Community News

To celebrate Emergency Services Day, which takes place on Thursday 9^th September 2021, Midlands Air Ambulance Charity is asking local landmarks and companies across the West Midlands to ‘Light Up Red’. The initiative aims to help raise awareness of the lifesaving pre-hospital critical care provider on the national recognised day for emergency service personnel and to also celebrate the charity’s Air30 30^th anniversary.

A mother whose young son fell into a lake has used social media to track down the two men who rescued him. Natasha Creek and Frankie, 7, were at Caldecotte Lake in Milton Keynes when he fell off a jetty last month.

Brothers Kofi and Jermaine Reid were nearby and pulled him from the water but she said she was too shaken at the time to properly thank them. She found the pair after a Facebook appeal and was "blown away" to meet them again with the whole family.

Those returning to work and school this month are being asked to plan ahead and consider going by bike or walking, as traffic is expected to be the busiest it’s been since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The first weeks of September are usually busy as up to 100,000 children return to classrooms and people return to work after the summer break.

But with coronavirus restrictions having been lifted, this year will see many more people returning to workplaces for the first time in more than a year. This will provide a vital boost to footfall in our town and city centres, ensuring the region is open for business, but will also see an increase in traffic at peak times.

Digbeth-based Eastside Projects have been collaborating with South African artist, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi and her team on creating a bold new series of artworks set in Birmingham thanks to funding from the British Council as a part of the Birmingham 2022 culture programme.

The funding from British Council has allowed for a research and development programme that builds a bridge between two major cities within the Commonwealth, Birmingham and Johannesburg. Beginning in May, and working through to the end of July, the development phase of the project has allowed for Eastside and Nkosi to explore ideas and pull together artworks based around spaces and people in Birmingham – all whilst being 8,000 miles apart.

A new digital inclusion team at the city council will ensure Birmingham’s most vulnerable and excluded citizens will have better access to online services. This is one of the recommendations in a report to cabinet setting out a city-wide digital inclusion strategy.

Birmingham City Council has brought together 40 different organisations to ensure people have access to equipment, network connectivity and skills for improving their quality of life, developing their careers and saving money.

Faith leaders have been encouraged to keep their congregations safe from Covid-19.

With infection rates remaining high in the city, Wolverhampton's Director of Public Health John Denley has written to faith groups asking them to continue with the measures they have put in place to protect their congregation, and to keep windows and doors open to allow fresh air to flow through places of worship.

The Metro Mayors for Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and West Midlands joined forces to call for an extension of the Government’s successful Housing First pilot scheme for tackling homelessness.

Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram and Andy Street all share the same ambition to end rough sleeping and believe that the three Housing First pilots in their areas have been making a significant contribution to achieving this. Figures show that 96% of those who benefited from the scheme had come straight off the streets, 25% before they were 18 years old.

A young care leaver from Wolverhampton has received an award from The High Sheriff of the West Midlands in recognition of his "great and valuable services to the community". 

Ricky Lowther was presented with the award at a reception attended by the High Sheriff Louise Bennett OBE DL in the presence of the Mayor of Wolverhampton Councillor Greg Brackenridge last week. 

September 4th is set to be the most popular day to get married in the UK and as wedding season draws to a close, top10casinos.com has commissioned research that illustrates how the  typical 2021 wedding has played out in numbers.

The study of 2,000 people has revealed that in total, we have popped 92,364 bottles of champagne and have “cheersed” each other 52 times a day. Around 3,500 photos have been taken, including 1,008 selfies, averaging at a photo being taken every six seconds.

A delivery driver is swapping the steering wheel for walking sticks and taking on a 615-mile challenge in aid of a mental health and wellbeing charity. 

Kevin Beale, aged 75 from Kidderminster, is walking the Monarchs Way to raise money for the Kaleidoscope Plus Group. He will also donate some of the funds raised to the Children’s Air Ambulance and RDA (Riding for the Disabled Association).

Rapid progress is being made on the development of the new Perry Barr Railway Station ahead of next year’s Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

A steel frame which will support the new station building is now taking shape on site as work continues at pace to get the structure ready for opening next spring. Deputy Mayor of the West Midlands Councillor Bob Sleigh was among guests to visit the site to see how the £30.9 million development project is proceeding and sign the steel girders – thus preserving their names on the building for posterity.

Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Cannon Hill Park, canal-side at Mailbox, Winterbourne House & Gardens and St Paul’s Square have each received a celebratory plaque to mark their position as one of the city’s favourite breathing spaces.

The findings were revealed in a new survey of Birmingham residents commissioned by Taskforce for Lung Health. With 1 in 5 people in the UK diagnosed with lung disease during their lifetime, the Taskforce is encouraging people across the city to pause and ‘take a breath’ for five minutes and appreciate the vital role our lungs play.

A team of 14 daredevils from Azets, the UK’s largest regional accountancy and business advisor to SMEs, has raised a total of £2,600 for Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity by abseiling 190 ft down the Park Regis Hotel on Broad Street.

The event took place on Saturday, 21 August 2021 and is the first active event under Azets’ new charity partnership with Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity. The partnership, announced last month, includes a pledge by Azets to raise £25k in the next 12 months under its ‘Strive for £25k’ campaign, which will cover the cost of a full-time peer support worker for Forward Thinking Birmingham.

Sweetlake Meadow is a selection of stylish new apartments, townhouses and executive detached properties in Shrewsbury, which Shropshire developers, SJ Roberts Homes, have now completed.

Sweetlake Meadow is in a prime location for families, with children of all ages, and helps to fulfil the local area’s growing demand for quality living. The community of 173 properties is close to Shrewsbury town centre but still nestled amidst glorious countryside.

Twenty-two ‘inmates’ were recently incarcerated for office-based crimes against their co-workers, all in the name of charity. The Jail or Bail event raised more than £30,000 for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity during its 30^th anniversary year.

Midlands Air Ambulance Charity collaborated with HM Prison Shrewsbury and invited employees of corporate supporters and Midlands businesses to sign up their CEOs and senior managers to a Jail or Bail event. Each ‘inmate’ had a £600 goal to fundraise in order to raise their bail and be released after a night in the clink.

City of Wolverhampton Council is seeking views on proposed changes to further protect three existing conservation areas from harmful development. A public consultation on Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plans for Bushbury Hill, Vicarage Road (Penn) and Wightwick Bank will start tomorrow (Monday August 23) and run until October 11. 

The current appraisals for these three areas do not adequately support their designation, which means it is difficult to protect their special architectural and historic features when development is proposed. The new independent appraisals have been commissioned to provide strong, up-to-date evidence to better support and protect the three conservation areas.