Trains to Kings Heath Some time soon you could be sauntering along Ombersley Road in Balsall Heath and looking for a train to central Birmingham or to Kings Heath and places beyond. Those with a business in Balsall Heath or in Kings Heath will have a more accessible address. If stations are brought back to Balsall Heath, Moseley, Kings Heath, and Hazelwell (in the Stirchley area), more people can join the chorus sung by many other urban areas in England: ‘I’m a few minutes walk from the railway station’. Continued on Page 12
3 - Warehouse News 5
- Campaigns Digest
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- Airport News
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- Lynne Jones MP
10 - Keep Digbeth Noisy 12
- Islam & the Environment
15 - BEEP Speaker Event 16
- Guest Article - Practical Action
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- Asda - Selly Oak and Barnes Hill
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- Unblocking the roads
19 - Volunteer Spotlight 20 - Billesley Allotment Victory 21
- Diary
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- Membership Form
23 - Contacts 2
A few changes and some Christmas cheer I am delighted to say that we have successfully recruited a new Maintenance Coordinator. Russell Fitzpatrick took over from Ian Moore at the beginning of October. Some of you may recognise the name as Russell featured in Volunteer Spotlight a few months ago. Our meeting room prices have changed slightly. We now have two different rates available. Whilst our rates remain the same for voluntary and community organisations at £25 for a week day and £35 for a Saturday, we now have a separate business rate of £50 for a week day and £70 for a Saturday. These are still very competitive rates for a meeting room in the city centre. New flyers for the meeting room will be distributed to increase awareness of this facility and to raise funds for the rising costs of maintenance for the building. Please pass this information on to anyone who may be interested.
Lastly, whilst it is difficult to think and write about Christmas so early, BFOE has some new stock in its shop in reception. Items include beautiful handmade gifts from Madagascar, lunar 2008 calendars and a new line in greeting cards and postcards. We have also reduced our recycled coloured paper from £6.50 to £4 for 500 sheets. The One Earth Shop will be stocking its usual range of delicious chocolates in December and will be taking orders for gluten-free Christmas puddings, so please contact them on 0121 6326909 if you are interested in this service. The Warehouse Café has a mouth watering Christmas menu available with dishes such as wild mushroom, chestnut and red wine puff pastry pie and chocolate brandy torte. If you’re still stuck for gift ideas, then you could consider giving someone a year’s subscription to Birmingham Friends of the Earth. Please fill out the form at the back of this newsletter and, providing we receive it in time, we will send out the membership pack before Christmas. Tamsin Mosse
2008 Supporter Label Please find enclosed your new supporter label for 2008. This should be stuck onto your existing supporter card. This entitles you to a 10% discount at the Warehouse Cafe and on items in the Friends of the Earth Shop, providing you have the card with you.
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Campaigns Digest Or Roast butternut squash berbere, coconut bean rice, plantain chips, green leaf salad Desserts Chocolate brandy torte, whipped cream (v) Merry Christmas from all at the Warehouse Café. Here’s our Christmas menu … Spiced mulled fruit punch (v) Starters Soup of the day, organic bread (v) Winter green salad, walnuts, Roquefort croutons, sherry onion vinaigrette (v option) Mexican ‘gordas’, corn potato chilli fritters, tropical fruit salsa (v option) Main courses Wild mushroom, chestnut and red wine puff pastry pie (v); or Traditional nut roast (v) Served with winter ratatouille, sweet potato mash, roast potatoes, gravy, sesame shredded sprouts, cranberry sauce
Christmas pudding, brandy butter (v option) Ginger and maple syrup sponge pudding, custard (v option) Organic fair trade coffee or tea, organic chocolate mints £18 per head, children up to age 12 half price Available from Friday 7th December 0121 633 0261 www.thewarehousecafe.com This menu is correct at the time of going to press but is subject to change. We regret that all dishes may contain nuts or traces of nuts.
Every time I write the campaigns digest, I am sure that the period I am writing about is busier than the previous two months but I am now of the opinion that we are permanently very active. Recently, we have been active with the Big Ask climate change campaign, the local rail campaign and the promotion of local shops given the threat of ASDA arriving in Selly Oak and at Barnes Hill near to Weoley Castle and Bartley Green. Just as the last newsletter went to print, we won the latest stage of our campaign to protect Billesley Lane Allotments: at the City Council Planning Committee, Moseley Golf Club’s bid to turn former allotments into a practice area was turned down as a result of planning policy that our campaigner, Andy Pryke, got adopted in 2005. It shows that working through planning documents with a fine toothcomb, even if they are several hundred pages long, does pay off eventually.
