The results are in for the Safer 6 campaign’s first week, which had a special focus on Rowley Regis.

The week was packed with events from road safety operations and school parking patrols to shop raids, community clean-ups and crime prevention sessions.

The Mayor of Sandwell Councillor Ahmadul Haque MBE officially launched this year’s Safer 6 campaign at Haden Cross Community Fire Station’s open day. Families flocked to the event, inspecting a fire engine, watching a chip pan fire demonstration, checking out an ambulance, police van and the Youth Bus and getting advice from a wide range of organisations.

A big success was trading standards officers and police seizing more than 150,000 illegal tobacco products along with four suspected bottles of counterfeit vodka with a retail value of more than £15,000. The raids were at four shops in Rowley Regis and West Bromwich. You can read more about this operation here.

The many activities in Rowley Regis during the week (which ran from 23 September to 1 October) included the following:

• Police and council highways officers targeted irresponsible parking around primary schools across the town and promoted road safety to parents and children at schools and Springfield Children’s Centre. The week saw the launch at Burnt Tree Primary of a new digital road safety website, which is free for all Sandwell schools to use.
• Police ran a traffic enforcement operation, checking 330 vehicles and dealing with 22 offences. These included drivers using mobile phones, seatbelts not being worn, no MOT, illegal window tints and illegal number plates. Police also seized an off-road bike being driven irresponsibly in Blackheath and seized and towed two untaxed cars.
• Volunteers from Sandwell Crime Prevention Panel attended the fire station open day and held sessions at Blackheath’s Wilko and Sainsbury’s stores. Together with partners, they handed out 478 ‘no caller at the door’ cards, 224 purse/mobile phone security cords, 257 purse bells and more than 70 security whistles/torches.
• Fire crews carried out 95 ‘safe and well’ visits, offering advice on everything from vehicle safety and smoke alarms to stopping smoking. They also gave firework and road safety talks to schoolchildren and held a roadside education day with the police and council at Waterfall Lane, advising people on child car seats and the dangers of seatbelts and using mobile phones while driving.
• A major tidy up was held at Mousesweet Brook Nature Reserve by council neighbourhood services officers, councillors, PCSOs and volunteers as well as offenders doing unpaid Community Payback work. They cut back overgrown trees and bushes to clear paths at the reserve and reveal hidden ornamental sculptures.
• Trading standards carried out alcohol test purchases at six shops in the area, with half selling to the underage volunteer. The shops have been warned and face action against their licence and/or prosecution if they fail again.

• The Big Local project, Litterwatch and council neighbourhood officers held a clean-up with volunteers on the Grace Mary and Lion Farm estates, filling six skips.
• Community Payback cleared overgrown bushes in Perry Park Road and tidied up an area by garages at Falcon Place, while the council’s estate maintenance team cleaned up the grounds of Oakham and Cradley Heath libraries.
• A surgery was held at St Giles Court with the police, fire service, council and Black Country Women’s Aid giving advice. Police also held a surgery at St Michael’s CE High School and PCSOs chatted to children at junior schools.

Councillor Susan Eaves, Rowley Regis town lead member, said: "I would like to thank all the organisations, officers and volunteers for an excellent week of activities to help keep our community safe and clean, building on their day-to-day work together. What a fantastic start to this year's Safer 6 campaign."

The Safer 6 campaign runs for six weeks across Sandwell’s six towns, with partner organisations targeting their efforts and providing extra reassurance as the nights draw in. Each of the six towns has a focus week during the campaign.

Severn Trent has pledged to replace its 2,200 vans, cars and tankers with alternative fuel vehicles as soon as possible as the water and waste water company continues to embrace green energy.

The company is launching the drive to alternative fuels on its light commercial vehicle fleet and its first fully electric vans will hit the roads in November this year.

Severn Trent then plans to convert its entire fleet in the coming years as the right technology comes on stream. Liv Garfield, Chief Executive of Severn Trent, said: “We’re really clear that this is where the future lies for us. Our colleagues clock up a lot of miles every year helping customers and using alternative fuel vehicles will greatly reduce our environmental impact, as well as saving customers money.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is the right thing to do as a company and for the environment, as we move to make our business as sustainable and as efficient as possible in the years ahead.”

Alongside the pledge to use alternative fuel vehicles, Severn Trent is also sector leader in renewable power and is on track to self-generate the equivalent of half of the energy it uses by 2020. The company uses a combination of anaerobic digestion, solar power, small-scale hydro and wind turbines across its estate. “Generating green power is a key priority for us, and we’re looking forward to not only producing power for our treatment works but also for some of our vehicle fleet,” said Liv.

