Community News

The January Challenge, a free initiative that uses creative challenges to connect people with their communities, is calling on people across the UK to sign up ahead of its kick-off - on January 1st.

The January Challenge is run by the UK-based non-profit 64 Million Artists. It involves 31 days of quick, fun and free creative challenges – one challenge for each day of the month – that everyone can participate in. The initiative is partly funded by the Arts Council.

Huge queues of people paid their respects to former Pope Benedict XVI at his lying in state in the Vatican.

He died on New Year's Eve at the age of 95, almost a decade after he stood down because of ill health.

Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) has secured almost £3.5 million funding to support the better design, planning and development of cycling, wheeling and walking schemes in region.

The grant from Active Travel England’s Capability Fund will be used by TfWM, which is part of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and local council partners to increase the resource and expertise required to deliver the region’s ambitious active travel plans.

People using the city’s libraries will not have to pay outstanding fees on overdue books, it has been announced.

As Birmingham City Council, working with its partners, continues to support residents during the cost-of-living crisis – an amnesty on fees for books returned late at all city libraries will run from December 2022 until 31 March 2023.  Fees will not be accrued during this period.

People who have followed the story of Rob Burrow's battle with Motor Neurone Disease and fellow Leeds Rhinos star Kevin Sinfield's campaigning are furious tonight. That's because King Charles' first New Year Honours has omitted Sinfield, despite calls from many that he should have been picking up a knighthood.

Rail passengers are being warned of severely disrupted train services in the first week of 2023 as two rail unions take strike action over five days between them. Two 48-hour walkouts by Network Rail staff in the RMT union on Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4, and Friday 6 and Saturday 7 January, will see just nine trains per hour serving Birmingham New Street over reduced operating hours.

Former Pope Benedict XVI died almost a decade after he stood down because of ailing health.

He led the Catholic Church for fewer than eight years until, in 2013, he became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.

Cycle parking racks used at Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games venues during the summer have been handed out to 50 community groups, local authorities, and businesses.

A wide range of organisations, from schools and residents’ associations to health centres and housing developers are benefitting from this Games legacy and helping to boost cycling rates in their areas.

As festivities draw to a close, Birmingham City Council has once again set up locations for residents to recycle their Christmas trees. Disposal points for anyone with an unwanted real tree are identified close to the main entrance to each of the following parks:

Millions of people hunkered down in a deep freeze overnight and early morning to ride out the frigid storm that has killed at least 24 people across the United States, trapping some residents inside homes with heaping snow drifts and knocking out power to several hundred thousand homes and businesses.

It was the $10bn gift to the world. A machine that would show us our place in the Universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched exactly a year ago, on Christmas Day. It had taken three decades to plan, design and build.

After safely getting tens of millions of trains to where they need to be over 57 years, the Network Rail team at Birmingham New Street’s iconic railway signal box moved its last service on Christmas Eve. And while its ‘Brutalist’ external appearance has divided opinion over those seven decades, what’s less well-known is how integral its insides have been to run Britain’s railway.

A new partnership between Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) and community transport operators across the region is helping to connect people experiencing loneliness and social isolation with new friends and vital support services. Over three million people across Britain have described themselves as chronically lonely in 2022* – equal to the population of the West Midlands.

The cost-of-living crisis is set to cause heartbreak for UK families as more than one in three (39%) Brits plan to stay home rather than visiting family or friends in order to save money on fuel.

Leasing.com has revealed that the UK is curbing costs wherever possible. A quarter (25%) are spending less on fuel with fuel prices increasing by more than 25% in the past year (Oct 21 to Oct 22), adding £28 to the cost of an average tank.

A taxi driver will be working on Christmas Day to drive families to their desired destination and donating his fares to St Giles Hospice.

Mark Dewar, from Tamworth, in Staffordshire, works for his local taxi firm, Acorns Taxis. In 2020, St Giles Hospice began caring for his wife at the end of her life after she was diagnosed with lung and spine cancer.