July 6, 2010
in Bordesley Green, Bromford & Firs, Buckland End, Hodge Hill, Kitts Green, Lea Village, Local campaigns, Shard End, Small Heath, Sports Village, Ward End, Washwood Heath, Young people, glebe farm, schools
I’ve had confirmation today of huge cuts in funding for our young peoples’ future today as in a chaotic announcement, the Tory-Lib Dem council announced the cancellation of plans to rebuild Hodge Hill Mixed and Washwood Heath Technology College.
Over £30 million of funding has been slashed – while the Tory-Lib Dem Council in Birmingham did not raise of finger of protest.
One of our greatest breakthroughs in the last Parliament was getting in place over £63 million pounds to rebuild our secondary schools. We want to see these are real hubs for the community, open not only to help our youngsters get a world-class education, but there to serve and enrich our quality of life all year round. One of the ideas I am working on is how a ‘Sports Village Trust’ run by the community could run some of these new buildings at weekends and in holidays.
The new Tory-Liberal government has now reviewed whether to actually write the cheques for the money agreed. We need these new schools – our kids deserve the best too. Just so you know what’s at stake, here is the list of how much many – and where – we got agreed.
| School |
Value |
Start dates |
| Saltley |
£11,743,409 |
November 2010 |
| Park View |
£8,960,867 |
November 2010 |
| International |
£11,552,051 |
November 2010 |
| Washwood Heath Technology College |
£16,852,066 |
August 2011 |
| Hodge Hill Mixed |
£13,837,014 |
September 2011 |
| Hodge Hill Girls |
Awaiting feasibility |
November 2012 |
| Grand Total |
£63,945,097 |
|
And here is the cold announcement I had from the Department for Education today;
Hodge Hill Stopped
Washwood Heath Stopped
International School Unaffected
Park View Unaffected
Saltley Unaffected
Waverley Unaffected PFI
The news comes five days after the Government sneaked out a report showing under Labour’s management last year, department’s came in £5 billion under budget.
We’ll be fighting this crass decision. Look out for our campaign in your area soon.
In between meetings with our new police commanders in East Birmingham and the city council’s chief executive, I did my weekly school gate surgery at Heathlands, where I had the great privilige of handing over the school’s first award to Citizen of the Week, Maya Headley.
Heathlands is coming on in leaps and bounds. We’re all hoping for good things from their Oftsted review which finished this week and at assembly today we learned about the schools #1 placing in the North Birmingham swimming gala and their championship in the Saltley football league.
Citizen of the Week is a new award which goes to the young person who demonstrates consistent helpfulness, kindness towards others, and an attitude of putting something back into the school. It’s a brilliant idea from a brilliant school.
Friday saw me back to Highfield Road Childrens Centre today, which I had the privilige of opening in 2007. The team here have done an incredible job enriching facilities at the centre for their 144 young people, and running an amazing family support service including health services and supporting parents in their first steps back to work.
We’ll be working closer in the future to make sure local services are coordinating their support to parents better.
One of the consistent messages coming back from parents is the need for better sports facilities including a womens’ only gym. I’ll be talking to some local womens’ groups to try and accelerate that idea in the weeks to come.
It was a great pleasure to be at Saltley School yesterday – to help plant a new oak tree gifted to the school from the Prince of Wales. The Prince dispatched the marvellous gifts to every school in Hodge Hill which joined in a unique two yr research programme into the aspirations of our youngsters led by Prof James Arthur of Birmingham University. Let me know if you’d like a copy of the report. And thanks to the Prince for such a thoughtful present. It’s a fantastic symbol for the years to come.
Congratulations to our Hodge Hill sports ambassadors who I introduced to the Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe at the Commoms the other day. They gave an absolutely knockout presentation on what they had learned about community sports in Sweden. Gerry has given his full backing to help us persuade Birmingham City Council to get in place more facilities including support for a new handball league, and long term a new swimming pool. If you’ve ever in any doubt about the passion and insight our young people bring to public life, listen to these guys.
Here’s the moment when some of Hodge Hill’s finest made it over the threshold of power! I’d invited them all to No 10 and No 11 Downing Street for a special guided tour to celebrate the launch of an amazing report based on two year’s research into the aspirations of our youngsters. Message? Simple. Our youngsters have big ambitions for the year’s to come. But need more backing – and to develop their connections, self-confidence and self-esteem. With that in place, there is no stopping them! We launched the report a little later in the crypt of Westminster Abbey kind lent to us by the Dean. I can’t tell you how proud our youngsters made me that day. You can get the report here.
Liam is the MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, and Labour's Shadow Chief Secretary. 