Maud Grainger, working on the MultiFaith project, held an incredibly successful women-only organic iftar in Small Heath during Ramadan, which led to lots more interest in the already popular Faith and Climate Change Ambassadors project.
SPROCKET Cycles
Sales, service, repairs, accessories. Bikes also built to your own specifications. Open Wednesday to Saturday, 10am-4pm 0121 633 0730
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• 100% vegetarian and vegan • A Large selection of organic and fairtrade products, most supplied and delivered by a workers co-operative • Vegan owners - no meat or dairy products sold Open Monday to Saturday, 10am-5pm
As part of the Big Ask climate change campaign, I visited Andrew Mitchell MP along with Jo Dixon from Plantsbrook School. Mr Mitchell joined the growing list of MPs who are supporting a stronger climate change bill. Lynne Jones, Richard Burden, Clare Short, Roger Godsiff, John Hemming and Lorely Burt are the other MPs we currently know of (at the time of going to print) who are backing a stronger bill in some way or another… we hope to recruit more to this list as time goes on. At the Botanical Gardens, Harborne Farmers’ Market, the ASH gig at the Carling Academy and on Northfield High Street, we collected hundreds more climate change petition postcards, which have been forwarded to MPs. Roger Godsiff MP spoke at a speaker event at Moseley School. Working with Oxfam, Islamic Relief, Practical Action and Birmingham TUC to organise this was a delight. Partnership working can really pay off… team synergy is magical!
From left: Chirs Williams, Andrew Mitchell MP & Jo Dixon
Elsewhere, Sarah Wiley visited a school in Brownhills to give a talk on recycling; several campaigners went to the Road Block conference at BVSC in Digbeth; we spoke to Sutton Coldfield Pensioners’ Convention about climate change; our planning
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campaign team grew stronger with the addition of a planning expert; and Gareth Burt re-launched the Birmingham Environmental Education Project (BEEP), delivering a talk on climate change from a new angle – good for anyone who likes dry humour! Finally, I am pleased to report that media coverage has been on the rise lately. While we have rarely had difficulties in attracting media attention, by being a little more savvy recently we have had a respectable rise in coverage. Media is more integral in campaign planning, we have been chasing coverage more often and we have been targeting press outlets more carefully. We have also seen media coverage
in print media that we have not traditionally targeted, including The Muslim Weekly, The Friend (Quaker publication), The Zone (Midlands gay magazine), Birmingham Forward and The Mature Times. Issues covered include the Big Ask campaign, the local rail campaign, the ‘pay as you throw’ waste proposals, Birmingham’s first car sharing lane, Birmingham Airport’s expansion plans and noise issues in the Eastside and Hurst Street areas. One might expect Christmas to be quieter on the campaigns front but I wonder if our current rollercoaster of campaigns will have a moment to notice the festive season? Chris Williams
Airport News Birmingham International Airport (BIA) hit the headlines again in September when the airport company announced that the controversial proposal to construct a second runway by 2020 has been dropped from the forthcoming airport development ‘master plan’. In the absence of the master plan itself, which is expected to be published before the end of the year, BIA Ltd. put out a four-page ‘Interim Statement’ summarising its current development plans. Most of the media coverage focussed on the decision to shelve the second runway. Updated forecasts of
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growth in demand for flights at BIA indicate that another runway will not be needed after all, at least not before 2030. However, the airport company is pushing ahead with the plan to extend the existing runway by 2012 (in time for the London Olympics) and begin construction of a third terminal by 2018. A planning application to extend the runway is likely to be submitted to Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council before the year is out. Birmingham Airport anti-Noise Group (BANG), the residents’ campaign group Birmingham FoE helped to set up in 2001, welcomed the Interim
