Roger Harmer

I’ve been told that the Fox Hollies Community Association were successful in winning the public POCA (Proceeds of Crime Act) Vote and will therefore get £12,000 of cash, confiscated from criminals, to:

• Improve the internal features of Fox Hollies Forum,
• Undertake a consultation with the local community and
• Set up a safety hub.

This is great news for the Association and the many residents of Acocks Green who use the Forum.

Many thanks to everyone who voted and well done to the members of the Association for submitting the winning bid.

Today (Sunday 22 January 2012) there was a well attended street meeting outside Acocks Green Police Station to discuss the issues raised in my recent post (see January 17th). This photo was taken immediately after the meeting:

As the Focus Group say in their post on the meeting, it was great to see members of the local community and representatives of the three main political parties, including all of the locally elected representatives attending. While narrow party advantage can sometimes drive the actions of political activists, it is also important to recognise that we often, as in this case, have to put party division to one side and work together for the good of Acocks Green.

In part, the meeting confirmed the points I made in my previous post – in particular that:

• Nothing has yet been decided and there will be wide consultation with the local community before the key decisions are made
• Whatever is done, Acocks Green will retain a Police Station, with the current opening hours, as a base for our Neighbourhood Policing Team
• The money, which has now been allocated, is due to be spent in 2014/15 – so we do have time to influence the Authority

One fact that was new to me was that part of the Police Station used to consist of flats for Police Officers. This throws open an interesting option of re-converting that section of the Station back to flats and sell them, or rent them out, to generate income and reduce the overall cost of the Station. The rest of the Station could then be modernised for police use without the financial burden of the spare space that the building currently has.

Cllr Jones stated that the Authority were keen to look at a more central location in Acocks Green Village – however its clear that no site has yet been identified and I suspect it will be hard to find a suitable site. He also said that the views of the Police Officers serving in the Station would be taken into account when deciding the best way forward, which is encouraging and it will be interesting to hear their views in the coming weeks.

There will be many more meetings on this issue in the weeks to come. I will keep posting on this important issue as the story develops and welcome comments and views from across the community, either on the posts themselves, or direct to my email address – roger@rogerharmer.net

Total UK Unemployment rose by 118,000 in the three months to November reaching 2.69m. The number of people in work also rose slightly – by 18,000 in the same period to 29.12m; a welcome rise, but not nearly enough to accommodate the growing workforce. Meanwhile average weekly earnings rose by 1.9% over the past year.

Claimant unemployment rose by a seasonally adjusted 1,200 in December to reach 1.597m. In Birmingham the rise was 379 taking the total to 51,747 or 12.8% of the workforce. This remains the highest of the core cities, with Manchester, Nottingham and Liverpool a little lower, whereas Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol and London have significantly lower levels.

Ward based unemployment figures are available only in unadjusted totals and show Acocks Green had a rise of 15 in December to 1,230 or 10.9%, which compares with a rise of 169 to 51,106 or 12.6% across Birmingham as a whole. On an annual basis Acocks Green has seen a rise of 44, or 0.4% compared with a rise of 1.3% across Birmingham.

A £2.3m modernisation of Acocks Green Police Station is being proposed by a report going to the West Midlands Police Authority (WMPA) on Thursday (19th January). The report which led to headlines in today’s Birmingham Mail (focussing mainly on the possible closure of Steelhouse Lane Police Station in the city centre), which alarmingly seemed to imply that Acocks Green Police Station may close. As a result Councillor Bowen and myself made some quick checks with the Police Authority to get to the bottom of what is being proposed. It quickly became clear that closure is not an option. Instead a variety of possible developments to replace or modernise the police station are on the cards.

The report going to the WMPA is rather bland on the proposals for Acocks Green. It states:

Yesterday evening’s Acocks Green Ward Committee was a relatively quick meeting with only two substantive items on the agenda.

