Birmingham, B29

Get the wellies and cat snorkels out

2009-07-19T22:11:00.000+01:00

More heavy rain today meant bad things for the River Rea through Selly Park.

It's high - a few inches below the banks - and the playing fields are all sodden, so more monsoonery and it'll be paddling time again :(. The weather still isn't great, although the river has subsided over the afternoon, so we don't appear to be in critical danger for tonight.

The last Selly Park South Neighbourhood meeting had the Council talking more about improvements to the river under Dogpoo Lane - including apparently the installation of an Environment Agency water gauge so they can tell when the river's high: would be good to get a live feed of that data. However, work won't start till Jan 2010 and take several months, so in the meantime it's back to battening down the hatches and crossing fingers.

The work also includes ripping out the nice old balustrades and replacing them with concrete. Can we get something impressive done with the old ones? Put them in Canon Hill Park maybe?

Weoley Castle - local news

2009-07-09T11:40:00.012+01:00

After our walk around B29 included Weoley Castle, and finding a very negative view of Weoley on chavtowns, I wondered what view the outside world gets of the area from various news sources. This would also show how good news organisations are at providing very local news.

BirminghamMail.net appears to be thinking along the right lines by creating a "weoley castle" tag and associated RSS feed. However, it doesn't actually work - zero points for zero results for the tag (and note a related tag is "knife crime"):
The site does actually contain several (mis-tagged?) Weoley Castle stories. At the time of writing, the top 5 are - two anti-social behaviour stories from March 09 (the same family - evictions and imprisonment), an improved school (March 09), a charity worker meeting a Royal (May 09) and a stabbing (from 2008). Not all bad, but not a great vision of community harmony, not updated very often, not helped by technology failure (it would also be helpful if they sorted out their favicon).

BirminghamPost.net doesn't even pretend to have helpful tags. You also can't order the search results - and unlike BirminghamMail, they don't seem to be ordered by date descending. Actually, the ordering of results isn't stated, so I'm assuming it's based on relevance. So, the search results on a news site don't appear in date order, most recent first? Awesome ... . Here, the top 5 search results are:

So two of these stories are just passing mentions of Weoley Castle, not news from it. Hmm. Also, given that BirminghamMail.net and BirminghamPost.net are run by the same company, it seems strange that only one has implemented tagging (albeit incorrectly), and that searches aren't orderable, the default order being unclear, and there's no way to filter stuff based on whether it's actually news (as opposed to comment/culture/brief mentions). No wonder people are talking about the "death of local news journalism" - if you can't even find stories relevant to you, it's not overly surprising that people won't use the news sources. The group also owns the Sunday Mercury - no results. (*disclaimer* I don't read any of these papers, so I don't understand what the difference between them is supposed to be.)

The parent company also owns icbirmingham, with a similarly crap search. Their top 5 items are: a list of schools for no apparent reason (no date); the same anti-social family (from 2002! both a very old story and a long time for the same family to be causing Weoley Castle trouble); an expats forum; an incidental mention in a piece about an old folk's day centre in Northfield closing (Nov 04); and the same row about absence figures at a Weoley Castle school (Dec 07). However, the group has been making moves towards community sites based around postcodes and local governance reporting so perhaps they might cover Weoley in the future ...

How about the dear old Beeb then? They've got nicely configurable search results (by date, relevance and category), but not a lot of WC news with only one story this year, and only a few mentions in features elsewhere ... I guess The Mailbox is several miles and cultures away from Weoley. (Disclaimer: I used to work for them in New Media, albeit not for the News bit.)

National newspapers-wise, there's not much - The Guardian has 3 stories, latest from 2006 (with configurable search results & RSS, nice :)). The Sun's search just gives some locations of commenters on their forum. I lost the will to google any more.

I LOVE U by Simon Hammond on Flickr

What about sites written by local people? The Castle Community Site looks a bit empty, and has a rather empty forum, though they link to OFSTED reports and minutes from Councillor meetings (£91k to carry out a survey on a single deciduous tree?? I'd be cross about that if I lived there - p2 item 1051), and the local residents' association seems to be having trouble getting enough members. The Weoley Castle.com lists local amenities and shops, while WeoleyCastle.org has links to local history resources, but seems to have been last updated in 2007. There are also some nice old pics of Weoley, which reveal the modern-day versions when you click them.

Probably the richest set of user generated stuff about Weoley Castle is the flickr pictures, with some lovely shots of the area, some historical reenactments and, oddly, a lot of knives. Here's the map view:

View weoley castle flickr in a larger map

Over on technorati, the blog search is pretty slim pickings (though apparently you can't search for the phrase "weoley castle") apart from the videos - there's a few visualisations of the Castle in case you can't make it to the ruins and/or your imagination fails.