Statement but said local people living in the airport’s shadow ‘could not sleep easy yet’. BANG, which represents local people affected by aircraft noise pollution and blight, is concerned that operating a longer runway at BIA will mean: • Closer and lower flights over residential areas; • More people over a wider area exposed to aircraft noise pollution; • Scrapping operational measures designed to mitigate noise - for example, with a longer runway, the airport will no longer be able to operate the ‘Hampton Turn’, the southerly departure route from the current runway which takes planes away from the village of Hamptonin-Arden; • More airport-related traffic congestion on an already overstretched transport network. The airport’s contribution to climate change, directly from aircraft emissions and indirectly from associated road journeys, will also continue to grow. The airport company claims that the runway extension will help mitigate the climate change impact of aviation by helping BIA ‘claw back’ West Midlands air travellers who currently make long car journeys to other airports in search of direct long-haul flights, which the current runway cannot accommodate. But follow this line of argument to its logical conclusion and we’ll end up with a Heathrow in every region. Besides, the lion’s share of BIA’s future growth will come from a rise in demand in the West Midlands for short-haul flights, not
from a greater retention of travellers currently going elsewhere to start direct long-haul air journeys. For those residents affected by property blight from the second runway proposals, the news is mixed, and some uncertainty still remains. The Interim Statement says that the airport company’s voluntary blight compensation scheme will not be triggered this side of 2030, so there’ll be no pay-outs for the foreseeable future. That said, the fact that the second runway has been shelved, at least for the time being, should, providing local estate agents are brought up to speed on the new master plan, serve to relieve the blight. The airport’s management do not anticipate the need to review the master plan again until after the runway extension has been completed. After that, however, who knows? The airport company will never say never to a second runway, and I for one would not be surprised if the proposal turns up again, like a bad penny, in ten years’ time. You can read the Interim Statement on-line at BIA’s website: http:// w w w. b h x . c o. u k / P r e s s / 3 3 5 . p d f. Birmingham FoE and BANG will be working with other residents groups to fight the runway extension and push for a more environmentally sustainable approach to the future development of BIA. A new campaign and website devoted to stopping the runway extension will be launched in the coming weeks, so keep watching the skies. James Botham
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Lynne Jones MP Response to Friends of the Earths 3 Big Ask demands of the Government’s new Climate Change Bill Climate Change is my key priority. I am a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee, which carried out prelegislative scrutiny of the draft Climate Change Bill and succeeded in getting the Government to strengthen the Bill considerably.
On Climate Change
means a much greater reduction in greenhouse gas emissions than 60% by 2050 is needed. The Government has announced the most recent scientific research available should be reviewed to consider to what extent the target should be higher than 60%. It is important that this is done as quickly as possible. But even to reach the 60% target wll take huge changes in our way of life but once we start making those changes, the inertia will be overcome, making it more likely that we can accelerate change. Targets are fine, but most importantly we need the right policies - to convert what is technically possible to what is practically possible! Include annual targets so that politicians can’t blame preceding Governments for missed targets
Lynne Jones promoting low-energy light bulbs for the Energy Saving Trust’s Energy Saving Week, Oct 22-28
FoE DEMANDS Reduce emissions every year so that the UK reaches a target of at least 80 per cent cuts by 2050. The most important target is limiting global warming to 2°C, and this
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I understand the attraction of annual targets but, having taken part in the EFRA Select Committee’s enquiry, I accept that the Government has committed to a strong annual emissions reporting system, in which the Committee on Climate Change reports annually on Government progress, as a more practical way of keeping the pressure up.1 Government is obliged to respond, with both reports being laid before Parliament for proper scrutiny. In some ways this is stronger than setting annual targets, because if the emissions are cut simply because there is, for example, a mild winter,
then the Government cannot claim credit for such ‘progress’; i.e., proper analysis of what is going on will provide much greater transparency. Include emissions international aviation shipping.
from and
The UK Government has led Europe in pushing for the inclusion of aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) as soon as possible. I welcome the Government’s announcement that the Committee on Climate Change will Advise on a methodology for including international aviation emissions in UK targets which is workable and compatible with the EU ETS.
is made the model will be replicated in other parts of the constituency. What other actions have you taken to bring about carbon dioxide reductions in Birmingham and in the UK?
I persuaded the Prime Minister to take another look at introducing ‘feed-in tariffs’ for renewable energy....
