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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