couldn't get to any of my advice centres and I do have a duty to them.

Thursday

Spent the morning with a post graduate, with whom I was in deep discussion with, about housing in Birmingham, some of the shortcoming and difficulties being experienced by residents, but more particularly those in my own ward.

The afternoon was taken up with one of my regular advice centres at Dell Meadow, this session wasn't as busy as some of them I have had, so was able to leave at 4:00pm.

Friday

Started the morning off with a walkabout, around Brandwwod Park Road and Waterside, with several council officers, managed to talk with several residents about their concerns for the area and what else needed doing. At long last The Ashmeadow PH is to be demolished, but the hold up now is that they have found blue asbestos, so are having to wait for a license and then to get an approved contractor in before anything more can be done. Our walk around Dawberry Fields Park continues to sent alarm bells ringing each time I visit. The skate bowl, whilst it does have two newly created steps in it, still doesn't have fencing all around so a youngster as sure as God made little apples will fall in there and come a right cropper. Talking to a couple of dog owners, I was amazed to hear that there isn't one waste bin in the park, which I brought to officers attention, there needs to be at least four if not five, all metal ones I must add.

Immediately headed over to Yardley Wood Bus Garage for a meeting with National Express over buses running around All Saints Road area, not a comfortable meeting I must add, but did say if I thought it possible we should have a public meeting and inform residents of proposals.

Very shortly afterwards started to had phone calls from residents about N.E. plans, so it's not looking hopeful.

The afternoon was taken up with the launch of youth activities at Cocks Moor Leisure Centre, paid for by the NHS Primary Care Trust for the area. The dance mats were brilliant, I managed to get almost all the councillors up, on them along with Police and other council officers, I think we all enjoyed them, whilst the experts, students from Bishop Challoner School laughed and giggled at our antics.

Saturday

Attended a public meeting at Kings Heath Cricket Club on anti social behaviour, in attendance was Steve McCabe MP, with representatives of BASBU, Council Housing, Police, Crown prosecution Service and an advocate of youth, Youthwise. This was a really good meeting, even though we heard some really difficult problems which some residents had and are experiencing.

That said and done, one resident spoke very positively about what they had achieved in a shortish time with the help of many of those on the top table.

At the close of the meeting almost everyone on the top table stayed behind and listened too and took details of current problems to action them, or at least start the ball rolling.

W.C. 9th March

Monday

Here is a link to this weeks planning applications;

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/media?media_id=284547

Tuesday

Well now it seems that Birmingham's closed Older persons care homes won't get replaced, or at least six of them won't be. The blame this time is put on the declining land prices, by The Council's Press Office. Yet if you look a lot deeper in to the full business case for the replacement of these homes it was always balanced on a knife edge, yet they went ahead and closed them all, before building replacements, how absurd can you get.

Wednesday

This morning I attended a quick meeting at The Brandwood Centre, to discuss and put in place proposals to improve some of the graffiti issues around the Allens Croft area, but in particular The Pathway, which is a public pathway between Bournville Ward and my own, (the pathway runs under the main rail track to the South West).

Many parents of children who either attend Allens Croft School or The Childrens' Centre have to use this access way and in its current condition it is "threatening". I do hope that the outlined plans of repainting the area with a colourful mural do come to fruition, particularly if we run a competition to select the best painting(s), to go on the walls, that it prevents those taggers.

"The Progressive Partnership" of Tories and Lib-Dems, who control Birmingham City Council, has decided they should cease to supply "meals on Wheels" to the vulnerable and older residents. Instead these groups will be offered a delivery of FROZEN meals by a private provider starting next year. Obviously this isn't a cost cutting exercise, so they say, yet within the report itself, customers have applauded the quality of the current service and in particular the price of the meals.

It seems that the current price will rise from £12 a week to over £20 per week.

Thursday

This afternoon I attended "The Brandwood End Section 106" group meeting. When Waterloo housing started the rebuild of Brandwood End, they provided the Council with nearly £400,000, to be spent on providing the local community with facilities they hadn't got. Now this spending has generally being taking place well before I became a Councillor, so where needed I can be a little critical. A total of £140,000 has been spent on providing a childrens' play area at Cocks Moor Woods leisure centre, which should be in place by late summer. the remaining monies has gone on Brandwood End Cemetery, for fencing, Broad Lane Allotments, a new water tank and toilet facilities, Brandwood pool, new fencing and Jasmin Field new fencing. However, where are the provisions for the young people, who have to idle their time on the streets. Were any of them asked for their opinions on where the money should be spent? I doubt it.

