Local charities and community groups in the Northfield area have the opportunity to apply for funding between £500 and £20,000 raised by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery. Today the latest funding rounds for the People’s Postcode Trust, Postcode Local Trust and Postcode Community Trust have opened for applications. Between 14 and 28 February 2018, charities are being urged to submit an...
Residents living close to North Worcestershire Golf Course will know that in August 2017 a renewed application by Bloor Homes to build 950 homes on the site of the old golf course was rejected by Birmingham City Council. Bloor Homes have now lodged an appeal with the government, in an attempt to overturn this decision If you submitted comments to Birmingham City Council when the planning...
Government funding to Birmingham City Council has been cut by almost £650 million since 2010. This is the biggest cut in local government history and is more than 75 per cent of the City Council’s current net budget. To make matters worse, due to unfairness in the way local government funding has been allocated by the Conservative Government, Birmingham is £100 million a year worse off than if...
I have been concerned by the damage that has been caused to the grassed areas of ‘Daffodil Park’, which runs alongside the River Rea and cycle route, off Tessall Lane. This has been caused by emergency repair works being undertaken by Network Rail, in liaison with Birmingham City Council and the Environment Agency, on the River Rea to prevent the river from impacting on the railway. Several...
Welcome to my latest Parliamentary newsletter. In my first newsletter since Christmas and the New Year, let me wish you all a Happy New Year. Space prevents the newsletter covering all of what I have been doing over the past month. However, hopefully it provides a flavour of some of the local issues I have taken up as well as my actions in Parliament. You’ll find updates on food banks, community...
The End Child Poverty coalition has today published figures providing a new Child Poverty map of the UK. The figures reveal that more than half of all children in the UK’s very poorest areas are now growing up in poverty – compared to one in ten, in the areas with the lowest child poverty rates. In Northfield 34% of children are living in poverty and four constituencies in Birmingham feature in...
I was Labour Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield between 1992 and 2019 and a former Shadow Transport Minister. I now chair Healthwatch in Birmingham and Solihull, and the West Midlands Board of Remembering Srebrenica. I also work as a public affairs consultant. I am an effective community advocate and stakeholder alliance builder with a passion for human rights. I am a trustee of the Balfour Project charity and of Citizens Advice Birmingham, and a former Chair of Medical Aid for Palestinians.