And what seems to be a local history video project feat. Trevor :).

Plus a few more randoms that might put you off Weoley Castle like blowing up a (toy) ladybird, those neighbours from hell (again), some kids happy slapping the select&save with eggs and a nasty one of someone shooting a pigeon.

I think the area's crying out for more personal local sites that don't have anyone blowing anything up - though if you know of any more sites, let us know in the comments. If there are any Weoley Castle community groups out there just itching to get a site up, but are not sure where to start, they could try the Social Media Surgery on 14th July, or a UK Online centre.

Finally, the plan for our next walk is to find out definitively whether Weoley Castle is shit or not - if you have suggestions for places for us to visit or want to join us, please comment.

b29 perimeter walk odyssey

2009-07-07T15:55:00.007+01:00

On Sunday 5th June 2009, an intrepid bunch (michael (@citizensheep), josh (@joshhart), mark (@cybrum) and I) met at the Nature Centre on the Pershore Road to trek around B29 as flâneurs. Sadly, no tortoises turned up and we were pretty sure the Nature Centre wouldn't lend us one.

Our journey started at the south-eastern corner of B29 on the Bournbrook, meandered as close to the B29 boundary as we could get (with a bit of guessing and some improvisation) until we passed the North-Western corner in California and lost the will to live: a massive downpour meant we decided to cut corners and head back via Castle Road.

We took it quite slowly, looking out for unusual stuff that you just don't notice on a purposeful journey.

Some themes that emerged on our odyssey were:

1. Things we found that we didn't know about

Halfway along Eastern Road on the right, heading for Bristol Road, we discovered a half-abandoned playing field - the field itself was freshly mown but the changing rooms kinda skanky and falling apart - anyone know who owns it?

Part of the walk also showed up our lack of knowledge of our natural surroundings - our plant recognition skills were pretty low, so Michael snapped the odd plant and asked the internet for help in identifying them.

Over in California, we were appalled at finding people having to live directly under electricity pylons on Reservoir Road / Heron's Way. We were also interested to see people correcting the postcode - clearly believing that B18 (Jewellery Quarter) beats B29 as a place to live. pffpfppf.

Still in Reservoir Road, we stumbled across a dance centre: Benwell Dance Club, now severely shut, but still an unusual location for fleet-footed B29ers. The road also has houses that are mostly the same, except for experimental tile decorations on the outside.

2. Disappointment in development

At the former BBC Pebble Mill site we bemoaned the slow pace of development on the Science Park (they did some road works in 2006, but the next tranche of work doesn't start until late 2009) and wondered why they couldn't have left the tennis courts open to the public.

The ongoing Selly Oak New Road works are pretty ugly, and just outside the University campus on Grange Road we realised that the Westley Richards gun makers (firm founded 1812, workshop built around 1900) is going to get demolished to make way for it. I remember hearing them test-firing from the University Campus and seems a shame to lose it, even though I'm not a fan of hunting, it would be good to have a look round inside before they knock it down. I tried snapping through the keyhole but it didn't really capture any interesting historical innards ...

We weren't overly whelmed by the new hospital either, and Michael captured the moment with his fancy new iPhone on AudioBoo:

Listen!

3. Random things that caught our eyes

Some places are so good they get named twice, and someone's been embedding the pavements with mysterious letters:

Some graffiti:

4. Finding things we did vaguely know about but not exactly

We found the Weoley Castle ruins completely by accident, just when the downpours and sore feet were beginning to grate ... *and* Weoley Castle wasn't as grim as we'd imagined, though we did get some funny looks off the local kids for consulting a map. The ruins are gated off behind a fierce fence, though they occasionally have open days (next one 19th July). I particularly liked the animal finials, so much so that I might adopt it as the B29 logo :).

Michael did get a bit whelmed by the castle - "lots of ... um ... bricks":
Listen!

And finally, as we trudged home to Selly Park, Michael and I found a few more hidden things - some secret off-road cricket, and a handy brick alcove just begging for something (an animal finial?):

We're planning a few more ramblings ... and will post things here if you'd like to join us.

safe snacks

2009-07-03T12:43:00.003+01:00

Just found the Scores on the Doors site, which publishes BCC health inspection results for cafes, restaurants and other food-based stuff in B29.

The results for food hygiene in restaurants are here, though no-one got a max of 5 stars. Bohemia and the Oak Tree Sandwich Bar top the list with 4 stars - looks like Oak Tree Lane might be B29's shiniest because the takeaway list is topped by Chez Moi on the same street. Also pleased to see the tasty Jumbo takeaway on Pershore Road with 4 stars - they also do healthy food, although the site doesn't list any healthy eating award results for Brum.