Report annually to Parliament on emissions from international aviation and shipping. Given that much of our trade is via our ports, I would also like to see shipping emissions included in UK targets. In your view, what is the greatest opportunity for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in Selly Oak constituency? I am closely involved in ‘SusMo’ (Sustainable Moseley), a local campaign, covering 9000 households, for a more sustainable community, by personal action to cut our household CO2 emissions and through community initiatives – see http://www.lynnejones.org. uk/susmo.htm I hope more local people will join and that as progress
I persuaded the Prime Minister to take another look at introducing ‘feed-in tariffs’ for renewable energy see: http://www.lynnejones.org.uk/ feed%20in%20tarrifs.htm. Feedin tariffs have underpinned the successful expansion of renewable energy in Germany, Spain and Latvia. Their introduction in the UK could transform positively the renewables industry as well as incentivise households to become microgenerators themselves. Much of my longstanding record of work on climate change is documented on my website,: www.lynnejones.org.uk/environm1 Lynne Jones
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Keep Digbeth Noisy Most of us would be unhappy if our DVD collections were limited to the same twenty films as everyone else, or our bookshelves the same 20 books. Yet because of a noise abatement order on a popular live music venue in Digbeth, we may now be limiting the city’s musical diversity. The noise abatement order was served after complaints were made about The Spotted Dog, a pub that has had (with the exception of the factories and warehouses of Digbeth) no residential neighbours for the last 22 years, until the Abacus housing development was built over the road and 178 new flats were sold. The flats were designed with enough acoustic insulation to cope with the noise of the roads outside, but not to block out the sound of the pub, famed for its loud late nights.
the developers or Birmingham City Council Planning Department. A noise abatement order was still issued. The same piece of legislation that was designed to tackle rowdy neighbours is now being aimed at a pub with a rich history of entertainment. This brings about an important question: How many more residential developments are going to be allowed to go up near cultural venues in Birmingham? And how many of those cultural venues are going to be forced to stop live music? John Tighe, the owner of The Spotted Dog, believes The Custard Factory, The Rainbow and The Sanctuary amongst others in Digbeth could face the same threat. These distinctive venues that attract people to visit, live and work in Digbeth could be stopped from playing music, causing the area to lose its uniqueness and vibrancy. The rise of inner city living is not just affecting Birmingham’s music scene. The building of apartments has already caused the closure of several venues in Leeds and London1. When business rates and property prices go up, selling a pub or venue to a developer becomes a lot more attractive, even more so if the music that attracts people to the venue in the first place has been banned.
Outside ‘The Spotted Dog’ with landlord John Tighe and local band ‘Mothertrucker’
When the Environmental Health Department was asked to investigate, they did not consider the lack of acoustic insulation in the flats, neither did they check whether this was the fault of
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So what will we be left with if our small venues begin to disappear? Will we still be able to find the intimacy that comes from a few people standing round a stage listening to an unamplified acoustic set, or the feeling of discovering a band before they get big? It seems that the experience of listening to unheard-of bands in
small venues has not been quantified by City Council Planning Chiefs, or Environmental Health Officers, yet some of these bands go on to break into the mainstream. Would Ozzy Osbourne be on our television screens if it was not for Black Sabbath being able to get those first few small gigs in Birmingham pubs?
Ground2 describes what we would lose as ‘local distinctiveness’, which is “essentially about places and our relationship with them. It is as much about the commonplace as about the rare, about the everyday as much as the endangered, and about the ordinary as much as the spectacular... Many of us have strong allegiances to places, complex and compound appreciation of them, and we recognize that nature, identity and place have strong bonds.” Digbeth’s vibrant character is being marketed by developers, but they misunderstand or refuse to care about why people want to be there in the first place. This is leading to the destruction of the historical identity and essence of the place. The situation is not hopeless though, and there are ways that we can act to keep our music venues, and stop Birmingham from becoming a ‘Clone Town’; You can visit the Keep Digbeth Vibrant website3 and sign The Spotted Dog petition, which asks for the Noise Abatement Order to be lifted.
