A Community We're Proud of

Here you can find the latest status reports on my campaigns to make Hodge Hill a community we’re proud of. For my blueprint on what we need to do read my Hodge Hill manifesto, ‘Building a Community We’re Proud Of’.

You can download Liam's community plan here

The community plan covers 8 areas. Click on the heading that interests you to go straight to the latest news.

1. FIGHTING ANTI SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
2. MAKING HODGE HILL THE BEST PLACE TO BE A YOUNG PERSON
3. THE BEST SCHOOLS IN BIRMINGHAM
4. IMPROVING HEALTH IN HODGE HILL
5. BETTER TRANSPORT, SAFER ROADS, MORE PARKING
6. DECENT HOMES FOR ALL
7. REGENERATION OF LOCAL SHOPPING CENTRES
8. A CLEANER NEIGHBOURHOOD

Liam is campaigning for the early introduction of Police Community Support Officers in every neighbourhood of every ward in Hodge Hill constituency.

Liam's office handed a petition into last weeks Hodge Hill District Strategic Partnership meeting. You can still show your support for Liam's campaign, by clicking on the police badge below, and emailing Liam directly.

Liam wants a visible, neighbourhood police team in every part of Hodge Hill, tougher action on drugs and zero tolerance of anti-social behaviour.

We are building on an increase in action on yobs of more than 300 per cent during Liam's first 9 months. Now he is targetting a 15 per cent cut in crime.

• Held a youth conference in every secondary school in the constituency

• Compiled a dossier of all funding streams available for local groups. Click here for a copy or see www.governmentfunding.org.uk for more details.

• Liam held an 'Investors Day ' for voluntary groups who run activities for young people. The event aims to introduce groups to funders. The event is on 30th March 2006, and funders already confirmed include:
  • The Birmingham Foundation
  • The Big Lottery Fund
  • Awards for All
  • Connexxions
  • The Arts Council WM
  • Scarman Trust
• There will also be expert advice on hand from
  • BVSC
  • CO-Enterprise Birmingham

• Using the results gathered in youth conferences around the constituency, Liam will produce a 'Youth Manifesto' outlining Hodge Hill youth's priorities for things to do

• Liam is working with Hodge Hill School on their application for the next round of bids to become a specialist school in Sports & Enterprise

• Following the Chancellor's announcement of a new challenge fund to reward innovative ideas of our young people, Liam has promised to encourage Hodge Hill's next generation to shape our community with their imagination.

Liam wants local secondary school exam results to meet the national average - and more places provided at local schools and nursersies.

• Liam launched a survey of schools across the constituency to find out how many extra places are needed. His results found that Washwood Heath and Hodge Hill both have a lack of places, while Shard End has a suplus.
  • Liam has called on the council to do more to provide schools in areas close to where children live.
  • Liam has called on council departments to communicate more effectively to ensure areas of housing clearance are notified when planning future educational need.

• Liam is working with Hodge Hill Girls' school on fundraising plans in order to become a specialist school. Liam will be running the Stratford Half Marathon with members of his staff to raise sponsorship money for the school.

• Liam supported Washwood Heath Technology College in their bid for a new sports facility backed by the Football Foundation

• Liam is working with schools in the Hodge Hill extended schools cluster to ensure the areas young people get the most of this new inititiative.

• Liam's office have organised trips for infant, junior and secondary schools down to the Houses of Parliament for a tour of the building.

• Liam's office have worked to support the efforts of Mrs Herrick and the Colebourne Pre School team, to ensure that Hodge Hill's pre schoolers have a unique facility in years to come.

• Liam is working with parents and schools to address bullying in school

• Liam is looking at ways to harness money from Central Government for use in bringing Birmingham school buildings into the 21st century.

• Liam is looking at ways to bring enterprise education, and other new skills into schools in Hodge Hill

• Liam is looking into establishing mentoring networks across schools in Hodge Hill. If you would be interested in establishing such a scheme, please contact Matt in Liam's office

• Liam is working with Aim Higher, and local schools to encourage as many of our young people as possible to consider going to university.

Liam's main focus is to improve the primary care service available to constituents. This includes a winning a massive (£8 million) in extra funding for local doctors, which Liam is now battling to pay for new health centres in Washwood Heath, Hodge Hill and Shard End.

