With the General and Council elections in full swing here in Acocks Green, Hall Green and Tyseley, there have been updates on two of the issues that particularly important to people: Crime and jobs.

The crime figures figures for Acocks Green ward show a year on year fall of 4.9% in the year to the end of March. These are encouraging figures as they represent a fall on top of previous improvements. Early figures from April do show a rise, largely caused by one incident of damage to cars (recorded as several seperate crimes) as someone vandalised a number of cars parked on the way to the Village one evening earlier this month. There has also been a, hopefully, short-term pick up in burglaries in the Gospel Estate, which the police are working hard to resolve.

Following the recent arrival of Trevor Orton, our new Neighbourhood Policing Sergeant, we also now have a new Inspector, covering Yardley. His name is Dave Keen and he introduced himself to us at yesterday’s Tier 2 meeting at Acocks Green Police Station. While changes in police personnel are never ideal, Dave knows the patch well having been brought up in Acocks Green.

On jobs, the good news continues with claimant unemployment in Acocks Green ward falling to 669 in March. This represents a fall of  26 on the month and 298 over the past year. As a % the claimant rate now stands at 5.2% in Acocks Green. Long term unemployment now stands at 250, a fall of 15 on the month and youth unemployment also fell 15 in March to stand at 120.