Micah the

designer

Sorrel
Park tree
planting
by Clifton Welch
Conservative
candidate for
Tyburn ward

Last month popular local parliamentary campaigner Robert

Alden and I joined Birmingham
Trees for Life, Deutsche Bank
and children from Gunter
Primary School to plant a 1000
whips (small trees) and 8 larger trees in Sorrel Park.

Robert and I were delighted to have

been able to get stuck in and get our
hands dirty helping plant the trees
across the back section of the park.
Hopefully this will form a wonderful
mixed woodland coppice in years to
come.
It was great to see local school children being given the chance to plant
trees locally which they will now get to
see grow as they do in the years to
come.

A special thank you to everyone at

Birmingham Trees for Life for organising the event, getting all the trees and
equipment together.
The work they do across the City is
excellent and we were delighted to support them here in Tyburn Ward.
If we can help you with anything
and
myself
contact
please
Parliamentary campaigner Robert Alden
by calling 07505745808, emailing CWELCH2@sky.com, or writing to 96
Orchard Road, Erdington, B24 9JD

Tyburn Mail
daily news
online at

tyburnmail.com

Five
year-old
Micah
Whitehead is the brains
behind Pegasus Schools
new badge.

The creative Year One youngster

came up with the idea of having a
butterfly for the main part of the
design.
Then the school staff put their
heads together and came up with
the words that go around the
badge.
Headteacher Catherine Lavelle says
that the words on the badge describe
the attitudes that the teachers would
like the youngsters to have when they
leave Pegasus at the end of Year 6.
From caterpillars
to butterflies,
ready to be brave, be happy, be
curious, be inspired, be free to flourish.
The new badge goes with the
schools new uniform - a change from
bright red to royal purple. A more subtle and sophisticated shade.
It becomes the official Pegasus
colour in September, but most of the
children are so keen on the colour that
they are already wearing it. Catherine
Lavelle reckons that about 80% of the
schools pupils have already made the
changeover.
And in a month when a report by The

Childrens Society suggested that parents of primary school children across

the country are spending an average
of 251 for a pupil at a state primary
(including shoes and equipment). The
cost of the new Pegasus uniform is

COINCIDENCE ?
OR JUST POOR
WORKMANSHIP?
Lynda
Clinton

by

Tyburn
Councillor
(Labour)

Loyal British Gas Customer,

92 year old Dorothy, expected
no more than her annual gas
check for which she has paid
30 per month for many
years.

She certainly got more than she bargained for!

First of all the pump to her boiler
wasnt working and so on Thursday of
that week, the engineer arrived with a
new pump expecting to be there for a
couple of hours. I would add that
Dorothy has had her bedroom downstairs for five years and sleeps below
the offending radiator.
By the evening, the upstairs radiator
had gone cold again and during the
night on Friday, the radiator leaked
soaking the whole of the upper floor.

At 6.45 am Call to British Gas as an

emergency quoted 2 hours although
Dorothy is 92 years of age.
At 7.30 Fire Brigade called because
Dorothy was immersed in three inches
of water where she had lain all night.
The household electrics blew and she
was too scared to put her feet to the
floor. The water had cracked her artex
ceiling, travelling down her curtains
and into her bed.
At 7.35 the Fire Brigade arrived and
found the upstairs radiator nut was
hand loose and they tightened it up
and made Dorothy safe. She was
soaked through with ice cold water.
At 9am another call to British Gas
Engineer on his way electrician
booked as emergency -had no home
phone and no way of making a hot
drink
At 9.30 engineer arrived and confirmed nut had been the cause but
denied any connection with the two
hours worked on 36 hours earlier
Coincidence or poor workmanship?
At 11am another call to British Gas to
check when their electrician would be
arriving on their way.

good news for parents. Pegasus

School have given one school sweater
for free to each pupil.
And if they want to buy another, they
cost about 5 each from Asda.

My mother, Dorothy Brooks, aged 92

At 2pm another call to British Gas

Where is the electrician? Dorothy was
still without electricity.
At 3.30pm another call to British Gas
Where is the electrician? We have
called out a contract electrician.
At 4.30pm contract electrician
arrived. He put all lights on then
threw the switch. All lights came on
without a problem.
At 4.35pm the electrician was finished and left with a signature earning
him 100 for a five minute call out to
be paid by British Gas.
At 5pm British Gas manager called to
apologise for the service received but
no mention of the poor workmanship.
Five days later Dorothy received a
letter confirming her complaint but this
again was only to do with the length of
time taken by engineers and said
nothing about the flood. In fact, they
were not aware of this problem.
So I leave it to you to decide. Was it
in fact sheer coincidence that a radiator which had not leaked, developed a
flaw following two hours work on it, or
did the engineer forget to tighten the
nut. I know what Dorothy thinks.

FINDING
ROOM FOR
NEW JOBS
Tyburn Mail

page 23

COMMENT

East Birmingham has plenty

of unemployment, and a lot of
people who dont have many
skills or qualifications, according to official data.

The area includes Erdington and

Tyburn, Castle Vale and Pype
Hayes.
The City Council has unveiled a plan
to create more jobs in the area.
The trouble is, there arent many
places where new factories or job sites
can be built. Its a densely populated
area.
Thats why the Council is suggesting
that a recent decision by the superfast
rail network HS2 is good news.
HS2 were going to build a massive
goods and storage depot in East
Birmingham. But theyve abandoned
the idea.
Rather than see that as a kick in the
teeth for the local area, the Council is
saying Hooray, we can use the site for
warehouses or factories and create
more jobs that the HS2 site would have
done.
Sir Albert Bore and three local MPs, all
Labour, added status to the launch of
the plans to regenerate East
Birmingham. The new deal includes
plans for training, transport and jobs.
The three MPs all gave their thumbs
up. Jack Dromey praised Jaguar.
Liam Byrne spoke unconvincingly but
cheerfully about the benefits of HS2.
The third MP to speak was Shabana
Mahmood. She spoke a lot of sense,
and talked positively about the difficullties faced by many of her constituents
in her area of Ladywood. For some
Asian women, getting work has been a
problem.
Language and cultural barriers have
been hard to overcome. But she has
noticed, and encouraged, a spirit of
enterprise amongst many of the local
Asian women. And amongst many of
the youngsters in schools, too, for
whom setting up their own business is
a dream that can be realised.
The problem facing East Birmingham
is more about space to create work
than about attitudes towards work.
The new plans have identified some
areas of land that could be developed
for business purposes, but they are not
abundant, and they are not large.
Much space is going to be used for
new houses.
Birminghams population will increase
by 150,000 by 2031.
The Council estimates that 80,000
new homes will be needed.
Last week, the Council published its
housing prospectus, which identified 40
major brownfield sites for future house
building.
The old Selly Park Hospital site will
provide room for 650 of those homes.
But space for jobs is also important,
and scarce.
A lack of land available for development caused Jaguar Land Rover to look
beyond the current Castle Bromwich
site when they had big plans for expansion.
They looked further afield towards the
open spaces off the M54 between
Wolverhampton and Telford.
Thats the 239 acre i54 site.
As our population increases, green
spaces decrease.
We need room not just for homes.
But for factories and for jobs too.