A ‘Keep Digbeth Noisy’ bottle of wine being enjoyed at ‘The Spotted Dog’
Independent shops, cafés and restaurants are also affected by big developments, rising business rates and land prices, which brings the loss of a music venue into a wider debate. What happens when we lose our independent businesses? What do we lose with them? The charity Common
You can vote for The Spotted Dog’s landlord, John Tighe, to become Brummie of the Year4, or the ‘Capsule’ girls, who have worked for years promoting live music around Digbeth. By supporting local bands and local pubs you can turn a great night out into a small but effective form of activism. Phil Burrows 1. http://tinyurl.com/2sz7jf 2. http://www.commonground.org.uk/ 3. http://tinyurl.com/36r8a3 4. http://tinyurl.com/yonhw8
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Trains to Kings Heath Continued from front page.... The railway is already a feature of Balsall Heath and its two modern tracks carry freight and express passenger trains southward to Kings Norton and then onwards to Longbridge, Bromsgrove and Worcester. The railway through Balsall Heath is part of the St Andrews Junction to Kings Norton Junction line (SKN) that is also known as the Camp Hill Line, and once carried a local train service that originated at Birmingham New Street Station. The local passenger train service was withdrawn as a wartime economy measure and not reinstated as in those days the bicycle was a mainstay of local transport and buses ran efficiently on roads not choked with cars. How the world has changed! Post war road construction has given Birmingham some giant roads and huge roundabouts but the traffic heading down the A435 has overwhelmed a strip of South Birmingham. Plans have been put forward in the past for road schemes to slice through Moseley and Kings Heath but such schemes failed to realise that some of the traffic has arrived there because the alternative, the bus, whilst frequent on the famous 50 route, is caught up in the traffic. For years now, the local people have asked for a train service. Requests for local railway stations have been met by promises of a study ‘in the future’. That study has now been done through the sponsorship of Birmingham City Council and with funds from central Government.
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Coincidental with the consultants chasing the technical answers, Birmingham Friends of the Earth were asking the people of Kings Heath if they wanted to be on the rail network. A local business, the Kitchen Garden Café, stepped forward straightaway to offer to act as a post-box for letters about the idea. Meanwhile, frequent street stalls gave the chance to chat about the idea but those outings attracted so much support that running out of blank pledges was generally the reason for us to pack up. Additionally, the MP Dr Lynne Jones spoke up on BBC TV for stations in her constituency at Balsall Heath, Moseley, and Kings Heath. By September 2007, 1500 people had taken a leaflet that showed the proposed route and had signed a pledge. A huge number of businesses in Kings Heath also backed the campaign, including a local fish and chip shop, which collected signatures on the back of chip wrapping paper. Our own locally-controlled passenger transport organisation, Centro, has thought about increasing the coverage of Birmingham with local trains for years. Centro is no stranger to brave decisions taken about local railways. Not only did Centro press for and largely fund the Cross City Line revival (before which the railway to Redditch was on the point of closure), later it was a major funder of the electrification of that route, and part-funded new trains. Amongst the achievements of that initiative is Five Ways Station, the
place that launches a thousand feet on their way to work and night-time trips to Broad Street. The Cross City Line, though it serves many settlements in Birmingham, exists alongside thriving bus routes so, for instance, from Selly Oak there is a choice of frequent buses on the Bristol Road or the trains. Balsall Heath Station could be a repeat Five Ways triumph, although it is For Centro, the Cross City Line was only the start. Having rolled that part of Birmingham back into action, Centro turned its attention to the
routes from Shirley and Solihull that terminated at Moor Street. To go beyond Moor Street, Centro and British Rail effectively built a new railway on a line long removed. The railway was furnished with new bridges, drainage, track and stations at Snow Hill, Jewellery Quarter and Smethwick Galton Bridge. Centro’s efforts have by no means been confined to these examples and, as their efforts in Birmingham have been an unqualified success, the new route to take trains to Kings Heath has a strong case.
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If there can be common ground by all parties, there is a strong argument to fund the new local stations. These local stations can serve a large population catchment and people would mostly walk or cycle to them. Safe cycle routes to the stations can form a part of the scheme. The railway would further connect one of Birmingham’s areas of employment growth, Longbridge, with other areas. The South Birmingham suburb, through being easy for staff and customers to reach, could improve its chances of attracting new firms, preferably ones geared to a new low carbon economy.