The pub list is topped by the Ember Inns chain - The Country Girl and the SPT. I can' t say I'm a massive fan of the SPT food: the nicest thing I can say is that it's OK if you get peckish while you're drinking. At least they seem to have stopped their bizarre refusal to serve soft drinks in pint sizes (previously you'd get "sorry, it'll have to be a 10 oz glass" or something ... wtf?).

On the cafe front, the Rich Bitch recording studios max up with 5 stars (can you go there if you're not recording something?), and the trusty Selly Sausage gets 4 (though personally I'm not a huge fan of the veggie options). My favourite hangover buster, Lesley's Corner Cafe, gets 3 - I'm happy to carry on scarfing down the veggie breakfast with that. The site also covers things like butcher's shops, but I'll leave you to do your own meaty searches.

B29 tortoise walk EDIT now starting at 1

2009-07-01T10:02:00.006+01:00

Desert Tortoise by dotdoubledot

EDIT: we're now planning to kick off earlier - at 1 PM.

We're planning a walk around the perimeter of B29 this Sunday (5th July), recording our feelings as we go, in the spirit of the flâneur ("a person who walks a city to experience it").

Apparently, in 1840s Paris, it was very trendy to wander around with a tortoise on a lead to make sure you were gong at the right speed to truly experience the city - so can anyone lend us a tortoise?

The plan is to start off from The Nature Centre on the Pershore Road at about 1 and walk around the google map of B29 as closely as possible until our feet/tortoises run out - leave a comment if you're interested in joining us :). We're happy to pick people up on the way, walking-bus style (we'll let you know where we are via @birminghamb29. You are welcome to get off and on as you please.

Council customer service

2009-06-23T11:06:00.005+01:00

Last year, Jon Bounds set up a Birmingham City Council area on the Get Satisfaction site, which provides an online space for people to discuss problems with organisations. This is particularly interesting in the context of the Council's own rather opaque complaints system (what would you call a "Leadership Line" for? I called it to find out, and got a recorded message saying "This line has now been decommissioned" ... awesome) and lack of online discussion facilities.

The Council seems to have shifted its view of its constituents to see us all as "customers", but has failed to make a corresponding shift to provide a better level of "customer service". The Council has a responsibility to be transparent about its decisions and spending in order to make us "customers" feel like we're getting value for money and that our views are being heard. At the moment, it's far too difficult to try and extract that information from their clumsily cluttered website (they've turned their search off until they launch a new site, but no date is given, and you only get the warning on the front page. Super helpful). This is particularly mysterious after they won an e-government award in 2007 for simplifying citizen's access to information, including "Customer First – ensuring customers receive basic, fast and accurate services with a single, friendly and professional contact point for all queries". Where is it? Oh, via google, there it is - they don't seem to have implemented it, and don't give a date for its launch. *sigh*.

Our own Michael Grimes has set up a Selly Oak ward area within the Get Satisfaction / Birmingham City Council area, for everyone to discuss/comment about local issues there - please do add your concerns, questions etc.. I've posted an idea about the Council lending out speed cameras to people who want to log/display the speeds of motorists in their area (a personal topic - I keep nearly getting squished on the Pershore Road).

However, in the context of increasing surveillance across Birmingham, it would be interesting to get some other ideas to resolve the problem: are more cameras (albeit mobile non-fining ones) really a good solution? You might also want to sign the 20 MPH e-petition (a surprisingly 21st Century initiative from BCC).

MPs allowances published

2009-06-18T13:46:00.004+01:00

The official Parliament site has published (censored) MP allowances forms for the past few years - the interesting ones are the "Additional Cost Allowances".

You can see Lynne Jones' here - nothing too outrageous despite expensive taste in wallpaper and a few problems adding up. Though she seems to have spent quite a lot on decorating, for one job she's declared that despite having oak flooring put down, she only claimed for pine.

B29ers in other constituencies can find Gisela Stuart's expenses here and Richard Burden's here - though Richard's seem to be missing the Additional Cost Allowances for 07/08.

One surprise is that these are handwritten: how can MPs not have an electronic system to log their expenses? It doesn't help the impression that MPs are still living in the 19th Century (albeit with 21st Century expenses claims).

mapping B29: our view

2009-06-17T12:39:00.005+01:00

Thanks to Michael's sterling work in mapping out B29 in google maps, we can now create our own map of the area. He's made the map open to everyone with a google account. I really like the idea of creating our views of the area before the Google Maps street car comes round :).

It woud be great to see your views of the area on the map. The first thing you'll need to do is get a google maps account, then click the "save to my maps" link on the map itself. If you haven't used google maps before, here's a handy guide to editing maps - though on the B29 map you're free to use whatever icons you like - I've started by using green pins for street signs.