As with all sorts of business negotiations, land sales take time to get right. The PCT are working to deliver value for money on land sales across Birmingham. Liam is working with them to ensure that deals are completed as quickly as possible.

As a Health Minister, Liam is also helping to deliver record sums of money for adult social care in Birmingham.

• Liam successfully lobbied Health Minister John Reid MP for £7.5 million to build a new health centre in Alum Rock. That money is ring fenced, and will be used just as soon as we can find a suitable site.

• Liam launched a campaign to stop the council negotiating with private developers for retail use of the site.

• Following complications with the original deal on the site, Liam has been crucial in bringing the site owner, PCT, and council together to produce a deal

• Liam is campaigning for a new health centre to serve the Bromford and the Firs.

• Health chiefs have agreed the need - and are now looking to identify a suitable site

• Liam handed Birmingham City Council a credit for £34.7 million to spend on four new centres for older people, one of which is in Hodge Hill. The money will be used to fund the capital costs of the centres.

• The PCT thought they had secured a site at Cliffe Drive. Unfortunately they were outbid by an offer from an electricity company.

• Liam is working with Shard End Councillor Ian Ward to improve access to teenage pregnancy services in the ward.

Transport is a big issue for people in Hodge Hill. Despite being just minutes away from the city centre in Washwood Heath, the City Centre can be much more difficult to get to from the Bromford. The situation has been made worse over the past few months with the news that several local bus services have been slashed by Travel West Midlands to boost profits.

Road safety is a massive issue for many local residents. A number of terrible accidents have shown that our streets need safety measures to stop them being treated like a race track.

The constituency also suffers from a lack of parking. Alum Rock Road is a unique shopping experience in Birmingham, but a lack of parking spaces means that traders are losing out.

In residential areas, parking is also a problem. In Ward End particularly, grass verges are being destroyed by drivers parking illegally.

• Liam demanded top level meetings with bosses from Travel West Midlands in response to the re routing of the 26 & 92 services.
  • Travel West Midlands gave Liam a guarantee that the re-routed 26 & 92 service, and the 693 service would be reviewed.

• Liam lobbied hard to deliver the Inner City Safety Demonstration Project - a £2m scheme funded by the Government to improve road safety in hot spot areas.
  • Projects are designed by local people - aiming to get to the heart of the problem.
  • Liam has passed comments from his residents' meetings to council officials to feed into the process.
  • Improvements to roads around Ward End & Saltley should be implemented soon.

• Liam spoke in Parliament and sat at the Committee stage of the Road Safety Bill.
• The Prime Minister backed Liam’s campaign for tougher penalties for killer drivers. New laws introduced soon include:
  • Addressing bad or irresponsible driving, whether it is drink driving, speeding or carelessness. There are also more effective penalties as well as the availability of retraining courses.
  • Measures dealing with motorists who break the law by driving without insurance or using a vehicle that is unroadworthy.
  • Measures making it more difficult for foreign drivers to escape penalties for a specific range of driving offences in the UK, and:
  • Measures to raise driving standards and improve awareness on the roads through better education and training of drivers

• Liam demanded a meeting with transport chiefs at Birmingham City Council to discuss the parking situation in Hodge Hill. At the meeting, the council admitted
  • they didn’t even know how many new parking spaces are needed in the ward—a task which Liam and his team are preparing to take on themselves.
  • that very little parking enforcement is taking place to keep verges safe – despite it being a civil offence – and a responsibility of local government to enforce

• Liam has managed to get Travel West Midland to agree to trial the 693 route service.
  • Liam will also be asking for a review of the services cut at the end of last year.

• Liam will be working with residents over the next few weeks to ensure that road safety plans get their full backing

• Liam constantly adds residents views to the council's transport document governing policy in the area.

• Liam and his team are about to conduct an audit of parking needs across the constituency.

• Liam is calling on greater parking enforcement, and for PCSOs to be given powers to enfore parking restrictions.
  • Liam is also looking into the possibility of residents parking permits schemes where that receives popular support.

• Liam is calling on Ministers to bring legislation in early that would allow authorities the ability to conduct remote parking enforcement.

Council homes in the constituency are in need of a huge boost in funding. But the Tory-Liberal council plan to upgrade houses by selling land is overly risky and full of gaps.

You can read more about the risks involved in the councils business plan for housing here, and an independent report criticising the council's plans here.