The Birmingham Friends of the Earth proposal for the Kings Heath trains suggested that their introduction would need some signalling provision, a short length of new railway in the Bordesley area, and a number of new stations. The short length of new railway is proposed because the new Kings Heath route is not an extract from nostalgia corner but a new vision that would connect Birmingham Snow Hill to Bromsgrove. The feasibility study, sponsored by the City Council, has now been completed. The consultants concluded that there is an economic case for having a local passenger train service and re-opening the
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long closed stations (except Balsall Heath). Given that New Street Station is heavily congested, the study recommended using the other central Birmingham stations of Moor Street and Snow Hill. This would be achieved by building a short connecting railway line in the Camp Hill/Bordesley area so that trains can run into Moor Street. The consultants proposed the direct chord line that, although shorter than that suggested by Friends of the Earth, probably means lowering the road level on the Middleway (and perhaps even the roundabout). The construction of the Bordesley connection, the platforms for new stations and other work, would cost around £40 million. On completion, passenger trains would run to a frequency of one train every 20 minutes. The report suggests that the work should be programmed so as to be complete in 2017. None of this should have been breaking new ground. A few years ago a report by consulting engineers ‘Aspen’, the West Midlands Area Multi Modal Study (WMAMMS), had concluded that, assuming unchecked economic growth and unrelenting growth in transport demand, new railway capacity was called for. Whilst Friends of the Earth was scathing of the WMAMMS (‘an environmental catastrophe’), the railway improvements included a ‘Snow Hill Network’ that would divert local trains from places such as Walsall into Snow Hill to make space at New Street. The question
is why the alterations required (such as that new line at Bordesley) are not already on a waiting list in some dusty railway file. As road building in the West Midlands seems set to go, where is the balancing railway aspect that the ‘multi Modal Study’ advocated? Although the study was in favour of the railway and the early stages of Birmingham Friends of the Earth’s efforts have allowed 1500 people to write in favour of the railway, a lot more needs to be done. Individual actions count for a lot. Birmingham
Friends of the Earth thinks that the completion date of 2017 is too far off. Please write a letter of support for new stations in South Birmingham – to your MP, your Councillor, Centro, or the Department for Transport (Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DR; fax: 020 7944 9643; e-mail rail@dft.gsi. gov.uk) With your help, we won’t have to wait too long for the train to Kings Heath. John Hall
Speaker Event: The Birmingham Environmental Education Project (BEEP) started with a bang on bonfire night with a speaker event and re-launch evening. BEEP is an education-based environmental charity that covers Birmingham and the West Midlands. Its volunteers deliver talks, meetings and workshops on issues such as recycling, transport, climate change and environmental issues that effect us both locally and globally. The event began with a talk by myself explaining climate change. The short lecture was a simple introduction with props instead of PowerPoint, laughs instead of long words and, of course, a song on my
Birmingham Environmental Education Project
ukulele at the end. Afterwards there was a chance to talk to the BEEP staff (me) and ask questions about what BEEP is and what it does. We are always looking for groups, classes or whole schools full of people who are concerned or want to know more about the environment and issues such as climate change. So, if you have any suggestions, please contact BEEP via the e-mail address below or through the usual BFOE channels. If you are passionate about the environment and want to spread your enthusiasm, get in touch for more information about becoming a volunteer. beepbrum@googlemail.com Gareth Burt
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Practical Action The devastating effects of climate change are never far from the news headlines, but only when looking at the developing world do we find out the true reality. Practical Action, a Rugby-based international charity, is working with some of the poorest communities in the world, as they face the devastating effects climate change is already having on their fragile existence. The world’s poorest are on the frontline of disaster as they are hit by droughts, floods and other extreme weather events. According to Practical Action, this is an injustice because climate change is caused by the richest nations, pumping out excessive emissions. Practical Action’s ‘Stop Climate Injustice’ campaign raises awareness of the link between climate change and poverty. It urges people to lobby MPs and politicians to take urgent action for the sake of the world’s poor. Communities in the developing world often depend on farming and fishing; the slightest change in the weather can affect their livelihoods. In areas of drought, children spend time collecting water rather than attending school. Sharon Looremeta, Practical Action’s Kenyan Maasai project officer, told Wembley stadium at the global LiveEarth concert: “My people do not drive four-by-fours or pump out excessive emissions, yet are suffering from the terrible effects of changing climate, making our survival even more difficult.”
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Recently, Bangladesh suffered horrific flooding, leading to hundreds of people losing their lives and millions forced to seek shelter elsewhere, living off government and charity handouts. Yet someone watching four hours of television daily for a year in the UK produces the same amount of CO2 as an average person in Bangladesh. Practical Action is working with people to adapt; from flood resistant housing and ‘floating gardens’ in Bangladesh; to working with Maasai communities in Kenya to diversify livelihoods; and micro-hydro and other low carbon energy schemes in Peru and Nepal. However Practical Action warns that adaptation alone will not be enough; the international community has a duty to cut emissions if we are to address this moral imbalance. The UK can take a lead on this by implementing a strong Climate Change Bill. As Sharon told the LiveEarth audience: “I have hope; together we can stop climate change getting worse.” Practical Action’s message is very clear; this is a question of justice; those who helped cause climate change must play an important role in cleaning up their mess. More information about Practical Action’s Stop Climate Injustice campaign can be found at: www.practicalaction.org/climatechange Jane Eason
ASDA
moving in on Selly Oak and Barnes Hill
Yet again we have a supermarket sniffing around the Birmingham area and the City Council seem quite open to their advances. ASDA does not yet have any stores south of the city and has had a bus touring around the Selly Oak and Barnes Hill area, getting views on two plans in each area. Both plans seem controversial - the one in Selly Oak is opposite an already well developed retail park with planning permission to develop the area further, and the Barnes Hill one is planned to go on Birmingham parkland and an RSPCA site.
