Category Birmingham
European Funding in the West Midlands 2014-20
I thought it was worth sharing my presentation to the West Midlands Economic Forum’s event on ‘Financial Flows’. My presentation was on European Funding in the West Midlands. After all the doom and gloom it turns out when you add the figures up the initial allocations to the region are 18% higher that in the […]
Greater Birmingham: The Name is not the main Game
In the wake of Evan Davies’s series ‘Mind the Gap‘ on London and its pre-eminence in the UK there has been much debate in Birmingham about the city particularly when yet again a poll carried out for the TV programme found that Manchester was viewed by many in the UK as the second city. There […]
Birmingham City Council gets more Strategic
One of the focuses of this blog is to document strategies and plans arising from the Council. Why do I do this? Well after having worked for many years for the Council I was acutely aware that there was little internal debate about the coherence and delivery of these strategies and little debate about their […]
Cycling Copenhagen Style in Birmingham
This title is drawn from the recent press release (here) from Birmingham City Council outlining a new survey and reporting system to document peoples views on cycling in the city and progress in encouraging more of us to cycle on a biennial basis. It wants to emulate an approach put in place in Copenhagen – […]
Smart Spaces – Smart Energy Bills
I came across a press release from Birmingham City Council today with a podcast outlining its involvement in a project called SmartSpaces. This is of interest to me because it is about energy saving in public buildings and it is funded through Europe. For the specialists amongst you it is funded through the CIP ICT […]
Life and Death of Smart And Green Birmingham
Intriguing title eh? Well this blog post is all about the ambition of Birmingham to become a Smart Green City. We have heard much about this in the last year as we have had strategy, visions and roadmaps launched. The latest being the Carbon Road Map that I briefly reviewed here. We await the latest […]
Birmingham’s Carbon Road Map – launched – Well done Birmingham City Council
I haven’t got time to do a full review, but as it is a very important document for the City and it has come out today I have literally skim read it. (Download it here) It does look very promising. Whilst it is good to look at, ie up to coffee table standard it is […]
Closure of the A38 tunnels; the City coped well – so lets think longer term
I don’t avidly look at reports produced by Birmingham City Council but what are interesting sometimes are the reports presented to the Overview and Scrutiny panels. I came across an interesting one today; a report on how well the city’s transportation system had coped with the closure in the summer of the A38 tunnels. Now […]
Birmingham’s Mobility Action Plan – Wow what a Game Changer!
I have waited quite a time for this plan but the wait has been worthwhile. It is perhaps the most fundamental change in thinking this city has proposed in the last 30 years – ever since the city centre regeneration work got under way. So what is so radical about it. Well for once it […]
Photography and Cities
Well to be honest Stockholm and Birmingham but this could apply elsewhere. I recently came back from Stockholm where outside of work I discovered Fotografiska – a wonderful photography gallery in a converted dockside warehouse which was packed with visitors even though it was way of the beaten track. It is a bit like the […]
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