Wolverhampton City Council

The leader of City of Wolverhampton Council has voiced serious concern about the impact on the city's main hospital when Telford's emergency unit closes overnight.

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Last week the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust board ruled the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford would suspend services overnight because of staff shortages.

New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton has already taken on extra patients after Stafford closed its A&E from 22:00.

Roger Lawrence said the extra burden wasn't fair on staff and could impact on patient care.

The pressures that will fall on us, Stoke and Dudley are likely to be quite serious in terms of their potential impact, and if it is going to be a long-term issue then I don't think that they're going to be able to cope."

The City of Wolverhampton Council has been granted an injunction to protect 60 parks, green spaces and other vulnerable sites against unauthorised traveller camps.

The injunction, obtained from Birmingham High Court yesterday will enable the council to evict travellers encamped on the protected sites more quickly.

Anyone illegally occupying any of the protected sites could be arrested and imprisoned, fined or have their assets seized.

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The High Court granted the injunction for three years.

Councillor Steve Evans, Cabinet Member for City Environment at City of Wolverhampton Council said: "These encampments have caused a lot of disruption to our residents, especially over the past year."

You can see the full list of affected sites here.

The lack of rules governing the parents of children who are educated at home has been identified as a "major concern" for education bosses in Wolverhampton.

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A recent investigation into how families can be monitored by the council found that 28 families in the borough had not submitted any evidence of work showing "effective progress".

At present there are no specific government guidelines as to how local authorities can measure individual cases with regard to Elective Home Education (EHE), with the law stating that parents are under no obligation to teach the National Curriculum.

A meeting of the council's Children, Young People and Families Scrutiny Panel this week heard the situation was "very concerning".

Councillors in Wolverhampton are calling for an emergency planning exercise, mimicking disasters such as the fire at Grenfell Tower, to be brought forward.

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The call came at a meeting of the Fire Safety Scrutiny Group, which was set up to oversee and monitor safety procedures for all of the local authority’s residential homes and properties.

Members of the panel heard that by law the city only needs to hold a major exercise every three years.

Council officers have now been asked for a report on the feasibility of bringing forward a major exercise.

Ideas aimed at breathing new life into Wolverhampton city centre will be discussed at a council meeting next week.

They include turning empty offices into new homes and the city council's Stronger City Economy scrutiny panel will also look a the impact of the Beatties closure.

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Councillors will be told that the city centre contains more than 20% of Wolverhampton’s businesses and is currently attracting £992 million of private and public investment.

Roger Lawrence, Labour leader at the City of Wolverhampton Council, said it had been a good result for the party.

"We've held all the seats we were defending. We've gained one and possibly two.

"I think people recognise that our elected members work hard for them, we are organised and good campaigners and active in local communities and it pays dividends."

Labour’s Celia Hibert gained Penn from Tory David Mackintosh.

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The new council is made up of 51 Labour councillors and nine Conservatives.

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Wolverhampton North East MP Emma Reynolds and South East, MP Pat McFadden, are at Aldersley Leisure Village cheering on the Labour councillors

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