The Chamberlain News’ estimate that there are about 5,000 Labour members in Birmingham who will have an opportunity to select the party’s candidate to run for turns out to have been a tad optimistic.
Insiders reacted to last week’s blog with mutterings of “if only, if only”.
Birmingham Council House
Birmingham’s Tory housing chief John Lines has taken steps to show his softer side as a political row rumbles on about his suitability to become Lord Mayor in May.
Right-winger Lines has often been accused by Labour of not doing enough to help homeless people, but he hit back by announcing a rescue
Birmingham Airport
A £100 million contract to build Birmingham Airport’s long-awaited runway extension and carry out major improvements to the A45 is expected to be approved within weeks.
Fourteen construction firms that initially expressed an interest in the project have been whittled down to a shortlist of four, the city council cabinet was told.
This is Digbeth High Street of Digbeth as viewed from a platform in Selfridges in Birmingham, England. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The precise location of Birmingham’s Enterprise Zones has become clearer following the publication of detailed maps showing where new businesses will be able to set up without having to obtain planning permission.
City council planners are applying for fast-track (LDOs) to much of Digbeth and the whole of Birmingham Science Park Aston.
The LDOs cut across normal regulations by allowing entrepreneurs, start-up companies and established firms to change the use of buildings without having to go through the time-consuming and costly process of applying for planning approval.
The council says its aim is to create hundreds of jobs by encouraging the growth of financial services, creative, digital media and ICT businesses in Digbeth and at the science park.
Island House
Birmingham’s huge Eastside regeneration scheme has something of a reputation for playing fast and loose with conservation, which is hardly surprising given the number of old industrial buildings that have been flattened to make way for new development.
And the latest change-versus-heritage battle has all the ingredients necessary to end up in a long and costly legal battle for Birmingham City Council.
Members of the Planning Committee are determined to save , an Edwardian former office block and warehouse which has been empty and derelict for several years.
Island House is just about the only building remaining between Millennium Point and Fazeley Street, but developers Quintain say it must come down because
Image by djmcaleese via Flickr
The Liverpool Daily Post confirms today that the city’s council is planning to move directly to an elected mayor model in May, rather than wait for the results of a referendum.
The Post says the change of heart by council leader Joe Anderson came about after negotiations with the Chancellor George Osborne and cities minister Greg Clark, who offered up a £75m ‘Mayor’s fund’ which Anderson said would be used on scholl improvements.
Councils are able to choose an elected mayor model under current legislation if two thirds of councillors vote in favour. Liverpool is planning a vote in early February to confirm the move.
Read the full report .
St Chad's Cathedral
As a money-making wheeze, it seemed foolproof – even by Birmingham City Council’s standards.
The hard-up local authority is desperate for cash. It has to find about £400 million in Government-imposed public spending cuts by 2015.
Nothing, surely, could go wrong with a proposition to raise money by selling advertising space on the many prominent city
The absence of any significant figure from Birmingham’s ethnic communities entering the race to become the city’s first elected mayor has been commented on a number of times.
It simply doesn’t look good in a city where most of the population won’t be white in about 15 years.
But could this lack of interest be about to change in a most dramatic way?
Former city council legal boss Dr is refusing to rule out the possibility
Mike Whitby
It is symptomatic of the way that Birmingham has failed to debate the matter of an elected mayor in any convincing sense that the most influential gathering to discuss the issue to date was organised by the business community, rather than the city’s political leadership.
The Chamber of Commerce finally came off the fence and proclaimed its backing for a mayor in the presence of Local Government Minister , Tory grandee Lord Heseltine, former Labour cabinet member Lord Adonis and the elected mayor of Leicester, .
It is true that there are still concerns about the powers a mayor of Birmingham will get, and the extent to which strong Government hints about devolving Whitehall budgets will actually be delivered, but the Chamber’s council of members voted overwhelmingly to campaign for a mayor.
They were joined by fellow business organisation Birmingham Forward, which is also backing a mayor providing sufficient powers are forthcoming from the Government.
Where when this was all happening was the leader of Birmingham City Council, Mike Whitby?
Amongst an avalanche of coverage for all things elected mayoral this morning from The Times to Radio WM, Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham broke cover to declare that he is more than prepared to run for mayor – but only of the West Midlands.
He told BBC local radio that if there was a role of ‘Metro Mayor’ covering not just Birmingham but much of the West Midlands, then he would “consult with the unemployed, the ethnic community and the wealthy” to put together a mayoral bid.
