24 Dec
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all our supporters.
25 Nov
Coventry leaves City Region
Please try not to laugh because this is very serious. Coventry has left the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the Black Country.
Since Telford & Wrekin parted company with the city region, it’s become more and more irrelevant as its focus narrows to providing the same Birmingham-centric services as the plethora of regional quangos infesting the euroregion. In other words, a pointless duplication.
They had to change their name from Birmingham, Black Country & Coventry City Region after West Midlands NO! registered the name to the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the City Region. They can’t call themselves the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the Black Country now that Coventry is no longer part of it so I wonder what they’ll call their quango now … has anyone though about Greater Birmingham?
Anyway, I’m sure the City Region’s unelected leader, Dr Simon Murphy, will appreciate any helpful suggestions you might have. His email address is simon.murphy@birmingham.gov.uk and his phone number is 0121 464 8168. Let him have your suggestions, I’m sure he’ll appreciate them.
Tags: Birmingham Coventry & Black Country City Region, Coventry
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The City Region has published a report on the future of next generation broadband in the area covered by the quango as well as Telford & Wrekin.
Chris Pitchford, the unelected business representative on the City Region board, describes it as an action plan for the roll-out of new, faster broadband across the City Region. But the City Region has no power to force BT or Virgin (the two providers of broadband in the West Midlands) to roll out any improvements to its network, nor does it have billions of pounds to pay for that investment.
There is no doubt that broadband brings big benefits to business and consumers alike (although the City Region is more interested in business than taxpayers) but the City Region can’t force telecoms companies to put in new infrastructure - all they can do is make suggestions about what should happen.
How much taxpayers money has been spent on this report which tells us nothing we don’t already know and doesn’t - and can’t - make any decisions on the rollout of new broadband infrastructure?
The City Region has signed its Multi Area Agreement (MAA) - the extra powers it wanted from the British government that led to Telford & Wrekin being booted out of the quango so that it could qualify.
Bizarrely, Telford & Wrekin has signed up to the MAA despite no longer being part of the City Region and it being the reason the borough was unceremoniously dumped from the quango. A spokesman for Telford & Wrekin told West Midlands NO! that although they’re no longer in the City Region, they still have a full say as far as the MAA is concerned. But they don’t have a say on any other policies that drive the decisions made around the MAA, he didn’t go on to say.
How does Telford & Wrekin signing up to the City Region’s MAA reconcile with the Leader, Councillor Eade’s, supposed opposition to the City Region? Let’s ask Councillor Eade …
Dear Andrew,
I note with interest that Telford & Wrekin has voluntarily submitted itself to the City Region’s Multi Area Agreement (MAA).
I would be interested to know how this fits in with your publicly-stated opposition to the City Region, to regional working in general and your comments from the time Telford was pushed out of the City Region that it was a good thing for the borough. Do you now believe that the City Region is a good thing?
How much will Telford & Wrekin be required to contribute to the City Region in exchange for signing up to the MAA?
Stuart Parr
West Midlands NO!
I won’t hold my breath waiting for an answer.
Tags: City Region, MAA, Telford
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Advantage West Midlands (AWM) is on the prowl for fund managers for its new £45m business support fund.
Only a few weeks ago, AWM released details of projects that it has withdrawn funding for after the British government restricted its generous funding of AWM’s slush fund. The setting up of a new £45m fund whilst projects that have been promised money are left to flounder must be a kick in the teeth for businesses that put their faith in Advantage West Midlands.
When salary and bonus details are released for the fund managers I suspect it will be an even bigger kick in the teeth.
Why does the Birmingham Post insist on misleading its readership over the City Region?
Almost every reference to the City Region claims that some spokesman is an elected member of the City Region, giving the impression that it isn’t an unelected, undemocratic quango.
Take this latest article, for example:
Glyn Pitchford, elected West Midlands Business Council business representative on the City Region board
Glyn Pitchford wasn’t elected to the City Region board, he was appointed to his position of power by his peers in the same way as other, more famous dictators such as Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and Frank Bainimarama of Fiji. Pitchford’s appointment to the City Region board has no more democratic legitimacy than the appointment of ny number of dictators appointed to their position by their peers whilst the population is denied the opportunity to vote them in or out of power.
The report in the article doesn’t even have a point. The city region has commissioned a report on so-called super-fast broadband but BT already has a commitment to rolling out its 21st Century network across the country. Surely it would have been cheaper to ask BT to give them a copy of their roll-out schedule and the sales pitch?
The article finishes off saying:
The West Midlands Business Council marks the first time in the UK that independent business representative organisations have joined to speak with one voice on regional business issues.
This is, of course, absolute tosh. The entire regional quangocracy is about run by and for business and always has been. Advantage West Midlands, West Midlands Regional Assembly, West Midlands Business Link - they are regional business quangos whose primary aim is to give big business the opportunity to be part of what is, in all but name, the West Midlands regional government.
So why are the Birmingham Post so keen to promote the City Region and Glyn Pitchford in particular? Could it be the fact that Glyn Pitchford shares the Birmingham Post’s vision of a “Greater Birmingham” swallowing up the urban West Midlands?
Glyn Pitchford thought that the lead article in the Birmingham Post today was apposite – we should consider accepting Birmingham as the region’s capital, changing our name to Greater Birmingham City Region to be better placed to compete with other regions.
Possibly. Or it may just be lazy journalism that we see so often in the provincial press that means reporters will faithfully reproduce whatever propaganda and dishonesty a quango sends them. And that’s just what this “elected member” tag is - dishonest propaganda. Every biography of Glyn Pitchford I can find has the same claim to being an elected member of the City Region board.
