Birmingham’s Fairground Fiasco
Plus, West Midlands Police Federation in racism row
Dear Patchers — last Thursday Kate was down in London with some of our colleagues from Manchester and Liverpool for the British Journalism Awards, which is like the BAFTAS if the winning film was about rogue HMO landlords in the Black Country. We were “highly commended” at the ceremony, a remarkable achievement just a year after The Dispatch began.
It was our reporting on Exempt Accommodation that won us that acknowledgement. The judges called it “forensic reporting drawing threads together from three cities to create a powerful expose of exploitation and corruption.” Jane Haynes at the Birmingham Mail was also nominated for her excellent reporting on Birmingham — including the city’s equal pay scandal and a prison-like tower block for the homeless. These aren’t the most glamorous topics, certainly, but we think it’s vital to have local media with the tools to do this kind of reporting. If you’d like to support us to do more of this work — please consider signing up as a member.
Catch Up:
Would you want to read a book describing “Polish meatheads”, “surly Afghans” and “frazzled Jamaican bums”? Nope, us neither. Unfortunately, This is London, which was published in 2016 (as opposed to say, 1816) to huge praise in London’s literary circles, was written by the man who now advises the home secretary: Ben Judah. Read more at The Londoner.
On Saturday the 7th of December, a small fire started in Ladywood’s Durham Tower. Luckily no one was killed. However, the incident has provoked a reckoning among residents about council neglect, failed safety regulations and the risk of further fires. “You just think of Grenfell. The first thing you think is you’re not going to get out of here alive,” one resident told The Dispatch.
Give the gift of local journalism:
🎁 Rather than wasting your money on dust-collecting tat, treat your friends, relatives, pets and lovers to the gift of long-form journalism this Christmas with a Dispatch gift subscription. It costs only £8 a month and it goes down wonderfully with a Baileys. Hit this link below to make yourself the toast of the Christmas dining table or reach out to us if you have any questions.
Weather
🌧️ Tuesday: Cloudy changing to light rain by early evening. Max 10°C.
🌧️ Wednesday: Overcast changing to light rain in the afternoon. Max 13°C
🌥️ Thursday: Partly cloudy changing to light showers by late morning. Max 6°C
☁️ Friday: Partly cloudy. Max 8°C
We get our weather from the Met Office.
Photo of the week:
A haunting picture of a civic space that no longer exists…also, can you spot the bloke staring at the camera?
Brum in brief
🎡 Last Thursday, Danter Attractions’ ride, the City Starflyer, experienced a malfunction and plunged to the ground in Birmingham’s Centenary Square. 13 punters were hurt, and two women were hospitalized. In pictures taken at the scene of the accident, it appeared that several cables, attaching the seats to the main shaft, had got tangled, forcing the ride on a 55m plunge to the ground. Danter Attractions runs the City Starflyer, a ride which often graces the main squares of Midland cities like Birmingham and Nottingham. According to Companies House, the firm is currently directed by Abraham Danter and Emily Danter. Danter has supplied rides to events across the country including Download Festival and T in the Park. Two men at the scene of the accident, aged 55 and 21, were arrested by West Midlands Police, accused of perverting the course of justice and obstructing officers. A health and safety investigation, alongside the formal arrests, has been issued into the failing of the City Starflyer at Centenary Square by Birmingham City Council.
👮The chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation has been suspended pending an investigation after he claimed allegations of racism on the force were “nonsense.” Richard Cooke responded to claims made by former officer Khizra Bano that racism was taking place in the force “on a huge scale.” Bano is taking the West Midlands Chief Constable, Craig Guildford to an employment tribunal citing discrimination: claims he denies.
💸 Local authorities in the West Midlands are auctioning off publicly owned property to prop up their shaky finances. Following the example of other large urban areas like Greater Glasgow, local councils are flogging off property for millions to cover gaps in their finances revealed after declaring bankruptcy. Birmingham City Council is selling off a plot of land for £1 million, flats on St George’s Parade in Wolverhampton went for £2.1 million, and land at Tasker Street, West Bromwich for £128,000. Earlier this year, Birmingham City Council sold off assets equalling £56 million, including a city centre carpark and a children’s home.
