Acorns Children's Hospice needs you!
Plus, a correction by us
Good afternoon Patchers — paying readers will have already received today’s members-only edition, so please forgive us the repetition. However, we wanted to send out to all readers a notification of a correction to Monday’s Big Story. We also wanted to share with you a Brum in Brief containing significant updates from yesterday’s Birmingham City Council meeting and some quick-hit stories, including a call out for donations by Acorns Children’s Hospice.
Have a great day and we’ll be back with you tomorrow.
Brum in Brief
Updates from Birmingham City Council
🚗 The results of a road safety inquiry were presented to council yesterday, offering evidence-based solutions and exposing areas of poor enforcement. Among the key recommendations are a Road Safety Emergency action plan, steps to tackle illegal parking and for assurances that Cabinet Member for Transport Majid Mahmood’s portfolio — which also straddles Waste — is not too large to adequately focus on the crisis.
Editor’s note: The Dispatch’s Monday Big Story incorrectly stated that the council would consider proposals to reduce speed limits to 20 mph — this has been corrected. The council is planning to drop most of Birmingham’s roads from 40 to 30 mph. In the past, the council has written to the government to ask to reduce local road speeds to 20 mph but this was rejected.
💸 An important step in solving Birmingham City Council’s Equal Pay (EP) crisis has been delayed. Leaders are working with unions on a refreshed job evaluation scheme to stop equal pay claims and avoid mounting debts, which was supposed to be ready by 1 April 2025 — but that date won’t be met. Last night, council leader John Cotton said they “will continue to make progress”, but the opposition parties criticised the delay. Conservative councillor Richard Parkin said that Labour’s EP saga makes “War and Peace look like a short story”.
📣 Suspended Harborne councillor Martin Brooks has lambasted Labour for “factional harassment” after discovering that he has been locked out of publicly-funded party offices. Brooks — who has been outspoken against budget cuts — claims Chief Whip Ray Goodwin told him his access has been cancelled and that colleagues are not to help him gain entry. He also claims he has been made to return the allowance he received for his role as chair of the planning committee. The Dispatch understands that Brooks has instead donated this to his deputy chair, David Barker. Addressing his fellow members yesterday, Brooks said they should “think very carefully” about Goodwin’s actions and “to pay attention to the kind of activities that are being done in your name”.
Quick Hits
🧸 Call out: Acorns Hospice, who offer incredible palliative care and support to children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions and their families, have asked The Dispatch for help finding toy donations for the children in their care this Christmas. If any readers work for local companies or organisations who are looking to make thoughtful donations of toys to a local charity, Acorns would love to hear from you. Please get in touch at: suemasonburns@gmail.com.
🚲 A bespoke funeral provider is on the hunt for a tandem hearse — that’s a tandem bike that can carry a coffin with four riders alongside. The appeal is on behalf of a late cyclist who planned his funeral so that he could go on a final ride with his buddies.
🪧 Staff at Joseph Chamberlain College are on strike for the second day this week in a protest over the government’s decision to only award a 5.5% pay rise to sixth form staff at academies. A source tells The Dispatch that this risks creating a “two-tier workforce” where teachers are paid different amounts for the same job. Further strikes are planned for 4-13 December.
In other strike news: WMCA staff’s planned walkout for Thursday 12 December has been called off so members can vote on a new pay offer.