We've kicked off by adding some street names to the map - have fun!

B29 street names

2009-06-08T20:56:00.007+01:00

Yes, it's a very boring topic for a post; but as I can't find a comprehensive list of B29 street names anywhere, I decided to write one myself.

Names have been taken from the Google map that I created earlier, so (knowing Google Maps) there may be some mistakes. And of course I may have missed some, so if you spot a mistake or an omission please do let us know.

There are well over 200 streets, so to save it taking up useful space on this page you can see the list of B29 street names here.

European elections - results

2009-06-08T19:41:00.003+01:00

No Rusty Lee for MEP, despite UKIP coming second in European Parliament elections in the West Midlands overall.

Celeb MEP-fans need not panic, though - Michael Cashman got returned, though this time it'll be a lonely Birmingham-Brussels commute without any other Labour colleagues (and despite his registered address seeming to be in London...).

Local results: unavailable from Election Office?

Interestingly, although BCC is the Election Office for the Euro elections, and their election results page promises that results are published online before anywhere else, they don't seem to be providing any stats - linking instead to the BBC.

The BBC main news site has a full list for the region, and the BBC's WM area has a partial local breakdown for Birmingham. It's not clear whether we'll ever get a local results list off the BCC ... even though they are very revealing, showing that for Birmingham itself, UKIP was placed fourth behind the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems.

UKIPerie

Despite predictions of major upsets, 5/6 MEPs are the same - just UKIP's Nikki Sinclaire being a new bunny, though according to her rather horribly yellow site (not yet updated to celebrate her win), she's been working as the other UKIP MEP's political advisor. Nikki's also planning to travel by Easyjet and stay in 2* hotels to use her MEP allowances to the best benefit of UKIP. Would be great to see those receipts published on her site, perhaps?

Our WM MEPs are now:

Tories:

Philip Bradbourn
Malcolm Harbour

UKIP:

Mike Nattrass
Nikki Sinclaire

Labour:

Michael Cashman

Lib Dems:

Liz Lynne

WM extremism?

I'm pleased the BNP didn't get any MEPs in the region, though they did poll 8.6% of the vote - or 121,967 votes in total - with a 34.8% turnout. Seems pretty high, even though it's only an increase of 1.1% on 2004 - perhaps some comfort to be taken in a worsening political and economic situation not moving the WM electorate to extremist views.

Unless of course, you take UKIP to be an extremist view. Perhaps this will prove to be the election in which UKIP became the acceptable face of anti-European, anti-immigration policies. It remains to be seen how acceptable they remain with respect to the alliances they may make in the European Parliament, and where they go with policy statements like "we believe the traditional British way of life is inherently good, and should be promoted for its own sake": cuddly fascists are still fascists.

battery demolition

2009-06-06T18:17:00.010+01:00

The lovely jdk653 contacted us to point us towards a Birmingham Post, um, post about the demolition of the Battery building as part of the new Sainsbury's development despite efforts by conservationists (including the venerable Prof Carl Chinn) to save it.

UPDATE: I went down to Battery Park on Sun 7th and took some pictures of the demolition in progress:

The original planning document (2004) specifically mentions that the building was to be repaired, though the BCC site skirts over the demolition vs repairs issue. According to the Post, Sainsbury's say the building is unsafe and therefore can't be repaired. There are some pretty amazing pics on the derelict places site, which reports that a couple of people fell through floors during the shoot.

There's a few conflicting reports about the listed status of the building - the Stirrer reckoned it was, but the SkyscraperCity forums had a few posts from people saying it wasn't - and the Council's listed lists doesn't include it (though the Goose at the OVT is in :)). Either way, it looks like the loss of an historic building.

Also, the "mixed-use development" that's being built on the Battery site includes a technology park: where does that leave the not-quite-built-yet biomedical science park on the old Pebble Mill site (due 2015)? Oh BCC, with these science/tech parks you are really spoiling us ...

Google map of the Birmingham B29 postcode area

2009-06-04T22:57:00.006+01:00

In this post – my first ever on this blog – I've had a crack at plotting Birmingham B29 on a Google Map, with fair success if I may say so.

View Birmingham B29 in a larger map

Thanks to James Thornett for his static map of B29 which served as an invaluable guide.

I'm going to try to do more with this, but in the meantime you can add it to your Google Maps account if you have one. You can then see other maps – such as Pindec's B29 Meandering Games - layered over the top.

If you don't already have one you can get a Google account here.

How many Mbps please: how fast is your broadband in B29?

2009-05-28T13:27:00.007+01:00

Is B29 a slow broadband area? According to the BBC, the government may miss its 2012 target to give every household in the UK access to 2 Mbps broadband, and some Virgin users in the area are reporting speed issues of their own.