🚮 A sharp rise in fly-tipping in Birmingham has been recorded in a performance report issued by the council ahead of this week's cabinet meeting. The report details how registered instances of fly-tipping have increased between 2023 and 2024 from 8,171 to 12,452 (a 4,281 rise).
🚆 Conservative MP for Aldridge-Brownhills, Wendy Morton, has claimed that the West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker never intended to deliver on plans to build a railway station in her constituency by 2027. Morton’s intervention came after a review of the region’s transport infrastructure found the plan for Aldridge station had only attracted £3.6 million out of an estimated total cost of £30 million. Parker claimed “a business case had not been met” for the station. However, Morton told BBC Politics Midlands: “The mayor is being so disingenuous on this, because we did secure the £30m, it's in the public domain - the money was there.”
Home of the week
A third hobbit hole, a third Kettle’s Yard-influenced modernist interior, a third beautifully rewilded grassland. The Modern House has this Herefordshire property, Middle Hunt House, listed at £1.85 million. At that price, we’ll all be ‘hunting’ down the back of our sofas for spare change.
Media picks:
🎞️ Watch The Man Who Modernised Birmingham (1971) on BBC Archives. The video explores Lord Mayor Sir Frank Price's efforts to modernise the city and starts with an almost surreal, semi-arcadian four-minute cold opening of silent footage of 1970s Brum. Price describes how growing up in rotting back-to-back terraces in Hockley motivated him towards adopting a policy of slum clearance in the post-war era.
💰 A controversial pick. Did Clement Attlee ruin Birmingham? The Adam Smith Institute (a free market think-tank) has released a video called ‘Why the British Government Killed Birmingham.’ The video argues that well-meaning industrial policies pursued by the 1945 Labour government pushed industry out of the Midlands: transforming the region’s wealth and prosperity into relative decline. Voice your opinion in the comments.
📰 A classic piece of cultural history from the London Review of Books. Read this 1980 review of John Barnes’s Ahead of His Age: Bishop Barnes of Birmingham. John Barnes was the son of Ernest Barnes, a radical bishop appointed by Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, who was described in one obituary as “a necessary event in the spiritual history of the 20th century.” A piece to mull over as the race for the position of Archbishop of Canterbury heats up in the new year.
Things to do
Tuesday
🍃 When is an industry conference, not a conference? The Midlands’ first ever Sustainability “UnConference” is being held at University College Birmingham on Tuesday for Sustainability Managers and people with other roles in the sector. UnConferences have no set agenda, panels or keynote speeches – participants decide the structure and the topics on the day and people are encouraged to move between sessions if they want to dip in and out of discussions.
Wednesday
🤡 I don’t know about you, but this announcement is giving one Dispatch staff writer flashbacks to watching Kerrang! as an eleven-year-old. The nu-metal giants Slipknot are playing at Birmigham’s Utilita Arena this Wednesday. Strip off to cargo shorts, cover yourself in mud, and get ready to scare your grandma. Tickets are selling fast, get yours from £56.25. Doors at 18:00.
Thursday
🌲There are tree planting sessions this week on Thursday (1.30-3.30 pm) and Friday (11 am-1 pm) for the Benjamin Zephaniah Forest in Burbury Park, Newtown. The late, great poet who died a year ago this month grew up in the area. On Thursday there will be African drumming, poetry and tree-decorating accompanying the planting and on Friday the final tree will be planted, with Zephaniah's family in attendance.
Thank you for doing what you do. Congratulations on your awards nominations. I'm really glad that you (and Jane Haynes, too) exist. We'd be immeasurably poorer and less well-informed without you. Proud to be a paid-up Dispatcher.
That fairground ride... At the end of November, I went on the ferris wheel with my partner, my friend, and her daughter. I've been on loads of ferris wheels, but there was something quite unnerving about that one. As our car squeaked in the wind, we watched the other rides and all four of us decided that they looked terrifying and there was no way we'd want to go on them. When I was a kid, my dad worked for a company that made theme park rides, and I often went to theme parks with my friend. This isn't just hindsight, we really didn't like the look of the ones in the square!