Severn Trent has just completed its second food waste anaerobic digestion facility in Worcester and is currently building another, similar facility in Derby. Both sites take contaminated food waste and turn it into renewable gas which will contribute towards its 2020 target.

The company will be taking delivery of its first batch of four Nissan e-NV200 electric vans in November. The vehicles have a range of 106 miles and charge in just 30 minutes.

Debenhams’ new Mander Centre store today (Thursday) opened its doors – providing a further boost to employment in the City of Wolverhampton.

Almost 90 per cent of the flagship store’s workforce are residents in the city – taking up around 130 of the 150 jobs created.

The impressive figures stem from the partnership work led by City of Wolverhampton’s employer engagement team showcasing the vacancies and providing bespoke recruitment support through the Wolves@Work city team.

Alison Young, Debenhams store manager, said: “The council could not have been more helpful.

“We had an incredibly warm welcome when we came to the city and the council has helped answered the smallest query about where is best to park, all the way through to help with filling vacancies.

“They have done a lot of work with Jobcentre Plus and we have taken on some guys through them.

“To finally open the doors and see everyone enjoying the store is the best thing.

“It’s lovely to come to a city where everyone is so knitted together around regeneration – and we are really enjoying being in the city.”

The opening of Debenhams is part of the £35 million refurbishment of the Mander Centre which also saw the arrival of an H&M outlet in November, with further new stores to come.

Councillor John Reynolds, Cabinet Member for City Economy, added: “The Debenhams figures show just how this type of investment not only regenerates the city – but also impacts on people’s lives by delivering jobs.

“The new Debenhams store is a wonderful addition to the city and is a major boost the retail offer in the city, which should bring in more visitors to further boost the local economy.”

The High Commissioner of India to the UK, H.E. Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha, paid respects to Guru Granth Sahib Ji at Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, Birmingham (GNNSJ) as part of the year-long 350th Birth Anniversary Celebrations of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.

Patna-born Mr. Sinha, who was accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Girija Sinha, and the Consul General of India – Birmingham, Dr. Aman Puri, amongst others, met with Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, Spiritual Leader of GNNSJ and other dignitaries.

The High Commissioner, who is the son of the former Vice-Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen S.K. Sinha, paid tribute to the historic Kar Sewa projects carried out by GNNSJ in India, including the heritage conservation and beautification of the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, Takhat Sri Harmandir Ji, Patna Sahib, and added, “It was a great honour and privilege for my wife and I to pray and pay respects here.”

Bhai Sahib Ji added, “The paramount purpose of celebrating Sikh Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s 350th Prakash Ustav is to pay loving tribute to the Saint-Soldier Guru, who not only created the Khalsa fraternity, but also blessed Sikhs with the highest exalted spiritual authority – Guru Granth Sahib Ji.”

The year-long celebrations will culminate on the 25th December, 2017, at the Takhat Sahib in Patna. Dr. Puri is planning a mobile exhibition, in conjunction with GNNSJ, celebrating the life and legacy of the great Guru Ji to launch in Birmingham during November. Dr. Puri had earlier staged a passionate drama production in Birmingham, as part of the 350th Birth Anniversary celebrations, which was supported by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

The dignitaries later proceeded to ‘Diwali on the Square,’ a celebration hosted by Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands, before proceeding to the Shree Geeta Bhawan Multi-faith Diwali event. Bandi Chhor Divas, the Sikh celebration of Guru Hargobind Ji’s release and liberation of 52 imprisoned Rajas from Gwalior Fort, is also celebrated at this time.

A senior Birmingham academic has a busy month ahead, as he has been invited by two major art institutions to interview two of the world’s most renowned artists – China’s Ai Weiwei and John Akomfrah MBE.

Professor Anthony Downey from Birmingham City University will first be in conversation with the award winning film-maker John Akomfrah on Thursday 12 October at the Barbican Centre, London.

The conversation coincides with the screening of Akomfrah’s most ambitious film to date, ‘Purple’ (2017) which premiered last week at the Barbican. ‘Purple’ is an immersive six-channel video installation that examines global environmental change and degradation through archival footage and newly shot film.

From the hinterlands of Alaska to desolate, icy Arctic Greenland and the volcanic Maquesas Islands in the South Pacific, Akomfrah’s new film prompts the viewer to meditate on the complex relationship between humans and the planet.