There is a telephone exchange in Oakfield Road (B29 7HW), and according to the BBC report then any house within 4km *should* be able to get at least 2 Mbps.

I thought it would be interesting for us all to report our true broadband speeds, and see how much it differs between providers. Those of you using BT lines can use the BT speed checker, otherwise try the Broadband Speed Checker, or take a look at the speeds your modem reports directly from its config/admin pages.

That way, if your speed is much worse than people close by with the same mode of access (i.e. cable or broadband), you should definitely recheck all the internal factors that affect broadband speed - see this handy guide. Even if you can't find an in-house fault like a rogue phone socket without a microfilter, it's also worth googling around to check your hardware/ISP compatibility - we had a NetGear wireless router that turned out to be incompatible with TalkTalk (our cheap but pretty sucky ISP - their customer service is laughably awful).

In First Avenue, with broadband over a BT line, I get approx. 6.3 Mbps download speed according to the Broadband Speed Checker service (that's fixed cable - over my Wi-Fi it's more like 2.3). I could in theory improve this by switching providers, as we're less than 1km from the Selly Oak telephone exchange and we're in a cable area. According to the excellent Sam Knows site, there are 6 other local broadband providers from the Selly Oak exchange I can consider (plus additional secondary sellers not listed).

How fast are you? Any broadband recommendations for B29 (on price and on customer service)?

European Elections - celebrity battles

2009-05-20T16:05:00.005+01:00

There's an election for the European Parliament on 4th June - the West Midlands region has currently got 7 MEPs, but we'll only be returning 6 this time round.

The full vote allocation rules are complicated (I had absolutely no idea how it worked before googling it, which kind of shames my degree that included politics *cough*), but essentially based on a quota system.

The list of candidates (including addresses) includes a disappointing amount of BNP candidates (tip: if you get a BNP leaflet though the door, why not send it back to one of the candidates with no stamp?) but also some celebs - Michael Cashman (ex-EastEnders) has been an MEP since 1999, but I didn't know that Rustie Lee was standing for UKIP (despite being born in Jamaica, she seems to fully support their anti-immigration policy).

So which ex-EastEnder really is the best person to represent the West Midlands? Sadly no opportunity for a cook-off - Rustie's #4 out of 6 UKIP candidates, so she hasn't got a hope of being elected despite her campaigning skillz.

I'm sceptical about the impact that regional MEPs actually have on B29 (though naturally I'm pleased that seal products have been banned in the EU - no more River Rea seal culls), but it will be interesting to see the impact of recent anti-MP feeling on MEP voting patterns.

I will vote, partly because I think it's important to express a preference, and partly because I want to counterbalance anyone voting for the BNP or UKIP.

The other parties standing are

Labour (feat. Cashman)
Conservative
Lib Dems
Green (on an anti-racism ticket)
UKIP (anti-immigration muppets who deny they are racist)
BNP (racist muppets, some with dubious pasts)
Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship” (how does Jesus feel about the EU?)
No2EU (a trade union backed party that reject the "European gravy train", and will refuse to sit in the European Parliament if they get any seats - not clear what happens to the MEP salary?)
English Democrats Party (pro the English political system devolving from Westminster; anti-immigration; anti-political correctness - usual muppetry)
Jury Team (coalition of independent candidates; advocate MEPs publishing details of all their expenses; backed by Esther Rantzen)
Pro Democracy: Libertas.eu (similar to above - pro transparency; coalition across Europe; no distinct party line)
Socialist Labour Party (feat. Scargill)

birminghamB29 twitter group

2009-05-15T11:09:00.005+01:00

Twitter have implemented some changes which'll make it easier to aggregate Birmingham B29 info - just follow @birminghamB29 and reply to it (i.e. send a message containing @birminghamB29) with any B29-related info you want to share :).

pricing democracy

2009-05-14T15:31:00.009+01:00

How do local MPs stack up in the expenses row?

Dr Lynne Jones has published her own response, which says she abhors the abuse whilst taking a sly swipe at "well-paid journalists". Nevertheless, she embraces the transparency principle, linking to her They Work For You figures, which show that apart from staffing costs where she was ranked 15th out of 645, she's mostly way down the list of expense claims.

This is particularly interesting given that she's stepping down at the next election, and in contrast to efforts by others to feather their nests while on the way out.

Nearby Stephen McCabe (MP for Hall Green), on the other hand, overclaimed for his mortgage, which surprisingly doesn't make a mention on his website. He also voted strongly against a transparent parliament - a position which he may well find is untenable prior to the next election.

