Community News

Bradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham have made the shortlist to be named UK City of Culture for 2025. A different location is given the title every four years.

The winning place will be announced in May and will be the fourth holder, after Derry-Londonderry, Hull and the current City of Culture, Coventry. The title has brought £172m to Coventry, according to the government, as well as events like the Turner Prize.

The boss of one of the UK’s large packaging specialists is urging Government to step in to help with spiralling energy and materials costs.

Billy Hutchinson, Managing Director of Lesters, believes his sector is often overlooked when it comes to support, yet finds itself faced with a potential 30% increase in paper prices in the next month.

One half of British athletics' golden couple, Robbie Brightwell will be remembered for an iconic turn at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

Born in Rawalpindi, India, Brightwell was brought up in Donnington, Shropshire, a few miles from the seat of the modern Games in Much Wenlock. So the story goes that a bright-eyed 16-year-old Brightwell read about running and the Olympics for the first time in the local interest section of a Shropshire library.

Talented Birmingham City University design students have created costumes for the opening event of the Birmingham 2022 Festival as part of the Commonwealth Games. Alongside London-based Costume Designer Sophie Donaldson, second and third-year Costume Design and Practice students at BCU have produced 22 aerial costumes and 300 costumes for the ‘Wondrous Stories’ production.

Five virtual docking stations have been launched in Harborne, in Birmingham, thanks to the support of Harborne Village Business Improvement District (BID).

The two-month trial is the latest development of the popular West Midlands Cycle Hire scheme. This trial is the first time virtual docking stations have been used as part of West Midlands Cycle Hire and will enable users to end their ride and park their bike in a signposted and branded area, rather than in a traditional physical dock.

The results for two of the most important youth campaigns for 2022 have now been announced, after 11 to 18-year-olds across the city cast their votes for the issues that matter to them, and the people they want to represent them. The national Make your Mark campaign, the largest youth consultation across the country, was combined with Youth MP elections for the first time, streamlining the way in which young people’s voices are heard.

Birmingham City Council has announced the second set of transport schemes to be developed and delivered from its new Local Improvement Budget. The Local Improvement Budget was approved by the Council’s Cabinet in December last year.

Hundreds of thousands turned out to mark St Patrick's Day across the island of Ireland after two years of muted celebrations due to Covid-19.

With parades cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, revellers went green and lined the streets of Dublin city centres as celebrations took place across Ireland, with massive crowds on the streets as part of a five-day festival - described as being "bigger and better than ever before", with estimated crowds of around 400,000.

An incident that saw waste dumped approximately 400 metres away from a Birmingham Household Recycling Centre has led to a man being ordered to pay £2,690 for his offences.

The punishment was handed down by Birmingham Magistrates’ Court to David Biddulph, aged 34, of Churchill Road, Handsworth, following an incident on June 3 of 2020 that was investigated by Birmingham City Council’s Waste Enforcement Team.

A series of local traffic management plans have been published for communities in the vicinity of venues for Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games to help residents and businesses plan ahead. To ensure the smooth running of the Games when more than one million spectators are expected to visit the region, there will be temporary changes to local roads, parking regulations and public transport in Birmingham around:

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE) has announced a new national partnership with youth charity The Sikh Development Academy, designed to increase access to the DofE for young Sikhs.  

The partnership will support local Sikh organisations – including gurdwaras, youth clubs and sports clubs – to offer the DofE to 14 to 24 year olds around the UK.

To celebrate Commonwealth Day, former, current and future stars of athletics in Birmingham tried out the track at the newly transformed Alexander Stadium and they were joined in the impressive new facility by 72 school children from across Birmingham. Each pupil represented one of the nations and territories that will participate in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, with the facility in the Perry Barr area of the city set to play a crucial role at Games time, hosting the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as 59 athletics events.

Over 100 community groups across Birmingham are to stage their own festival events and projects as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival thanks to funding from Birmingham City Council.

The Creative City programme will see 107 community groups and artists get creative over the six months of the Birmingham 2022 Festival which accompanies the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Galleries, museums, libraries and cultural venues across the country - including Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery - are to benefit from almost £50 million of funding which will improve people’s access to the arts, safeguard cultural assets for future generations and power economic growth through culture.

Birmingham City Council has been awarded a grant of £4,998,820 by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports, delivered by Arts Council England and will be utilising the funding to address specific works as part of a wider electrical upgrade and refurbishment of the city’s flagship museum - Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG) located in the city centre.

Black Country Radio is hosting a multicultural celebration event in Brierley Hill on Saturday 19 March.

The event, which runs from 10am-3pm will feature live entertainment, cookery demonstrations and will be broadcast throughout the day by Black Country Radio. The day is part of the Welcome Back campaign to encourage people back into town centres and support local businesses as the country emerges from the pandemic.

This week marks one year since the launch of the West Midlands Cycle Hire scheme, which has so far seen more than 200,000 journeys taken across the region.

People using the hire bikes have also cycled for more than 90,000 miles and covered an incredible 550,000 kilometres during the first year, showing that there is a real appetite for people to cycle in and around the West Midlands. Since the initial launch in Wolverhampton in March 2021, 1,350 green and grey branded pedal bikes and 150 green and purple electric bikes have been delivered onto the streets of Birmingham, Coventry, Sandwell, Solihull, Stourbridge, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall and Wolverhampton.