Professor Anthony Downey, Birmingham City University, said:

“Over the last three decades, the work of John Akomfrah has consistently rearticulated how the medium of film can effectively explore the immaterial nature of memory, place and identity.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday 25 October, Professor Downey will interview Chinese visual artist and political activist Ai Weiwei in Antwerp. The interview will coincide with Ai Weiwei’s first solo show in Belgium, which will take place at the Fotomuseum provincie Antwerp (FOMU). The exhibition will showcase the Chinese artist’s seminal political statements such as ‘Study of Perspective’ (1995-2011) and his daily stream of selfies and snapshots on social media.

A leading exponent of contemporary art, Ai Weiwei’s work has increasingly become identified with a political turn in visual culture and his work continues to realign the boundaries of what art as a practice can achieve.

Commenting on the artist’s practice, Downey observes how “the critical and institutional momentum surrounding Ai Weiwei’s work, including its circulation and distribution across print and digital media, offers a crucial entry point into how we reconsider the politics of contemporary visual culture today.”

Anthony Downey was appointed to the post of Professor of Visual Culture in North Africa and the Middle East in 2016. The first position of its kind in the UK, Professor Downey is currently establishing a research centre and a postgraduate programme in partnership with organisations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

As an academic, editor and writer of 20 years, Professor Downey is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of ‘Ibraaz’, a leading online research platform for critical analysis of visual culture in the Middle East, and an editor at ‘Third Text’, the leading international journal dedicated to the critical analysis of contemporary art in the global field.

Downey’s recent publications include ‘Don’t Shrink Me to the Size of a Bullet: The Works of Hiwa K’ (Walther König Books, 2017), ‘Future Imperfect: Contemporary Art Practices and Cultural Institutions in the Middle East’ (Sternberg Press, 2016) and ‘Art and Politics Now’ (Thames and Hudson, 2014).

The interviews with John Akomfrah and Ai Weiwei will form part of his next book, ‘Zones of Indistinction: Contemporary Art and the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’ (Sternberg Press, forthcoming, 2018).

Professor Downey is based in Birmingham School of Art, part of Birmingham City University. Purpose-built for the study of art in 1885, the historic School is located in the city centre’s museum and gallery quarter.

A Wolverhampton business is being helped with its expansion plans by the council’s business growth team after securing a £1 million contract from the city’s Sunbeam development.

Kalsun Aluminium is supplying the specialist windows, which have a noise-reducing acoustic skin, for the renovation of the landmark building off Penn Road Island.

Wolverhampton-born developer Liam Wordley is in the final few months of a £12.5 million, four-year project to convert the historic Sunbeam factory into a mixture of 117 one to six-bedroom apartments.

Kalsun Aluminium has already manufactured and fitted 493 windows and 13 doors containing 2,672 glass units, with a further 150 windows and 40 doors to be delivered.

The company’s success saw them relocate six months ago, from a 2,500 sq ft premises in Sunbeam Street, Graiseley, to a 10,000 sq ft factory unit in Shaw Road, Blakenhall.

Kuldeep Burmi, Kalsun Aluminium managing director, said: “This is one of our biggest contracts and the help we have had from the council’s business support team has helped us progress.

“They have helped us recruit more staff and put in place the right policies and procedures to enable us to win further contracts – I’m very pleased with the help we have received.”

Liam, aged 38, added: “It’s great to see Kuldeep’s business grow alongside the Sunbeam development.

“He offers a fantastic product and it has been great to see Kalsun Aluminium flourish and grow in stature.

“I’m always keen to support local businesses and this has given the company confidence to look at bigger contracts and shown businesses can trust what they do.

“The response to the Sunbeam development has been amazing. We currently have around 60 occupiers who view it as a vibrant, modern place to live and we hope to complete the final phases over the next few months.”

Forty-two-year-old Kuldeep from Parkfields revealed Kalsun Aluminium is also supplying the glass units for Vauxhall’s London showroom in Romford, and is hoping to capitalise on future contracts associated with HS2.

Councillor John Reynolds, Cabinet Member for City Economy, said: “The Sunbeam project highlights exactly how regeneration in the city is benefiting local people and businesses.

“To see this historic city centre landmark being brought back to life is fantastic and to know it has helped a Wolverhampton company expand and take on more workers is the icing on the cake.

“It is also hugely satisfying to see the excellent business support structure in the Black Country - accessed through the council and a wide-range of partners and programmes such as the AIM programme – is helping.”

The council is providing business support through ERDF-funded programme AIM (Black Country Advice Investment and Markets), helping with growth potential, inward investment, and market development.

AIM pools the resources of the four Black Country local authorities, University of Wolverhampton, and Black Country Chamber of Commerce, to provide specialist consultancy to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) via the Black Country Growth Hub.