Friday

Its Friday, so it has to be something to do with Co-ordinating Overview and Scrutiny, well today its Sub-finance committee. I was pleased to see that Councillor James Hutchinson was back, after his recent hospitalisation and I must say he did seem a lot more of his old self, more upright.

Nevertheless the agenda was a little more of the same and a bit boring, once again we had financial projections from officers, who like many of those around the table, probably won't be around to confirm or castigate officers, if and when we fail to achieve all of the savings being promised. Rarely have I ever seen financial promises made by ANY public body, achieved within the stated timescale and this will be the same.

The Labour Group had a pep talk by someone who had been out in The States working on the Obama campaign, Anthony Painter, while his talk was informative, he did say that you can't beat personal contact with the electorate, something some Labour Party members have forgotten about. Yes I will agree that their particular campaign used the Internet/email very effectively, but it was the personal contact, the street captains, which won the day for them.

Sunday

Started the day off by doing a little work cleaning up Chinn Brook. Over the past few months a large number of residents, council officers and me, have been tirelessly picking litter off the banks of this stream, removing rubbish dumped in the stream and clearing fallen debris. I'm heartened by the residents of our area, who care about their environment and the results are beginning to show, even if only slightly. The litter etc, removed from the brook, as seen in the video below, is cleared up and bagged for disposal, by those following up, just in case you thought we just left it there.

In Birmingham today, we are having the annual St Patrick's Day Parade, around The Irish Quarter (The Digbeth area), for those of you who are unaware, Birmingham's festivities are now ranked third in the world, just behind, Dublin and New York. This is something we should all be proud of, not just the Irish community

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W.c. 2nd March

Monday

Here is a link to the latest planning applications for the Brandwood Ward, published today;

http://www.Birmingham.Gov.UK/media?media_id=283732

Spent a good proportion of the day tidying up case work from my Saturday Advice Centre at The Brandwood Centre and others which came in over the telephone.

In the afternoon went out and did a delivery round of letters, around two hundred in total, which is all part of politicians keeping in touch with local electors.

Tuesday

First email of the day was from a resident about EMPTY buses once again using Hazelhurst Road and Abbots Road Kings Heath, it seems that these buses start as early as 5:50am, to get them on to services from Kings Heath going westward, towards Hall Green. But once locked in to their route buses stop at around 7:15am. I would reckon it could be quite disturbing for residents at that time of morning.

The battle for funding to allow Brandwood West Neighbourhood Forum to continue it's work goes on. Those who read this blog may recall in my blog of 31st January, that the Two Conservative Councillors for the area, are of the opinion that The Forum doesn't do any real work, which runs contrary to that argument with a complete history of public meetings and consultations taking place over the past seven years. The truth will out.

Later in the afternoon, both myself and Councillor Carl Rice turned up to what should have been a "Peer Review" towards The Council's Comprehensive Area Assessment audit, undertaken by the Improvement and Development Agency. The only thing wrong was that it had been postponed and no one had bothered to inform us. To say I was extremely annoyed would be an understatement, I informed the lead officer from IDeA that I hadn't been informed and that I would not be able to go along on Wednesday to the rearranged appointment.

Wednesday

Just announced today, The Spearhead Trust and Bells Farm Community Association, both of which are local charities are to merge in to one charitable organisation and manage The Bells Farm Community Centre, this is great news, as they will now be able to apply for funding to restore the badly damaged part of this very historical building.

I had another email from an officer over one of my Advice Centre cases, the really annoying part was that the email had been circulated to a number of Councillors, without my permission. I have always treated my cases with confidentiality, so why on earth do SOME council officers think that they can broadcast information willy-nilly. Needless to say, I sent off quite a damming email to there seniors about how officers should handle advice case information. This isn't the first time this has happened to me since being back on the council and it works both ways, I don't want to know about other councillors case work, which is something I've taken up with Birmingham's Chief Executive on more than one occasion. In one instance I was sent a copy of a letter sent to another councillor on a similar vein, when I write in on behalf of a resident I want a reply that I can send to them in my name not someone else's letter.