The first was the usual look at current planning applications in the Ward. Of these the most contentious is the self styled “Regeneration of Tyseley” known to most residents as the Asda option in the battle of the supermarkets (with Morrisons having an a planning application in for the site by Spring Road Station). The main problem with this particular application is the poor transport (especially public transport) links to the supermarket site which will be accessed off Olton Boulevard West (near the Reddings Lane end). Councillor Bowen was particularly scathing of the claim in the application that the site is served by three railway stations – as none of the three are within sensible walking distance for someone with heavy shopping bags. The developers will be invited to attend the next Ward Committee to make their case, giving them equality of treatment with Morrisons, who gave a presentation at the November Ward Committee.

Apart from that there were briefer dicussion on the plans to turn the old Brit pub on the Warwick Road into a used car sales plot (the Committee were happy with this subject to proper landscaping of the site), the proposal to turn 42 Flint Green Road back into offices after its unconsumated dalliance with being a domestic dwelling (the Committee expressed concern about the amount of car parking available after the development of the new houses on the rear of the site) and the proposal to turn 41 Yardley Road into a dwelling house (formerly a shop) which the Committee was happy with in principle, but asked that the former facade of the building be restored.

The other main item was Community Chest  – much of which has already been spent for the current financial year (the total budget is £100k) but a couple of grants were given; £2,000 to St Michael’s Day Centre and £549 to the Friend’s Community Centre.

In other business, the Committee made three appointments; Cllr Bowen to the Business Improvement District Board, Cllr Stacey to the Acocks Green Community Funding Group and I was appointed to the Board of the Charles Lane Trust, which manages the shelterd accommodation at the junction of Fox Hollies Road and School Road.

The next Acocks Green Ward Committee meeting will be a Oaklands Primary School at 7pm on Wednesday 7th March.

The Planning Committee are to carry out a site visit to the end of Francis Road which is subject to a planning application (2011/06797/PA) for 10 x 2 bed houses, on the land between the last of the houses on the road and the canal. I believe this proposed development is over-intensive (too many homes for the size of the plot), which means the houses have very little amenity space, so it is good to see that the Committee have decided they want to see the site for themselves before making a decision. The site visit will take place on Thursday 26th January at 1.20pm.

As I said in my entry of 5th January, I am concerned that someone is submitting thousands of entries for the Lea Hall / Garrets Green entry in the Proceeds of Crime Act vote in the Yardley Constituency – to the detriment of the Acocks Green entry, which would provide much needed funding for the Fox Hollies Community Association project at the Fox Hollies Forum. Currently the Lea Hall / Garrets Green project is winning decisively, despite the Acocks Green project having a very impressive 1,659 votes

I have now received the following response from the police, which confirms that the current running totals do not filter out multiple votes from one computer and that this will be done before the result is declared. The 1,000 votes all submitted for the Lea Hall entry in a two hour period on the 20th December (together with many others) should therefore be eliminated before deciding the result. What is frustrating is we will have no real idea who is actually winning until this is done, so please keep spreading the message and getting more genuine votes until the vote closes on 15 January!

This is the message I have received from Stechford Police:

‘Our voting web page clearly states that “Votes shown are an indication only; multiple votes from the same IP address will be discounted.”

This is the first time that a public vote like this has been undertaken in the West Midlands and Birmingham East Police are a pilot LPU for this new voting system. 

This voting process is an excellent way for us to engage with our communities and a unique opportunity to give people in east Birmingham a say on how we spend this money in their community.

All of the projects will benefit the community, providing youth services, tackling anti-social behaviour and helping provide a safer environment for residents and businesses.

We have encountered a slight limitation with the voting software, which means that some people are able to vote more than once from the same IP address.  They have managed to do this by clearing the cookies from their machine and casting another vote.  

This will not affect the voting polls.  Please rest assured that when the voting ends, multiple votes from the same IP address will be discounted to ensure a fair voting process.

As a pilot LPU, we will be able to identify any issues that arise during the voting process and put in place steps to prevent this from happening in any future polls.’