Here we have a situation where a supermarket is threatening another area of the city that the Council is more than capable of stopping The first plan is in Selly Oak opposite Battery Retail Park, and there are quite a few problems with this. Battery Retail Park already has planning permission to expand so there is no reason to have another supermarket in the area. Also it looks like it will affect the row
of shops along the Bristol Road. Although the plan includes retail outlets they don’t seem to have matched the units of shops already established there and there are some interesting triangular shaped retail units to replace them. However, it seems that the Barnes Hill site is sparking more controversy and it seems like a case of déjà vu - the Tesco developments at Yardley and Hodge Hill are taking green spaces in the city and now it looks like more green land is threatened in the Bartley Green area. The site includes the RSPCA animal cemetery, as Councillor Deirdre Alden mentions in her blog. What Cllr Alden doesn’t mention is that the site takes up a green area adjacent to, or part of, Woodgate Valley, a designated country park which is owned by the City Council. Here we have a situation where a supermarket is threatening another area of the city that the Council is more than capable of stopping – not at the planning stage where they are not always capable of turning down developments due to Government guidelines – but at the stage of land acquisition. Birmingham City Council do not have to sell the land. The Council is quite rare in that it owns so much land; there is no need to sell off all the family silver right now. Please watch this space. When the planning applications come in, please send in your opinions to the Council. Mary Horesh
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Unblocking the Roads It is the last Saturday of October and seventy committed individuals from all over Britain are gathered in central Birmingham to answer one crucial question: How can we unblock our roads? This is ‘Roadblock’, an annual conference organised by Campaign for Better Transport1, a national organisation representing the views of around 40 environmental charities and public transport user groups. Between them those assembled are contesting 18 new roadbuilding schemes, just a fraction of those the Government is now planning. These protesters have spent long hours petitioning, organising public meetings, and even making their own videos with vivid names like ‘Road to Nowhere’ to highlight the damage caused by roadbuilding schemes. But why do they have such an axe to grind? As they see it, there are two major problems with the transport system as it stands: sustainability and the quality of life. And, through its policy of ploughing billions of pounds of public funds into roadbuilding, the Government is conspicuously failing to deal with either. The first problem is closely tied in with climate change and burning nonrenewable fossil fuels. Britain - with a ‘carbon footprint’ 160 times that of Ethiopia - needs to rapidly reduce CO2 emissions to avoid the potentially catastrophic effects of rising global temperatures. Yet, as in every other major energy sector - power generation, house building, coal mining, oil
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exploration, aviation - the Government promotes policies that increase emissions - by encouraging car use. The recent report Transport Statistics for Great Britain2 makes uncomfortable reading, revealing that CO2 emissions from domestic transport are rising steadily with road transport contributing 93% of the total. Meanwhile, vehicle efficiency has barely improved for years, voluntary agreements by car manufacturers failing to deliver results.
Volunteer Spotlight Chris Williams interviewed Alison Breadon
I have been a Friends of the Earth member since I was 14 years old but only donated funds until recently. To be honest, I have a real fear of climate change and that’s what motivated me to be more active. I had not done campaigning before but had volunteered and worked for other non-governmental organisations. I did some research on the internet, came to a speaker event at the Warehouse and the rest is history. Do you enjoy your work here?
....people deserve attractive, unpolluted streets.... The second problem relates to the belief that people deserve attractive, unpolluted streets where children can play, neighbours meet, and pedestrians and cyclists travel safely and in comfort. For this to happen, we need to use our cars less, requiring policies and incentives that make green forms of transport an attractive option. So let’s campaign not for a Road to Nowhere but for a better transport system. As speaker George Monbiot asked at Roadblock: If not now, then when? If not here, then where? If not us, then who? Dave Watton i http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/home ii http://tinyurl.com/2j9b3d
How did you get involved with Birmingham Friends of the Earth?
