Jordan

Some lovely installations for BrumPark(ing)Day showcasing how much more valuable parking spaces are when they’re places to meet and socialise.

Imagine if we closed half of Caroline Street to traffic and spread the greenery and the public space along its whole length

Some lovely installations for BrumPark(ing)Day showcasing how much more valuable parking spaces are when they’re places to meet and socialise.

Imagine if we closed half of Caroline Street to traffic and spread the greenery and the public space along its whole length

Let's go!

It's now 74,000.

Membership rising fast 🚀

Join.greenparty.org.uk

At the Sustainable Mobility Conference in Barcelona, I spoke about a critical modern challenge: urban obesity.
Cities stretched by sprawl, scattered functions, and decades of car-centric design.
Mobility must now serve a different ideal — proximity, equity, and human connection.

“You have to get out of bed in the morning and sometimes for that you need delusion.”

#RadicalOptimism?

This & the rape last week in Oldbury should be national news but will be ignored by newspapers too excited at the thought they might get to play at being court press for fascists

It’s this sort of development over the last 30 years that has destroyed British high streets. Drive to the Lidl, buy everything, drive home, ignore the local shops.

This needs 4 storeys of apartments on top and minimal parking to suit its location. Otherwise it should be refused.

This is a sustainable location but it is not sustainable development.

Just because the location is sustainable doesn’t automatically make whatever you build in it sustainable, whether that’s a surface car park and a big Lidl on a high street or a coal mine next to a bus stop.

Another attempt by Lidl to turn Northfield into an American strip mall.

Unsustainable, single storey, congestion causing ugliness. It conflicts with plans for an A38 cycle route and I’ll let you decide how convincing this ‘local distinctiveness’ claim is.

Objections encouraged. 2025/04646/PA

With increased frequency or express tram services between interchange/airport via passing tracks around intermediate stops it would have been part of a better integrated network and be delivered in time for HS2 opening.

It would also be far more valuable to the development of Arden Cross.

The automated people mover between HS2’s interchange station and Bham Airport/Station is a waste of time.

Given the timescales involved development and funding could have been directed to expediting the East Bham tram and extending it all the way to the interchange station.

Looking forward to this, although given how many architecture practices have offices in the JQ it’s disappointing that more of them aren’t taking part.

Road space reallocation for more green space is essential to ensure the JQ grows and thrives. Get involved.

FINALLY

A scheme that makes streets safer is only ‘divisive’ to people who are intent on making streets more dangerous.

A city the size of Brum should have had a tram network like GM’s Metrolink AND an underground/metro like T&W decades ago…

Cyclists queue up on embankment

This photo shows 58 cyclists and just two cars.

MPs looking out of their window today will see a steady flow of people cycling, some for the first time in a while, given confidence to do so with quality infrastructure.

Just over 10 years ago there wasn’t even a cycle lane here.

If you want to know why Italy’s economy has overtaken the UK’s.

When it opens in 2026, Bologna will have built a tram system bigger than the WM’s network in just 7 years.

Sprint, touted as easier and faster to deliver than trams, was announced in 2014. The vehicles still haven’t been ordered.

At this point not a single person will vote for Labour because they’ve frozen fuel duty.

Labour won’t lose any votes if they unfreeze it either, but many more people would vote for Labour if the billions of £s made available from unfreezing it was spent on public services.

*Apparently since a 2013 decision by the flag institute, Union Jack is fine irrespective of where it’s flown. You learn something new every day. Shame to ruin such a pithy remark though.

Reform-style gutter politics offering nothing but plastic flags, in fact worse than nothing as it’s preventing essential upgrades.

Also it’s called the Union Flag, not the Union Jack, unless you’re at sea, which I suppose the Tories are.

Bham Tories whinging about flags being removed to perform essential street lighting upgrades.

Anything attached to lampposts has to be removed so they can be upgraded.

This transparently cynical politicking is tantamount to them opposing upgrades to street lighting to make streets safer, particularly for women, at night.

Find them all here: www.birminghambeheard.org.uk

Birmingham City Council have now launched their parking charges consultations for a number of parks in the city.

Please support them. It’s about time we ended the scandal of using taxpayer money to subside drivers at the expense of everyone else.

You should pay to store your car on our parks.

One of the most unheralded parts of making streets safer for children is the amount of time it frees up for parents.

And one final thought: Ozzy going out after giving an emotional final performance that raised a ton of money for charity is more spiritually uplifting and did more genuine good than anything any televangelist and religious grifter who railed against him ever did combined.

A screenshot of a tweet in which the leader of BCC suggests that court injunctions are an effective means of tackling street cruising on roads that are designed for speed rather than safety.

It’s been 356 days since a road safety emergency was declared.

The cabinet member has made no progress on any recommended action. The healthy streets audit hasn’t been released.

The Cllr who established this at scrutiny has been deselected.

The injunction does nothing.

Rail passenger numbers have been released for 2023-2024 and as predicted by literally everyone who knows anything about transport, they have already surpassed pre-Covid figures.

Birmingham’s passenger growth second only to London.

Have your say on early designs for key city centre gateway | City Of Wolverhampton Council Wolverhampton Council is asking for your views on early design options for a key city centre gateway.

Wolverhampton are very quietly and without much fuss delivering superb public realm improvements that are now starting to break through their ring road to create green, liveable and loveable streets. Support the proposals here 👇 www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/news/have-yo...

These proposals are good, be sure to show your support and complete the consultation here: www.birminghambeheard.org.uk/bcc/a38-cycl...

Massive Labour shakeup in Birmingham as party pushes out veteran councillors Birmingham's Labour Group found out today if they have been selected today to stand in 2026 with some shocks

I left the Labour Party today.

We had a leader imposed on us. Now those with vision & ability are being purged for loyal incompetents & idea-free careerists.

They would rather hand the city to extremists & fascists than councillors they can’t control.

insidebirmingham.substack.com/p/massive-la...