Community News

Her Majesty The Queen will not attend next week's Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace has said.

As a significant occasion for the Queen, it had been hoped that she would attend, but the decision is understood to have be about concerns over her discomfort with travelling, rather than illness.

Award-winning content marketing agency, HDY Agency, has further strengthened its senior team after appointing an experienced marketeer and brand specialist to join the agency to bolster its national and international expertise. 

Beatrice Vears will bring her rich marketing experience, which spans creative leadership, ATL advertising and brand strategy to her new role as Managing Director of HDY Agency.

Voting is now open for the Pride of Croydon awards 2022. You now have an opportunity to vote for all those who have been nominated for a Pride of Croydon award via www.prideofcroydon.com/vote   

Please note, that you will only be able to vote once.

The event, which runs from 10am-3pm on Lye High Street on Saturday 12 March outside the church, will feature live entertainment, cookery demonstrations and will be broadcast throughout the day by Black Country Radio. The day is part of the Welcome Back campaign to encourage people back into town centres and support local businesses as the country emerges from the pandemic.

Recognizing the value of women and the diverse roles they play, home textiles company Bedsure celebrates the comfort and coziness of home through their 2022 International Women’s Day Campaign and Giveaway.

The brand’s 2020 Women’s Day campaign was popular with social media followers, receiving 4,926 views, 152 likes and 11 comments from people around the world.

Two years into the pandemic and with fake news and images flowing in fast from the Russia-Ukraine situation, research shows that 65 percent of Brits are concerned about the spread of fake news.  

The UK is in the top three countries in Europe who reported being the ‘most concerned’ about the spread of fake news. Readly, Europe's leading magazine and newspaper subscription service, has examined attitudes towards fake news and how this compares across Europe.

City of Wolverhampton Council is set to submit an outline planning application at the end of this month to facilitate the first phase of the transformational Brewers Yard city living regeneration masterplan.

Ahead of this a public consultation will be held on Monday, March 14, between 4pm and 7pm, at the University of Wolverhampton’s Springfield Campus, which neighbours the Culwell Street site earmarked for development.

It’s going to be a FIERCE year. As the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games draws nearer, today a huge cultural programme is launched including major events produced by Fierce.

Partnering with Birmingham 2022 Festival, two large-scale public realm projects are amongst many featured highlights in the 6-month cultural programme: Key to the City and The Healing Gardens of Bab.

Hundreds of people have attended a vigil in Birmingham to show support for Ukraine after the country was invaded by Russia. The event in Victoria Square was organised by the city's Polish community. The crowd heard speeches and music and was addressed by the West Midlands mayor Andy Street.

The Birmingham 2022 Festival has announced its six-month long cultural programme taking place across Birmingham and the West Midlands. It will be the biggest celebration of creativity ever seen in the region and one of the largest ever cultural programmes to surround the Commonwealth Games.

There will be over 200 events including a spectacular open-air show, a brand-new Birmingham inspired album, an immersive 3D experience on public transport, photography exhibitions across billboards, a city centre forest of magical proportions, a mass tap-dancing extravaganza and much, much more.

The RSPCA is asking the public to pressure their MPs to stop the Government u-turning on its promise to ban the import of cruelly-produced foie gras and fur.

Despite the production of foie gras and fur being illegal in the UK due to the suffering involved, it is still legal to import these goods.

Two new residential children's homes could be created to support some of Wolverhampton's most vulnerable youngsters.

Members of the City of Wolverhampton Council's Cabinet (Resources) Panel gave the go-ahead to a feasibility study into the creation of two new children's homes.

Residents, councillors and volunteers have joined forces with a national conservation charity to help create a cleaner, greener city during a series of community tree planting days. 

People have been rolling up their sleeves and taking part in events across Wolverhampton to dig in saplings in places where there is currently less tree cover. 

Associate Professor Steven McCabe, a political economist at Birmingham City University, has warned the Russian invasion of Ukraine will see the UK hit with further price hikes around fuel, gas prices, wheat and vital minerals used in key manufacturing processes.

 “Ukraine, like the country invading it, has huge natural resources. Since the fall of Communism, we’ve become used to a steady supply of raw materials and basic foodstuffs from Russia and former ‘satellite’ states including Ukraine.

In the run up to International Women’s Day (8 March), the perspective of women is examined through opera and theatre as part of the spring season of events from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, part of Birmingham City University.

The real-life stories of female convicts bound for Tasmania in the 1850s, are the subject of the opera Banished. Composed by Stephen McNeff in 2016, it will be directed by internationally-acclaimed director, Daisy Evans who has worked with Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Shakespeare’s Globe. 

Up to 400 saplings will be given away across the region this half-term week to encourage more people to get growing and boost the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) Virtual Forest.

WMCA’s Right Tree, Right Place campaign has visited Birmingham, and will call at Wolverhampton and Coventry later this week to hand out the potted saplings to people. These can be taken home and put in a garden and then registered on the virtual forest website.