Monthly Archives: June 2013
Is the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP a Cohesive Partnership?
I had the pleasure of attending the AGM of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP this week at the Villa ground. Despite the poor news unleashed by the Chancellor concerning the relative small size of the Local Growth budget it was generally an upbeat event with a lot of positivity and good news about the […]
A435 Corridor: Connected Communities of Maypole, Kings Heath, Moseley, Balsall Heath and Digbeth #Birmingham
I have been thinking about this corridor as I regularly walk, catch a bus and drive up and down it. I think the time has come for a radical approach to the whole corridor. Moseley is currently working on its local plan but what is needed and has been discussed is a wider vision linking […]
European Funding Allocations announced in England: London a clear winner @globalbirminghm
In a statement today the Government has announced the notional allocations of ERDF and ESF for England’s LEP’s. The figures can be seen here So for Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP the allocation is €255m which equates to roughly £220m. This with the announcement yesterday for the LEP’s of £2bn annually in the Single Local Growth […]
Why Cities Should Act Internationally
The recent release of Birmingham’s new European and International Strategy reminded me that for so long international work of cities has been under attack for wasting resources. So much so that Cities are often reluctant to sing about their international work. In the world of openness we live almost all of the international activity is […]
Art Attack: Stolen Images as public art is vandalised
It is a great shame that in one creative area where Birmingham truly leads; namely the street display of photography this has suffered theft and vandalism. What seems clear is that the person or persons who did this valued in someway the images as they were stolen and not defaced. So why has this happened? […]
Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP MP’s Call for Heseltine’s Plan to be Implemented @gbslep
In a letter sent recently a cross party group of MP’s from constituencies in the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP call on the Chancellor George Osborne to deliver on the Heseltine Plan. They point to the confident start of the LEP, and its already proven ability to deliver and call for in particular the plans […]
It is makey makey time at #BirminghamMadeMe. A Hackathon for Non Techies. Honest!
Birmingham Made Me takes a different tack on Wednesday 19th June. Far from the standard works of a design and innovation conference; this session is a hands on approach to innovation. Have you ever heard of makey makey; neither had I ….well take a look at this video. It is an approach developed at MIT […]
Local Infrastructure Funding for Birmingham: Positives and Negatives
The announcement recently by Eric Pickles of Local Infrastructure funding loans from the Housing and Communities Agency for three projects in Birmingham’s Enterprise Zone is good news. The three projects that have won resources from the fund are; Masshouse – Funding will partly be spent on creating an attractive public square. Arena Central – Funding will […]
Boris Launches His Vision for London 2020: lessons for Birmingham
Boris Johnson launched his vision for London yesterday (details here) gaining significant press and twitter coverage . In skim reading it it leapt out at me that this sort of summary overview; this distillation of objectives is what is missing certainly in Birmingham and possibly other cities. Now the document might be a little too […]
#BirminghamMadeMe: Today a fascinating session looking at Design and Economic Growth with The CEO of the Design Council
Birmingham Made Me continues. Tomorrow I am attending a session largely focussed on transportation but the line up is very strong today with John Mathers from the Design Council, Irene Ng from Warwick University and Benjamin Reid from the Work Foundation amongst a range of speakers looking at Design and Innovation and its role in […]
UrbanPivot 