Tyburn Mail page 23

by Clifton WelchConservative candidate forTyburn ward

Tyburn Maildaily newsonline at

tyburnmail.com

Last month popular local par-liamentary campaigner RobertAlden and I joined BirminghamTrees for Life, Deutsche Bankand children from GunterPrimary School to plant a 1000whips (small trees) and 8 larg-er trees in Sorrel Park. Robert and I were delighted to havebeen able to get stuck in and get ourhands dirty helping plant the treesacross the back section of the park. Hopefully this will form a wonderfulmixed woodland coppice in years tocome. It was great to see local school chil-dren being given the chance to planttrees locally which they will now get tosee grow as they do in the years tocome.

A special thank you to everyone atBirmingham Trees for Life for organis-ing the event, getting all the trees andequipment together. The work they do across the City isexcellent and we were delighted to sup-port them here in Tyburn Ward. If we can help you with anythingplease contact myself andParliamentary campaigner Robert Aldenby calling 07505745808, emailing C-WELCH2@sky.com, or writing to 96Orchard Road, Erdington, B24 9JD

Loyal British Gas Customer,92 year old Dorothy, expectedno more than her annual gascheck for which she has paid30 per month for manyyears. She certainly got more than she bar-

gained for! First of all the pump to her boiler

wasnt working and so on Thursday ofthat week, the engineer arrived with anew pump expecting to be there for acouple of hours. I would add thatDorothy has had her bedroom down-stairs for five years and sleeps belowthe offending radiator.By the evening, the upstairs radiator

had gone cold again and during thenight on Friday, the radiator leakedsoaking the whole of the upper floor.

At 6.45 am Call to British Gas as anemergency quoted 2 hours althoughDorothy is 92 years of age. At 7.30 Fire Brigade called because

Dorothy was immersed in three inchesof water where she had lain all night.The household electrics blew and shewas too scared to put her feet to thefloor. The water had cracked her artexceiling, travelling down her curtainsand into her bed.At 7.35 the Fire Brigade arrived and

found the upstairs radiator nut washand loose and they tightened it upand made Dorothy safe. She wassoaked through with ice cold water.At 9am another call to British Gas

Engineer on his way electricianbooked as emergency -had no homephone and no way of making a hotdrinkAt 9.30 engineer arrived and con-

firmed nut had been the cause butdenied any connection with the twohours worked on 36 hours earlier Coincidence or poor workmanship?At 11am another call to British Gas to

check when their electrician would bearriving on their way.

At 2pm another call to British Gas Where is the electrician? Dorothy wasstill without electricity.At 3.30pm another call to British Gas

Where is the electrician? We havecalled out a contract electrician.At 4.30pm contract electrician

arrived. He put all lights on thenthrew the switch. All lights came onwithout a problem.At 4.35pm the electrician was fin-

ished and left with a signature earninghim 100 for a five minute call out tobe paid by British Gas.At 5pm British Gas manager called to

apologise for the service received butno mention of the poor workmanship.Five days later Dorothy received a

letter confirming her complaint but thisagain was only to do with the length oftime taken by engineers and saidnothing about the flood. In fact, theywere not aware of this problem.So I leave it to you to decide. Was it

in fact sheer coincidence that a radia-tor which had not leaked, developed aflaw following two hours work on it, ordid the engineer forget to tighten thenut. I know what Dorothy thinks.

COINCIDENCE ?OR JUST POORWORKMANSHIP?by LyndaClintonTyburn

Councillor(Labour)

My mother, Dorothy Brooks, aged 92

Five year-old MicahWhitehead is the brainsbehind Pegasus Schoolsnew badge.The creative Year One youngster

came up with the idea of having abutterfly for the main part of thedesign. Then the school staff put their

heads together and came up withthe words that go around thebadge. Headteacher Catherine Lavelle says

that the words on the badge describethe attitudes that the teachers wouldlike the youngsters to have when theyleave Pegasus at the end of Year 6. From caterpillars to butterflies,

ready to be brave, be happy, becurious, be inspired, be free to flour-ish.The new badge goes with the

schools new uniform - a change frombright red to royal purple. A more sub-tle and sophisticated shade.It becomes the official Pegasus

colour in September, but most of thechildren are so keen on the colour thatthey are already wearing it. CatherineLavelle reckons that about 80% of theschools pupils have already made thechangeover.And in a month when a report by The

Childrens Society suggested that par-ents of primary school children acrossthe country are spending an averageof 251 for a pupil at a state primary(including shoes and equipment). Thecost of the new Pegasus uniform is

good news for parents. PegasusSchool have given one school sweaterfor free to each pupil. And if they want to buy another, they

cost about 5 each from Asda.

Micah thedesigner

SorrelPark treeplanting

East Birmingham has plentyof unemployment, and a lot ofpeople who dont have manyskills or qualifications, accord-ing to official data. The area includes Erdington and

Tyburn, Castle Vale and PypeHayes.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 sitescan be built. Its a densely populatedarea.Thats why the Council is suggesting

that a recent decision by the superfastrail network HS2 is good news.HS2 were going to build a massive

goods and storage depot in EastBirmingham. But theyve abandonedthe idea.Rather than see that as a kick in the

teeth for the local area, the Council issaying Hooray, we can use the site forwarehouses or factories and createmore jobs that the HS2 site would havedone.Sir Albert Bore and three local MPs, all

Labour, added status to the launch ofthe plans to regenerate EastBirmingham. The new deal includesplans 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 difficull-ties faced by many of her constituentsin her area of Ladywood. For someAsian women, getting work has been aproblem. Language and cultural barriers have

been hard to overcome. But she hasnoticed, and encouraged, a spirit ofenterprise amongst many of the localAsian women. And amongst many ofthe youngsters in schools, too, forwhom setting up their own business isa dream that can be realised.The problem facing East Birmingham

is more about space to create workthan about attitudes towards work.The new plans have identified some

areas of land that could be developedfor business purposes, but they are notabundant, 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 40major brownfield sites for future housebuilding. 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 develop-

ment caused Jaguar Land Rover to lookbeyond the current Castle Bromwichsite when they had big plans for expan-sion. They looked further afield towards the

open spaces off the M54 betweenWolverhampton 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.

FINDINGROOM FORNEW JOBS

COMMENT