Local councillors

The row made me wonder about Birmingham City Council expenses transparency - and it's clear there's a lot of work to be done. It seems ridiculous (very Douglas Adams) that the Register of Allowances is only relevant to the current financial year, and that it and the full Register of Members Interests are only viewable in person at the Council House during office hours. [edit - thanks to Robert for digging out the URL for the Members Allowances - though note it's still a set of PDFs rather than a searchable data source].

How can it be acceptable that some members can opt out of the e-version of the Register of Members Interests? It may not be a legal requirement to provide an e-register, but surely it's an accountability requirement - especially given that the Council's Local Code of Governance claims the following:

"Governance is about how local governance bodies ensure that they are doing the right things, in the right way, for the right people, in a timely, inclusive, open, honest and accountable manner;"

Having an unsearchable expenses register and a partial e-register of interests is neither open nor accountable.

Also note that the e-version of the Register of Members' Interests is a scanned hand-written document filed by member (and therefore also unsearchable). To achieve "effective scrutiny", the Council should provide all this data online for people to query, visualise and cross-reference with, say, Councillor voting patterns to make up their own minds.

I'm not assuming that Councillors are overclaiming expenses, or voting in line with their special interests, but hiding the data in hand-written documents will conceal any patterns both from voters and from the scrutineers. Humans just aren't very good at visualising patterns from flat numbers, and if we don't have the data to make some shiny pie charts then voters may assume the worst.

So, out of interest, I've transcribed what information is available from the e-Register of Members' Interests here for B29 (Selly Oak) Councillors (be aware that transcription errors may arise from it mostly being hand-written):

Wright, Robert (LibDem) (see also his blog)

Statutory Register (07):

(i) Membership/control/management of bodies appointed/nominated by BCC

Local Access Forum

(ii) Other bodies

Liberal Democrats
Unlock Democracy (formerly Charter 88)
Amnesty International
Friends of the Earth
Public and Commercial Services Union
Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

(iii) Any employment or business carried on by him

Civil Servant

(iv) Any person or body who employs or has appointed him:

Water Services Regulation Authority

(v) Any person or body other than BCC who has made a payment to him in respect of election or expenses in carrying out duties:

Selly Oak & Edgbaston Liberal Democrats

(viii) any land in BCC's area in which he has a financial interest:

26 Cecil Road, Selly Park, B29 7QQ

Gifts Register: (07/08)

Birmingham Rep - 2 tickets for Hysteria (declined - est value £25)
2 x West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority / Centro - meal (est value £25)
Birmingham Rep - 2 tickets for Rafta (est value £25)
Hyder Consulting Ltd - meal & ticket to carol concert - (est value over £25)

He was fortunate to decline the tickets for Hysteria - it was one of the worst plays I've seen for years (we left in the interval).

Interestingly, Robert both works for the Water Authority, appears to live in the area in Selly Park (Cecil Road) that got flooded last year, and has been dined by Hyder Consulting - an advisory and design consultancy working with BCC to try and solve the urban flooding issues - perhaps they are involved in the B29 flood modelling?

RADCLIFFE, DAVID (LibDem)

Statutory Register (07/08):

(ii) Other bodies

Liberal Democrats
University College Union
Association of University Administrators
Electoral Reform Society
Cyclists Touring Club
New Politics Network
Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors
Push Bikes

(iii) Any employment or business carried on by him

Senior Planning Officer, University of Birmingham

(iv) Any person or body who employs or has appointed him:

University of Birmingham

(v) Any person or body other than BCC who has made a payment to him in respect of election or expenses in carrying out duties:

Selly Oak Liberal Democrats

(viii) any land in BCC's area in which he has a financial interest:

46 Regent St, Stirchley, B30 2LG

Gifts Register: (07/08)

WMPTA - meal (est value £25)
Birmigham Rep - 2 tickets for "Our House" (est value £50)
Birmingham Rep - 2 tickets for "His Dark Materials pt1" (est value £50)
Birmingham Rep - 2 tickets for "His Dark Materials pt 2" (est value £40)

DOW, ALISTAIR (LibDem)

Statutory Register (07):

(i) Membership/control/management of bodies appointed/nominated by BCC

Muntz Trust
SIFA / Fireside
Kings Norton United Charities
Birmingham Opera
Birmingham University Court

(ii) Other bodies

Aston University Free Church Chaplaincy
Warwickshire monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Liberal Democrats
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland

(v) Any person or body other than BCC who has made a payment to him in respect of election or expenses in carrying out duties:

Selly Oak and Edgbaston Liberal Democrats

(viii) any land in BCC's area in which he has a financial interest:

23 Hindon Square, Birmingham, B15 3HA

Gifts Register: (07/08)

2 sets (?) Birmingham Rep tickets (refused)
PTEG dinner (est value £25)
Hippodrome - 2 tickets (est value £25)
Old Rep - 2 tickets (est value £25)
Robert Keys Associates - guest at Birmingham Post awards lunch (est value £25)
Redcliffe Catering - dinner (est value £25)
PTEG - dinner (est value £25)
Hyder Consulting - meal and carol concert (est value over £25)

PTEG may refer to the Passenger Transport Executive Group (publicly funded policy/strategy group on public transport). Robert Keys Associates - I couldn't find. Redcliffe Catering are local catering contractors.