How long have you been volunteering at Birmingham Friends of the Earth? About three years now but soon I will be disappearing for a while to have a baby. What do you do here? All sorts… I am the Line Manager for the Campaigns Support Worker; sometimes a receptionist; have organised speaker events; greet new people who come to Monday night campaigns meetings; often take minutes at meetings; contribute to the campaigns strategy meetings; and do personnel work such as help with recruitment and development of policies.
Yes, it’s very varied and I have made some good friends. It’s really flexible here so I can get involved in all sorts of things, following my interests, without being over-committed to one thing or another. Volunteering here makes me do things that I wouldn’t otherwise do - for example, I was asked to visit my MP, which was quite empowering. I would not have done this unless Birmingham Friends of the Earth had encouraged me to do so, and now I feel I can go back to speak to my MP about anything. What environmental issues are most important to you? Short answer: climate change. I have a bleak outlook and I know we need to act quickly. Also, as a Quaker, my faith motivated me to look after the planet: we have been entrusted not to abuse the planet but to treat it with respect.
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Billesley
Lane Allotments Campaign Victory
This newsletter has carried many articles over the years about Billesley Lane Allotments. The allotment land is owned by Moseley Golf Club who, at the end of a 50 year lease, wanted to evict the “allotmenters” and create a practice area. A longfought battle ensued, involving a failed attempt by the Council to compulsorily purchase the land and a ‘compromise’ deal which saw the allotment holders keeping about a third of the land until 2018 and the rest of the land swiftly bulldozed by the Club.
Louise Hazan holding a beetroot at Billesley Lane Allotments
Following this disappointment, the Golf Club put in a planning application last spring, which we countered with one of our own - to extend the allotments onto the Golf Club. This appeared in the local press on April 1st to much general amusement. Anyway, the allotment holders, Birmingham Friends of the Earth and a sizeable public petition made our responses to the planning application, and awaited the Council’s decision. It was a long time coming, but we were delighted in September to see planning permission refused. It seems that the
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Council recognised that their Unitary Development Plan (UDP) carries a strong enough commitment to preserving allotments to merit refusal of planning permission. Significantly, one clause in particular stated that “planning permission will not be granted for the redevelopment of allotments simply because allotments have fallen out of use and become derelict.” This clause was actually put forward for inclusion in the UDP by Andy Pryke of Birmingham Friends of the Earth and saved our bacon (or marrow, perhaps).
DEC
JAN
1st December, Independent Shops Day - BFoE local shops action, Weoley Castle
4th January, Critical Mass Cycle Ride, 5.30pm, St Philip’s Cathedral
5th December, Chris Crean’s Climate Change Quiz, 7.30pm, The Spotted Dog, Alcester St; teams of 4; call Chris Williams to book your team a space or to look for team mates
5th January, New Economics Group Meeting, 10.15-12:00, the Warehouse
8th December, Climate Change March, London
This is an excellent small battle won in a long war and we are not counting our chickens just yet. The Club could still appeal, though the Council will have been mindful of this when making their decision, and the UDP was clear. But the land now lies vacant, a no man’s land inhabited only by escaped golf balls and a resident pheasant. We hope that negotiations will result in the land’s return to allotment use, and a permanent commitment to maintaining this.
17th December, Birmingham FoE Christmas Party and Fair, the Warehouse. All welcome.
We recently attended a wonderful Bonfire Night at the allotments. Homemade toffee, mulled wine and sixty-odd people stripped to their tshirts around a blazing beacon of a fire. Around us, the last of the autumn’s crops lay amid newly dug plots under the heavy fog. We stayed and chatted and watched as the beacon reduced to a glowing pile of embers.
Harborne: 2nd Saturday of the month 9-2pm
Farmers’ Market Bearwood: 3rd Saturday of the month New St: 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month King’s Heath: 1st Saturday of the month King’s Norton: 2nd Saturday of the month Moseley: 4th Saturday of the month Shirley: 3rd Thursday of the month except Jan and Feb Solihull: 1st Friday of the month Sutton Coldfield: 2nd Friday of the month
Billesley Lane Allotments and their community are well worth the fight… till the next chapter.
Visit this site for more info: http://thefoody.com/regions/centralfm. html#westmidlands
Karen Leach
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