Liam and local councillors would like to see the creation of a local housing association in Shard End so that local people have control of their own futures.

Liam wants to act now to avoid tenants being locked into a plan the council cannot afford without being locked into cutting services, or doing a shoddy job.

• Liam recently held a meeting with Housing Minister Yvette Cooper MP to voice his concerns about the council's ability to fund their housing plan.
• Since that meeting, Liam wrote a letter to the Minister expressing 5 concerns about the plan
  • As soon as we have answers to those questions this page will be updated.

• Liam has meetings in the diary with Hodge Hill ‘Community Based Housing Organisation’ to help them draw-up plans to;
  • Bring back housing inspectors
  • Enforce tenancy contracts faster
  • Screen new tenants
  • Invest in estate security
  • Control the repairs service locally

• Liam wants to hear from you - have you had a horror story with the housing.
  • Have they refused to upgrade or repair a kitchen or bathroom in your, or someone you know's home.
  • If so, contact Matt in Liam's office with your story.

• Alum Rock - A new town centre manager is being hired to drive improvements. The manager in Erdington has made big improvements.

• If we are going to make Alum Rock a unique shopping attraction in Birmingham, we need:
  • increased parking
  • clean up streets in the surrounding area
  • ensure local bus services resume down Alum Rock Road

Liam and his office are working on all these proposals at the moment with your local Labour team and the City council.

• Shard End Crescent - Liam and your local Labour teams have campaigned to modernise Shard End Crescent:
  • Liam brought planning Minister Keith Hill to the area to see the site for himself
  • Liam's campaign won £60,000 to fund a complete re design of the area by planning specialists

• Plans for Shard End Crescent are currently out for consultation with local residents. Liam is working with your local councillors to ensure
  • the best shopping facilities in the area
  • a development that will last a lifetime

• Fox and Goose - Liam and you local Labour team continue to oppose the council selling our playijng fields to supermarket giant Tesco. This development could
  • force 30% of local traders out of business.
  • increase already busy traffoc flow around Hodge Hill
  • Increased noise pollution from extra cars and lorry deliveries
  • cut green lungs to de-pollute the air
  • cut space for our kids to play
• Liam and his team demanded that planning inspectors come down to the brockhurst fields to see the 'best fields in Hodge Hill' for themselves.

• Liam will continue to oppose the Tesco development
• Liam will hold a regeneration conference in June 2006 to show that local small scale regeneration is a better solution for Hodge Hill
• Liam will do all he can to attract new business into the area, by publicising Government schemes such as Small Business Rate Relief
• Liam's office will help to organise events to protest at the Tesco application

Manor House Pub - After months of pushing, new planning proposals are in place for a new housing development and a new round-about to replace the derelict shops.

Liam has:

• delivered his scrap book containing thousands of photos to the Council house.
• demanded an increase in beatsweeping, and a list of all routes and times when roads are swept
• asked for mechanical sweepers to clean backstreets as well as those visible to the public
• called on the council to follow Solihull, and implement the Government's Cleaner Neighbourhoods Act as soon as possible
• Called for a clampdown on travellers on Hodge Hill Common
  • last year, travellers camped on the common twice leaving faeces and other human debris.
  • called on local souncil bosses to install a trip rail to stop caravans getting onto the common.
• been out on litter patrol with local residents groups and your local Labour team
• instant reporting of graffiti to the council's graffiti team
• encouraging local residents to form residents' associations and become street champions
• demanded quick delivery of PCSOs to deter graffiti artists and anti social behaviour
• organised walkabouts where grot spots are discovered.

Liam will:

• call for even faster delivery of PCSOs to deter graffiti, criminal damage.
• organise action events with his office, volunteers, and council cleaners.
• demand introduction of Cleaner Neighbourhoods Act as soon as possibler
• call on the council to prosecute landowners who allow fly tipping on their land
• organise a mail out to local businesses asking them to join his campaign to reduce street litter.

If you want to help clean up the constituency, there are a number of ways you can help:

1. Call Gill on 789 7287 to organise a walkbout with Liam and the team
2. Email Gordon in Liam's office to talk about joining your local residents group, or setting up a new one to clean up your area. You can email him by clicking here.
3. Downloading an ENCAMS publication tells you all about how to set up a community clean up in your area. Click here to download