There. That was a bit tedious, wasn't it? It's interesting to reveal the interests of our local counillors, but I still want to see their expenses .... Though it looks like the Birmingham Rep spends quite a lot of time giving out tickets to local councillors.

Flood Action

2009-05-14T14:42:00.006+01:00

With more rain forecast, it's an apt time for the Selly Park Community Residents' Association (SPRCA) to hold an AGM to discuss, amongst other things, forming a Flood Action Group with someone from the Birmingham Resilience Team, which appears to be some kind of Council organisation with responsibility for emergency planning. The team has published a nice wallet of ICE info, plus there's a few tips on their site, but it all feels a bit clunky, and not particularly relevant to flooding - there's an emergency phone line but the number will only be given out over local radio ... is that really helpful?

When will the Council manage to grasp the idea that emergency planning might also include providing/collating live info via multiple platforms? I'd like to get an email/tweet if my house was in danger of flooding ... rather than have to be listening to radio WM (*please* don't make me listen to local radio :( ). Much nonsense has been written about twitter and microblogging, but providing live flood info would be an ideal application.

BBC weather forecast for Birmingham for next 3 days (interestingly, despite Birmingham being a large area, the Met Office don't do a finer-grained forecast):
You must have a browser that supports &amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"&amp;amp;gt;iframes&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt; to view the BBC weather forecast
The AGM's on 20th May at 19:30 in Skittle Alley, SPT - or alternatively contact Saima Ali, Ward Support Officer, Selly Oak Constituency on 0121 303 9987 or saima_ali@birmingham.gov.uk.

According to the SPRCA, computer models of the Rea and Bourn Brook are being made to try and alleviate any possible floods in the future. It would be great if these were available online showing real time water levels to help people to judge whether it's time to start moving their stuff upstairs ...

more bizarre weather #b29

2009-04-28T18:36:00.003+01:00

This evening (28 April 18:30) we have a lot of weather going on in B29:

thunder
lightning
hail
rain

Brrr.

Traffic's crawling on the Pershore Road; looks like we might have an awful lot of water around too ...

religious doorsteppers in B29

2009-04-28T13:54:00.010+01:00

We've had quite a few people round recently attempting to enlighten us into the ways of their various religions. This is quite annoying when (a) you're a committed atheist and (b) you're in the middle of making a veggie burger.

Most people are terribly polite, indeed today's Smiley Christians and the other week's Jehovah's Witnesses both said it was "nice to meet me" despite them (presumably) fervently believing I'm going to burn in hell for my (lack of) beliefs.

However, what I object to are people like the two from St Stephen's a couple of weeks ago, who attempted (pointlessly) to engage me in a debate that descended into farce - they seemed to be getting a bit annoyed at me not agreeing with them, which is not quite what I expected from the cuddly CofE. I entirely respect their right to believe what they like, and to go round B29 and try and convert people (though I suspect there's probably a few thousand people out there in Birmingham who'd rather a more direct intervention to help their lives than a doorstep chat), but I object to them trying to imply that my beliefs are worth less than theirs. Here's a hint - if I tell you I'm an atheist, you're unlikely to be able to catch me out by asking "Do you pray?". *And* my veggieburger was burning.

I wonder what the conversion rate of doorstop chats really is - I expect it's less than with other direct marketing methods. I'll ask the next ones around ...

Does anyone make a sign that says "no free newspapers and no organised religions please"? Are there any disorganised religions that that would miss out?

Could we start a B29 watch where we let each other know who's coming round knocking on doors, maybe via twitter (e.g. #b29watch)?

B29 games map

2009-04-06T23:19:00.009+01:00

I've started a map outlining some lo-fi games to play should you find yourself aimlessly trundling around B29 - from avoiding scary shops to guessing the staff-to-client ratio in a curry house.

It's an openly collaborative map, so please add your own B29 games; I'm aware that this blog gets skewed towards Selly Park (where I live) and not California (wayyyy over in B29 *West* [edit: thanks Jack, doh!].

View Larger Map

Also, I'm planning a trundle over to the rest of B29 shortly - anyone got any must-sees or highlights?

spring sprung

2009-03-14T17:22:00.009Z

... and after the snow comes spring.

