Community News

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. 

Children in Heath Town, Wolverhampton, are enjoying the chance to hone their football skills for the season ahead thanks to a new grass pitch developed as part of major transformation works on the housing estate. City of Wolverhampton Council has invested in the Inkerman Street pitch and goalposts so families have green space to take part in physical activity on their doorsteps. 

The new pitch and posts come in addition to an extensive demolition programme of vacant buildings, major improvements to existing residential blocks undertaken by Wolverhampton Homes and the start of construction works on new council homes. 

As the number of road users taking to two wheels continues to grow exponentially, RoSPA and See.Sense have conducted pioneering new research which could prove invaluable in greatly enhancing cyclist safety by more effectively pinpointing potential collision blackspots.
 
Hundreds of Birmingham-based cyclists travelled tens of thousands of monitored miles to generate billions of lines of potentially transformative data as part of the Cycle Smart Brum study, which has provided city authorities with far greater insight into where proactive safety measures would be most gainfully deployed.

Birmingham Weekender is back this Bank Holiday weekend with over 100 free events including music, dance, performances and installations all hosted at Bullring & Grand Central.

The cultural festival, which takes place between Friday 27^th – Sunday 29^th August, will be set across the iconic centre’s footprint as well as the surrounding New Street Station concourse, Birmingham Markets and 1000 Trades Square.

Wolverhampton’s Beat the Street challenge has come to an incredible conclusion, with residents travelling the equivalent of more than twice around the world.

Some 9,579 players joined the giant physical activity game, walking, cycling and rolling 60,888 miles in four weeks, with the winning schools, teams and individuals announced on the Beat the Street website, www.beatthestreet.me/wolverhampton.

A family fun day and cricket match will be held in Coseley next weekend to raise money for people living with mental ill health.

The Kaleidoscope Plus Group, a leading mental health and wellbeing charity based in West Bromwich, will host the event on Sunday 29 August from 10:30am. The charity will have its own team made up of staff and volunteers playing against Wolverhampton All Stars, a local team from the city in a 35 over contest. 

From Monday August 16, people who are fully vaccinated or who are under the age of 18 will no longer have to self-isolate after close contact with someone who has Covid-19. They should still take a PCR test and self-isolate if that is positive, or if they have symptoms of coronavirus.

Anyone who has not been fully vaccinated must still self-isolate for the full ten days. A person is classed as being fully vaccinated two weeks after having their second dose of an approved vaccine administered in the United Kingdom.

Motorists in south Birmingham are being offered an alternative to busy traffic jams on the A38 Bristol Road with the opening of the new Longbridge multi-storey car park.

Built next to Longbridge Railway Station, the £7.6 million multi-storey is one of Birmingham’s largest park and ride facilities. It features more than 600 spaces, CCTV security cameras, electric vehicle charging points, lifts and a range of convenient ways to pay the £3 per day charge (£2 on weekends and bank holidays).

Following the success of its first ever artisan market, Edgbaston Village, on the Calthorpe Estate, will be hosting its next market early in September. The market, which was visited by around 2,000 people, took place on the newly-transformed Greenfield Crescent which, after undergoing significant streetscape works, is now pedestrianised at certain times of the day.

Visitors enjoyed a selection of locally-produced food and drink, including craft gins and ciders, handmade Brummie pies, vegan sausages and burgers and a variety of cheeses. For those with a sweet tooth, the stalls didn’t disappoint, offering delicious homemade brownies, steamed sweet puddings and fudge.

Wolverhampton’s Beat the Street game is entering the home straight, with just a few days left for players to clock up the miles – and the points – for their teams.

The unique walking, riding and rolling competition has been encouraging residents to explore their city over the summer holidays. Nearly 9,500 people have taken up the challenge and, together, have travelled just under 50,000 miles so far.