Thursday

The real big announcement of the day has been that Birmingham has fallen down the league places of Best Councils, going from a THREE star council to TWO stars. What I stated at last weeks Full Council Meeting, that we were failing to tackle serious problems on children safety, those who are known to our social workers, that lack of moral in that department and the increasing pressure placed upon a diminishing number of social workers has been proven right. I daren't say "I told you so", but I did and all I got was rabid comments from those who should know better.

So can we expect a seismic change by this administration, I doubt it. I expect someone had a big kick up the backside, but until we start to take very seriously deficiencies in budgets and staffing levels in certain departments we will unfortunately start going backwards, which won't help anyone, particularly Mike Whitby, whose friends want a knighthood, better still a peerage for him, in soon to be announced Queens Birthday Honours List.

Did my Advice Centre at Dell Meadow, this is becoming more poplar than all the others I do, I'm on the go from whenever I get there, usually around 1:30pm till quite late, usually around 5:00pm, but not today though, as I have to be somewhere else at that time, so had to limit each case to less than ten minutes.

Dashed off at 4:30pm to the Council House to here a seminar on the Housing Departments new "Choiced Base Letting" system which they hope to introduce later this year. This is where those on the housing waiting list and those who want a transfer, literally bid, using their allocated points for a property suited to their needs/wants. The only real downside to this, is that Birmingham has nearly half of it's properties in Tower Block, where a large number of residents want to move out of, talk about building up peoples hopes. Until we start to get to grips with building more social housing in Birmingham, it will continue to be one step forward and two back.

The evening was taken up with the first of Neighbourhood Tasking Meetings at St Bede's, this is an area of Brandwood which has been left out of the equation, now however, we have arranged for meetings every month for the remainder of the year. I only hope that we can build on the sizable number who turned up, this time encouraging those who live in the Woodthorpe Road and Taylor Road areas.

Friday

Attendance at a Co-ordinating and Overview Scrutiny Committee was in order. here we heard about Birmingham's plans on Climate change, on this occasion The Climate denier, Cllr Keith Barton, actually agrees that we should be doing things and he came out with some supporting comments and stated that he even used his bicycle occasionally. WELL DONE Keith. Then the old saga of Business Transformation, what was so amusing was that the report was making saving projections for the next twenty five years. How many Councillors on this committee will still be around, very few in my opinion and the same goes for officers, who will have retired thank you very much on an inflation proof pension, a lot more than many of our residents, so who will be around to challenge, your guess will be as good as mine?

Had a good walk around The ward in the afternoon, chatting to residents about this and that, finding out what really concerns them.

In the early evening went to my Advice Centre, to my complete surprise someone had been telling bus users of the 85 route that there was a meeting arranged at St Bede's, funnily enough at the same time as we had our Advice Centres. On my arrival not only did we find these residents who were bus passengers, but who pops his head in, Cllr Neville Summerfield, who had just come to pick up one of his supporters, who was in the very middle of this group. I took them all off together in to the small prayer room, which can comfortably sit around 15 people and held a short meeting with them, informing what had been taking place, promises made by Travel West Midlands and I was informed that on this very day one resident had waited more than FIFTY minutes for a bus. I then sent off an email to Yardley Wood Garage and took everyone's name and address. It seems that everyone of them went home pleased with what I had done and said to them and it only took thirty minutes of everyone's time. Then got down to seeing all the other people who needed help and advice

W.c. 23rd February

Monday

I found out after several phone calls this morning that Travel West Midlands have stopped using the All Saints Road, for the time being, anyway. Clearly the residents activities have hit home at last.

Later in the morning, I attended the second meeting of Druids Heath Management Board, where we discussed what had taken place, what needed completion and put together ideas for further work. I will admit, that if everything discussed does come to fruition, then we've quite an exciting time ahead of us.

At lunchtime, along with a council officer, we went up to Pound Road to try to sort out the lighting around this parade of shops. Presently there are no functioning lights in the canopy overhanging the shop entrances, closer examination and after discussions with some shop owners, we have hit upon installing another street lighting column, rather than replace the fifteen small 8 watt fluorescent lights.

