Shoppers were surprised to see a life size Triceratops roaming Coventry City Centre today. The astonishing 6 foot tall dinosaur, operated by two highly skilled puppeteers, was sighted in the Lower Precinct ahead of the arrival of the fun, interactive show, Dinosaur World at the Belgrade Theatre later this month.

Using incredible puppetry, Dinosaur World brings a range of remarkably life-like dinosaurs to the stage, including every child's favourite flesh-eating giant, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, along with a Giraffatitan, Segnosaurus and baby Triceratops, to name a few!

The live show is followed by a post-show ‘meat and greet’ where audience members have the opportunity to meet the dinosaurs in person.

Visiting the Belgrade’s Main Stage this half-term from Thurs 26 to Sat 28 Oct, Dinosaur World is sure to delight the whole family, whilst also educating young people aged 3+ (and adults) about these incredible creatures from the Mesozoic era.

Dinosaur World is written and directed by Derek Bond (Sweet Charity, Manchester Theatre Awards 2017 winner, Little Shop of Horrors, Manchester Royal Exchange). The creative team includes: Puppet Designer Max Humphries (National Theatre, Royal Opera House, Cirque de Soleil); Puppet Director Laura Cubitt (Running Wild, Chichester Festival Theatre; Don Quixote, RSC; War Horse, NT Berlin); Puppetry Consultant Toby Olié (for the National Theatre: Elephantom, Peter Pan, The Light Princess, Hansel & Gretel, NT: 50 Years on Stage and also the original hind puppeteer of Joey in War Horse); Set & Costume Designer James Perkins; Lighting Designer John Maddox and Sound Designer Tom Mann.

Performed by Danielle Stagg (Miranda), Rosie Nicholls (Puppeteer), Yana Penrose (Puppeteer), James Taylor (Puppeteer), Emma Thornett (Puppeteer), and Rafe Young (Puppeteer). Further casting to be announced.

Wolverhampton City Archives will be holding its annual Local History Fair later this month.

Among those taking part will be representatives from the Western Front Association, the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society, Wombourne History Group, Black Country Visual Arts, the Black Country Living Museum and Wednesfield History Society, who will be on hand to talk about their work and research.

There will be screenings of archive film material showing Wolverhampton over the years throughout the day, while a series of activities for younger visitors include the chance to dress up in Victorian costumes, model making and colouring.

There will be a sale of second hand books, and the Friends of Wolverhampton Archives will be holding a raffle and selling cakes and drinks in their pop up tea room to raise funds for Wolverhampton City Archives.

Councillor John Reynolds, the City of Wolverhampton Council's Cabinet Member for City Economy, said: "The annual Local History Fair is a great chance to discover more about our City's fascinating history and meet with like-minded people and specialist organisations."

The Local History Fair takes place at Wolverhampton City Archives, Molineux Hotel Building, Whitmore Hill, on Saturday 28 October, from 10am-4pm. Entry is £2 for adults, £1 for children.

Wolverhampton City Archives houses a wealth of materials relating to the history of all areas now within the City of Wolverhampton including Bilston, Bushbury, Penn, Tettenhall and Wednesfield.

Constantly growing, the Archives’ vast collections include maps, books, census returns, newspapers, records from local schools, churches, clubs, societies and businesses, electoral registers, and indexes to births, deaths and marriages. There are also over 30,000 photographs, plus films, sound recordings, memorabilia and much more.

Three Birmingham based charities have said thank you to local people for helping raise £5 million in vital funds over 20 years.

Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice, Focus Birmingham and Acorns Children’s Hospice have received the impressive amount from the TLC Lottery, an organisation set up jointly by the three charities in 1997.

Players pay £1 per weekly draw and the money raised after running costs and prizes is split between the three charities. Currently over 13,000 players play the lottery across the West Midlands, competing for prizes ranging from £5 to £1,000.