Tesco has recently announced that their Open Recruitment application process for their new Yardley store with start on Monday 9th January.

If you wish to apply follow the following steps:

1) Go to www.tesco-careers.com and look on the right for a hyperlink called ‘Find out about working in store’ and click on it.

2)  Under ‘Search’, type ‘Yardley’

3) You should now see the job adverts specific to the Yardley store

4) After reading the job advert and terms click on the ‘Apply Now’ link towards the bottom of the page.

5) Answer the questions you are asked in the online questionnaire, which will now appear.

Please note:

A) For each advert you must read the criteria around Shift Patterns and Flexible Working before applying. You should only apply if you can work to the criteria stated within the advert.

B) The online questionnaire is a screening process and you will be required to achieve a high mark before being selected to attend an interview.

Good luck if you decide to apply!

January’s full Ward Police Tasking meeting took place at Lakey Lane Primary School yesterday evening (Wednesday 5th Jan). It was a well attended meeting, despite the rain and wind. The police officers in attendance were Sgt Dave Mirams, PC Matt Dartnell and PCSO Hayley Tierney.

Once again Sgt Mirams had good news to report on crime figures – there was a big effort to reduce burglary over Christmas after a rise last year and so far it has been rewarded by a 73% fall from December 2010 to December 2011. Total crime in Acocks Green year on year is – as of yesterday – down 28%; a very substantial fall, which seems to be accelerating. Lloyd House gave us lower figures of a 9.4% fall, as their latest analysed figure, and we have used this on our current newsletter, but if the current trend is maintained, it seems there will soon be even better figures to report.

Discussion at the meeting included concern about scrap metal theft, which continues to be a problem in the area, with roof lead and other metal from public open spaces being particularly vulnerable.

The Proceeds of Crime Act vote was discussed, with another plea to vote for the Acocks Green project at Fox Hollies Forum. This is currently coming second but I have concerns that the project currently in the lead has benefitted from automatic voting as it secured around a thousand votes (nearly half its total) votes between 2.30pm and 4.22pm on 20th December alone. Sgt Mirams has agreed to look into this.

This was Sgt Mirams’ last Acocks Green Tasking meeting before he moves on to his new posting. The next meeting (on Monday 13th February at the Scout Hut on Spring Road at 7pm) will be hosted by our new Sgt, Mark Fellows. Sgt Mirams confirmed that this will be the only staffing change amongst the Acocks Green Neighbourhood Policing team, which is great news as its clear from the falling crime figures that they are doing a very good job for our community.

I’ve had a couple of important notes about the routine weekly rubbish collection in the past few days.

First is an apology for the delays some residents are experiencing in having their rubbish collected. This is the text of a press release the Council have issued:

“Birmingham City Council would like to apologise for the problems experienced with refuse and recycling collection over the Christmas Bank Holidays and would ask the public to bear with us as we endeavour to catch up with any missed collections over the next few days.

This is due to the much higher than normal volumes of waste and recycling following Christmas. If your waste or recycling is not collected please leave it on the edge of your property and we will get to it as soon as we can. Collections will continue over the weekend where the regular collection has not taken place this week.’”

I have asked that those areas affected in Acocks Green get swept thouroughly after the rubbish is finally collected as inevitably there will be more spillage from rubbish left out over several days.

The other news is that the move to ward based collection of the refuse and recyclate will come to Acocks Green from Monday 9th January 2012 onwards. This means Acocks Green will have its own dedicated refuse /recycling crews (in the past crews worked all over the city from day to day) which will improve accountability and allow for greater co-ordination between the refuse / recycling and the dedicated street cleansing already working in the ward. The change in the way the collection is organised does mean that collection days will change for some residents and the normal time of day of the collections may also be different. By the time the new system comes in each resident should have received a postcard informing them of their new collection day – if you haven’t had yours let me know your address and I can tell you which day you will have your refuse and recyclate collected.