The Neighbourhood Manager for Brandwood End organised a mini conference for groups based within the neighbourhood at The Cocks Moor Wood Leisure centre, to enable us all to decide what was most important for residents. This was a well attended meeting and again some good ideas came out of it, now we have to find the finances to support some of these ideas.

My evening was taken up with Labour Group activities, discussing tomorrows Council meeting.

Tuesday

Full Council day, after dealing with a few residents queries, went in to the Council House early, to follow up work and do some preparation for this afternoons debates.

There were some criticism over the fact that the Labour Group wishes to know in detail about next years spending plans. It does seem that this current administration are playing their cards far to close to their chests. Within the budget book, there is NO INFORMATION as to what each portfolio is expected to spend/cut per heading. All that the official opposition have asked for is that a breakdown of planned expenditure, both revenue and capital is made available to each scrutiny, constituency and regularity committee, before the financial year begins. This was voted against by the administration, so how on earth will we find out what they are planning to do?

Wednesday

I was planning to go to Westminster to day, hoping to have a word or two with some Labour members of Parliament over social housing, but more importantly council house building. I wasn't able too, but I did send am email to Austin Mitchell MP with some of my views.

The planned meeting with Travel West Midlands at Yardley Wood Garage was postponed at the last minute. However, I did manage to have a good discussion with a senior manager about matters and what I thought should happen. The postponement had been called after the intervention of senior officers of CENTRO and BCC and had announced that a protocol on bus route changes was needed to prevent future problems, similar to those experienced by my residents in the All Saints Road area.

Attended a short "interview" by Cub Scouts at St Nicholas's in Kings Norton, it has been some years since I was a scout leader (and for those that don't already know, my whole family, wife, two daughters and two sons are all scout/cub scout or guide leaders) and pack meeting really haven't changed. The issues they raised were, too much homework, litter, dog mess, not enough football and speeding traffic.

Immediately after "Cubs" I went to a Neighbourhood Tasking Meeting at The Brandwood Centre, where the normal issues were mentioned.

Thursday

Attended, what will probably be the penultimate meeting of a task and finish investigation in to "Housing Provision for Older People". We were given a presentation on independent living, very similar to the one we had at HUROS the previous week, but this time we all were able to quiz the officer a little more in detail. I raised yet again the lack of clarity, when it comes to older home owners and the lack of support from this council in making provision to repair their homes. The old statement, "we have Houseproud and kick-start to assist" came out again. What wasn't mentioned until I raised it AGAIN was that over £0.5million was being UNDERSPENT in a budget heading to help warm homes in the private sector. I will admit that Cllr Len Clarke asked some really probing questions and getting answers which some of his colleagues would run a mile from, he must be a Tory maverick, every party has them, but I do admire him for his stance in a number of areas, he's old school.

Found time late afternoon to deliver a leaflet to around 250 houses in the Kings Heath area over bus services and to assure residents that I was still fighting their corner, I hope that they understand the current situation a little better than before.

The evening was spent at an informal Constituency Councillors Meeting at the Selly Oak office. On the agenda this evening was the proposed PFI for roads, pavements and street lighting, less said the better on this subject.

Friday

We had a joint meeting of the Council's Audit Committee with Co-ordinating and Overview Scrutiny Committee Sub-finance group, where Sir Albert took the treasury officers and the present administration to task over "The Stalinist command economy", in particular the way that everything is done from the top and those below had to toe the line or else.

I had my say too, if the RBS bank ( which announced a £24billion losses on Monday) had used the same accounting practices then who knows they could have announced break even or possibly a small profit. Why on earth do they continue to count savings cumulatively year on year. In industry a saving is for just ONE YEAR, after that you start again, thankfully Alistair Dow agreed with me on this point. nevertheless with the present system we should be rolling in money in the next couple of years with savings in excess of £350 million. With Council tax from households bringing in £3million from a 1% increase this means householders should have a Council Tax reduction next year, possibly the year after of around 50%, if the Tory-Lib-Dem administrations figure stack up, I jest.

Saturday

I had quite a busy advice centre, with issues around homelessness and bus services in my ward, so much so that I over ran by more than thirty minutes.