Lynne Carter, Head of Fundraising at Acorns Children’s Hospice, said: “On behalf of the children and families we support and everyone at Acorns I want to say a huge thank you to the loyal players who have contributed to the Lottery over the past 20 years. We rely on fundraising for the £10 million it costs to provide our services every year - so your generosity means we can continue our vital work.”

Hamish Shilliday, head of fundraising at Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice, said: “The TLC is a fantastic initiative which allows players to have fun whilst raising vital funds for three local charities.

“I would like to thank all the players who have taken part over the past 20 years – with your continued support, we are able to provide expert care to local individuals and families living with terminal illness.

“All of our services – whether they are provided at the Hospice, in people’s homes or in the local community – are free of charge and so we rely on the generosity of local people, like the TLC’s players, to ensure we can continue to provide our care in Birmingham and Sandwell.”

Jasmin Rana, Marketing and Fundraising Manager at Focus Birmingham, said: “The TLC Lottery initiative has allowed Focus Birmingham to provide specialist support and services to people living with sight loss and disability in Birmingham for the past 20 years. We are truly grateful to the contributions made by the players over the years. Thank You.”

Acorns Children’s Hospice provides specialist palliative care for life limited and life threatened children and support for their families.

Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice is an independent charity which provides vital care to individuals and families living with terminal illness across Birmingham and Sandwell. Based in the heart of Selly Park, its services can be provided at the Hospice, in people’s homes and in the local community, making end of life care more accessible to all.

Based in Harborne, Focus Birmingham provides support and training to blind, visually impaired and disabled people of all ages and backgrounds, enabling and empowering people to reach their full potential.

The TLC Lottery is holding a series of celebrations on Friday 20 October to give the owner charities an opportunity to say thank you. The celebrations will also include a one-off £5,000 ‘super draw.’

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.

85 per cent of people surveyed in the West Midlands would be reluctant to perform CPR on cardiac arrest victims, according to latest statistics from the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

The BHF warns that a lack of public knowledge of CPR could be costing lives as new research from the University of Warwick also finds that those who have been trained in CPR are three times more likely to perform it.

The main reasons for reluctance to step in were fear of causing more harm than good (44 per cent) and lacking the skills and knowledge to perform CPR (34 per cent). But experts warn that the benefits of performing CPR far outweigh the risks, as survival rates are almost zero if people collapse and get no support until paramedics arrive.

There are over 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year in the UK, and devastatingly less than 1 in 10 survive. But according to the BHF, if survival rates matched those reported in Norway, where CPR is taught more widely, as many as 5,000 lives could be saved.

Every minute without CPR or defibrillation can reduce a person’s chance of surviving a cardiac arrest by around ten per cent.

A survey of people in the West Midlands found:

• Only 43 per cent would feel confident giving CPR to a stranger
• By contrast, 62 per cent would offer a stranger a seat on the bus, and 79 per cent would give directions to a stranger
• Just 15 per cent were able to identify the two signs of a cardiac arrest, which are  when someone is not breathing or not breathing normally, and that they have collapsed and are unresponsive

The BHF, Resuscitation Council (UK), St John Ambulance, British Red Cross, West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) and all the UK NHS ambulance services along with Fire & Rescue services are working together to train more than 150,000 young people across the UK in the largest ever CPR training event of its kind.

Simon Gillespie, Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation, said:

“CPR may be the difference between life and death for hundreds of people every year in the West Midlands who suffer a cardiac arrest. Every second counts, and it simply isn’t enough to hope that someone who knows CPR is present.

“We need everyone in the West Midlands to learn this life-saving skill to give them the confidence to step in and give CPR when someone collapses after a cardiac arrest.

“That’s why we are urging secondary schools across the UK to apply for our free training kits and help create a Nation of Lifesavers.”

To help the BHF create a Nation of Lifesavers, or find out how you can teach CPR in your school, workplace or community group visit bhf.org.uk/cpr

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.”