The following is from the Campaign for an English Parliament’s website:
The British government is embarking on its latest fashionable charade of holding cabinet meetings in the English euroregions with the undemocratic, unwanted Ministers for the Regions.
One CEP member is organising a protest at the West Midlands Regional Grand Committee on the 8th of October in Sandwell.
If CEP members in other areas are planning to protest against the pantomime in their euroregion, please get in touch as there may be other organisations that we are in contact with that will join in as well as getting it mentioned on this website.
A couple of weeks ago, Advantage West Midlands (AWM) announced that they had run out of our money and were pulling funding for a number of projects.
At the time they refused to disclose which projects were having funding withdrawn so West Midlands NO! put in a Freedom of Information request to find out which projects they were.
Lo and behold, just before the deadline for responding to the Freedom of Information request, they have released details to the press. AWM have shown how utterly useless and impotent they are in the face of an economic downturn and are desperately trying to manage the media coverage their quango receives to limit the damage to their appalling reputation. As one commentator on the Express & Star website says:
Maybe this Quango should be renamed disAdvantage West Midlands
Indeed.
The projects that have had funding withdrawn appear to be mainly based outside of the ”Greater Birmingham” area such as the Flax Mill in Shrewsbury, the Market Square in Ludlow and flood defences at Tenbury. Of the projects that are still earmarked to receive funding, only three in the Telford area are outside of the West Midlands connurbation - further evidence that AWM is only interested in “Greater Birmingham”.
Interestingly, the Birmingham New Street Station refurbishment is described as a £400m project. AWM is putting £100m of taxpayers money into the project. How much money will the taxpayer receive in return for this “investment”? Surely, after “investing” billions of pounds of taxpayers money over the years AWM should be in a position to not only support itself without taxpayers money but to start paying dividends back to its “shareholders”?
Margaret Thatcher once made a comment that sums up financial black holes like Advantage West Midlands quite well:
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples’ money
When times were good and the Treasury could afford to hand over £300m a year to AWM, it was pats on backs and champagne receptions all round. Now the British government has spent all our money bailing out Scottish banks and quango’s like AWM are being told to tighten their belts, projects that promise little or no return on investment beyond a big sign saying how wonderful AWM is, are being sacrificed.
Any organisation can throw £300m at a few local projects and create a handful of jobs but it takes an organisation that is used to working within budgets and facing annual funding cuts to do the job successfully when money is short and the economy is in recession. An organisation like a local council, for instance …
Budget holds the key to improved transport
Alistair Darling will announce this week whether or not the West Midlands will become a City Region, allowing it to get cash for urgently-needed transport improvements costing up to £1 billion.
City council leader Mike Whitby delivered a final plea to the Chancellor to back the project today, saying up to 44,000 new jobs could be created.
But the West Midlands is up against Manchester and Leeds in the contest to become a “city region”, with the power to raise funds for major projects.
The winners will be announced by Mr Darling in the Budget on Wednesday.
If the West Midlands bid is successful, funding would at last become available for the long-awaited extension for the Midlands Metro light rail system.
Local councils, working together under the name Birmingham Coventry and Black Country City Region, have drawn up proposals which would allow them to raise cash themselves instead of depending on handouts from Whitehall.
They want to borrow money in order to fund projects which will benefit the local economy, using the extra business rates they receive once the projects are completed to pay back the loans.
For example, by extending the Black Country Metro from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill and Stourbridge, they would attract new employers into the area, leading to an increase in business rates paid.
But under the present arrangements, local councils simply pay business rates to the Treasury, and cannot use the money on local schemes.
For the West Midlands scheme to go ahead, the councils will need officially to be designated a city region, with new powers over the money they raise. At the moment, they are part of a voluntary arrangement which calls itself a city region but has no formal powers.
Mr Darling has said he will announce the creation of two city regions as part of his Budget announcement, but he is known to be considering at least three rival proposals.
Councillors and business leaders have been pressing the Government to ensure the West Midlands bid is successful. Letters of support from Chambers of Commerce and CBI in the West Midlands have gone to the Chancellor, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, and Hazels Blears, Communities and Local Government Secretary.
Under the West Midlands scheme, a series of “Accelerated Development Zones” would be created in which business rates raised through economic development would be used to fund major projects.
Transport schemes already planned include the Black Country Metro extension, a light rail service from central Birmingham to Birmingham International Airport and M5 improvements.
The region would need to find £1.03 billion to pay for the projects. But councils estimate that as a city region, they could raise £202 million a year from business rates, allowing them to pay back a loan.
When we’re in the middle of a recession, unemployment is reaching record figures, high street banks are failing and the tax burden is reaching critical mass, does the taxpayer really need (or want) another billion pounds worth of debt? Of course, they don’t know what the taxpayer wants because all this is done without asking.
Yesterday saw the first day of the new unitary authority in Shropshire following the abolition of the county’s five districts.
This experiment in regionalisation went ahead after referenda were held in three of the five districts, all of which resulted in an overwhelming rejection of the plans. Shropshire County Council sent their proposal on the day the results of the referenda were announced.
The two-tier district/county system of local government has served our country well for centuries and will continue to serve our country perfectly well if we can stop the regionalists from destroying local democracy.
There is an election coming up in Shropshire soon and we will be reminding Salopians which councillors voted for regionalisation in Shropshire.