Inspired by new folder's lovely B29 spring pic, here's another flickr slideshow from the B29 flickr group.

Add your pics to the B29 group and tag them with "spring" to ping them up here.

EDIT - multiple iFrame / blogger borkage means that we can merely admire a single new folder pic here :)

B29 snow

2009-02-01T19:06:00.009Z

Archive of incoming snow Feb 09 (even tracked and rated on twitter).

Jump to flickr to see all the snow scenes posted to the flickr B29 group.

Going to party like it's B29?

2009-01-30T17:35:00.005Z

Randomly met a resident of Second Avenue yesterday, and on chatting about the upsides of living in B29, he mentioned that his street has an annual street party.

photo by Annie Mole

I live just round the corner, and I've never stumbled across the street party - usually in late June (my invite must have been lost in the post) ... but it made me realise that (a) there aren't many places in B29 for casually meeting other B29-ers, especially since the mac is shut (other than Flood Meetings?); and (b) a large-scale street party (i.e. a fête) would be awesome, despite growing up in deepest darkest Sussex and vowing never to having anything to do with countryside-type things again.

Anyone up for a B29 village fête? We could simply congregate in Selly Hill Park with hats (for wearing), wellies (for wanging or wearing, depending on the weather) and strawberries (ditto). Put "late June" in the diary.

where post please?

2009-01-19T21:07:00.006Z

I've lived in B29 for 8 years, but I still wasn't sure I was using the nearest postbox ... until I came across a handy site that maps them all - from a nice man affiliated with the lovely mysociety.org bunnies. thanks!

Wonder if mysociety can fix the bizarre practice of the postie having to bring large things round to your house without being able to check first that someone's in ...

Latest flood missive from BCC

2009-01-19T20:39:00.002Z

Another month, another City Council missive about the floods back in September 08 ... This time it's to feedback about the (paper) questionnaires they sent round and to let everyone know they are Doing Stuff.

Interestingly, they are also asking if it's OK if they share the result of their investigation into the causes of the flood with the Environment Agency and Severn Trent Water ... this seems to (a) be a no-brainer and (b) imply that the various agencies still can't work together - at the community meeting the Council organised shortly after the floods, it was clear that the agencies didn't really have a model for communicating, and there was a certain amount of shifting responsibility round on each other.

If your house is filling up with sewage water, you don't really care which agency has responsibility. It transpired that Severn Trent didn't even realise the flooding was contaminated with sewage until the community meeting - and again it doesn't take a genius to realise that if you have a holding tank of sewage under Dog Poo Lane, and there's a massive flood on the lane, there might be some kind of unpleasant leakage going on.

Nevertheless, we now have a useful list of numbers (including out of hours) for BCC flooding - though it's still split between "blocked highway drainage flooding" and "river flooding", plus EA's floodline, Severn Trent and Flood Forum - which is still a lot of numbers to choose from if you're not entirely sure where the water's coming from.

In September, Bournbrook burst its banks because it couldn't fit under the road at Pebble Mill, and submerged Sir John's, 4th and 3rd Avenues - does that count as river flooding or poor drainage or Severn Trent or EA's problem? EA says it doesn't deal with surface flooding (and had no flood alerts up about B29 at the time) - and the Council don't seem to have plans in place to deal with incidents where the Bournbrook is too fat to fit under the road.

Still, this incident has incited the most contact we've ever had from any local governmental type agency, other than the time the Lib Dems came round to see if we wanted anything ... and of course the flood of semi-interested activists at local election time. Though I still reckon we've had the Jehovah's Witnesses round more often than any political bunnies - and they even claimed it was nice talking to me last time after I (politely) declined The Watchtower on account of being a committed atheist.

FYI the flooding contact details in full:
BCC Highways (blocked drainage) 303 6644
BCC river flooding: 303 7235
Out of hours for both: 303 4149

EA floodline: 0845 988 1188
Severn Trent: 0800 783 4444
Flood Forum: 01299 403055

Birmingham, B29

Get the wellies and cat snorkels out

Weoley Castle - local news

b29 perimeter walk odyssey

safe snacks

B29 tortoise walk *EDIT* now starting at 1

Council customer service

MPs allowances published

mapping B29: our view

B29 street names

European elections - results

Tories:

UKIP:

Labour:

Lib Dems:

battery demolition

Google map of the Birmingham B29 postcode area

How many Mbps please: how fast is your broadband in B29?

European Elections - celebrity battles

birminghamB29 twitter group

pricing democracy

Flood Action

more bizarre weather #b29

religious doorsteppers in B29

B29 games map

spring sprung

B29 snow

Going to party like it's B29?

where post please?

Latest flood missive from BCC

B29 tortoise walk EDIT now starting at 1