Community News

Passengers travelling between London Euston and Scotland and through the Midlands over the Easter bank holiday are being reminded that the best time to travel is either side of the long weekend.

Between Good Friday (7 April) and Easter Monday (10 April), Euston station will be shut to main line train services for the final phase of upgrades to track and signalling at Watford junction. As this work needs the entire railway to be closed over the four-day long weekend, trains will start and finish at Milton Keynes instead.

The Isles of Scilly is the local authority with the least energy efficient homes in England and Wales, with a median score of 49, reveals analysis of 23 million EPC certificates by Uswitch.com, the comparison service.

Uswitch’s ranking of 331 local authorities revealed that Wales makes up five of the ten of the local authorities with the least efficient homes. All of the areas with the hardest to heat homes have scores of 62 or below.

One million eligible claimant families receiving tax credits, and no other means-tested benefits, will get the first 2023-24 Cost of Living Payment from Tuesday 2 May 2023, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has confirmed.

The £301 government payment will be paid automatically into most customers’ bank accounts between Tuesday 2 and Tuesday 9 May 2023 across the United Kingdom. Only eligible families who receive tax credits and no other means-tested benefits will receive the payment from HMRC.

Birmingham residents fighting plans by developers to concrete over their playing fields have released a new video showcasing their concerns. Persimmon Homes has put forward renewed proposals to build a total of 87 homes on the land on Barrows Lane in Yardley, which is currently managed by Sport for Life International on behalf of Central England Co-operative Ltd.

The housebuilder put forward similar proposals to Birmingham City Council last year but withdrew them at the last minute in response to a campaign by Yardley residents that began when the Co-op put the fields up for sale in 2013.

The Otr Elkalam show, one of the initiatives of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority, witnessed the completion of the list of the semi-finalists in the international Quran and adhan competition. In the Quran track, Moroccan Abdullah Al-Daghri qualified, and in the Adhan track, Emirati contestant Hamid Al-Raisi qualified. The total number of semi-finalists is 16 contestants from 13 countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Britain, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Niger, Germany, and Spain.

As animal welfare organisations across the country face greater demand on services than ever before, Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest canine welfare charity, has taken a unique approach to staffing its contact centre.

The Dogs Trust team has identified a number of dogs with a talent for communication and, from Monday, these skilled pooches will be answering calls in the charity’s contact centre. With record numbers of calls and emails being received by Dogs Trust, it is hoped that these talented pooches can add to the support already provided by the dedicated team of human call handlers.

Ramadan is a significant month for Muslims worldwide, including those in Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia. Expats, visitors, and locals join together to experience the special atmosphere one can experience during this holy month.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Tourism worked hard to raise pilgrim capacity in Makkah and Madinah to meet the growing demand for accommodation during the Ramadan holy month. Leading to the Ramadan season, the Kingdom’s Tourism Minister, His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khatib, on his Twitter page, said that the ministry is planning to operate an additional 9,000 hotel rooms in Madinah before Ramadan.

After being absent from his mosque since the beginning of Ramadan, Mohammed Hafez al-Rahman joined the worshipers of the largest mosque in the British capital, the East London Mosque, through the Otr Elkalam show, one of the initiatives of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority, which has allowed distinguished talents in recitation and adhan to participate in the largest Quran and adhan competition in the world.

Pope Francis joked that he was still alive as he left hospital in Rome following a three-day stay - after being admitted to Gemelli Hospital with breathing difficulties, and later diagnosed with bronchitis. The Vatican said that he was responding to antibiotics and would be released, depending on test results.

Residents across the West Midlands are being offered the opportunity to put forward their ideas and solutions to help improve the natural environment, tackle climate change, and reach net zero.

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is setting up the Greener Together Citizens’ Panel to examine key environmental challenges such as how to continue to improve the quality of the air we breathe and our green spaces.

It’s September 2016, and family and friends are gathered to remember the amazing life of Chief Michael Christopher Onajirhevbe Ibru. A family member reads aloud a self-penned poem:

An Edgbaston Stadium employee who spent five weeks in Pakistan helping flood disaster victims has spoken of the devastation he witnessed and how he hopes to have played a small part on their road to recovery.

Abraham Khan – Edgbaston’s Head of Finance – visited some of the villages worst hit by last year's catastrophic flooding which cost 1,700 lives and left more than two million people homeless. He raised thousands of pounds for the relief effort through a combination of an online appeal and his own savings which he used to buy food, clothing and life-saving equipment.

Craig Cooper has been announced as Birmingham City Council’s new permanent Strategic Director of City Operations. The appointment marks a return to the city for Craig, who spearheaded the council’s role in the hugely successful Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, for which he was the authority’s Programme Director.

The Games were an amazing success for the city, with over five million visitors attracted to Birmingham during the unforgettable fortnight of the event, which projected the city to a global media audience, kickstarted an investment programme worth £700million+ for north west Birmingham and acted as the launchpad for a Golden Decade of Opportunity.

The people of Perry Barr are being given the chance to work with artists to create a mosaic for display at Perry Barr railway station.

Local people and community groups will be able to create mini masterpieces on tiles by pressing tools or items of their choosing into the clay. The soft tiles will then be processed and fired and finally carefully assembled to create a mosaic depicting a Perry Barr railway station sign.

Passengers planning on using the West Coast main line this Easter are being advised to travel either side of the bank holiday with major improvements to a railway junction in Watford closing Euston for four days. Network Rail is investing £10.8m to upgrade track and overhead lines on the West Coast South route to improve future journeys between London and Crewe. The main focus for engineers will be the final phase to overhaul Watford junction which first began three years ago. The £15m project has seen track and signalling systems remodelled so more trains can run on the route into the capital in future.

Rail passengers travelling on the Cross City line between Birmingham and Lichfield this Easter are being advised to check before they travel during major work to replace a railway bridge.

Network Rail is investing £4m to upgrade the structure which takes the Sutton Park freight line over the Cross City line in Sutton Coldfield. The essential work will keep freight moving across the Midlands and mean more reliable journeys for passengers on both important rail routes in future.