Birmingham City Council

Plans for the £1.5bn redevelopment of former wholesale markets sites in Birmingham might have to be reconsidered, following the release of alternative plans by a community group.

A Birmingham City Council scrutiny committee has asked for the local authority's own proposals to go back before councillors "as a matter of urgency".

Birmingham City Council

Peter Culley, an architect who is supporting the alternative vision, produced by the City Park 4 Brum group, called the council plans "bland" and added: "It looks like a corporate American suburban plan from the 1990s.”

The campaign group would prefer the area to be turned into a green space with room for market stalls and a mock medieval moat.

Richard Cowell, assistant director of development for the council, defended the masterplan, which has taken four years to draw up, saying it would be key to delivering the housing and jobs Birmingham needed.

The number of people sleeping on the streets of Birmingham's risen by 53% in the last year, according to the city council.

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Since 2012, the authority's admitted rough sleeping's increased by 500% and 91 people are on the streets every night at the moment.

But it claims measures such as street intervention and a new initiative called Housing First are working.

The latter scheme gives homeless people with other issues such as addiction all the services they need in one place.

We've seen 58 people that were entrenched rough sleepers off the streets across the region. We've seen bed and breakfast usage come down from 700 to 360 roughly, so that's a huge improvement on the numbers of that."

The councillor in charge of Birmingham's bin collections said there was "no overnight fix" after it was revealed last week that rubbish in the city was still going uncollected.

John O'Shea admitted that up to 900 collections were missed every day and told a council meeting on Tuesday that he was "under no illusions the service is not delivering".

"The problems are quite serious and need to be resolved," he said, explaining that there were lingering problems regarding routes and structures after workers changed from a five-day week to four.

However he said he was "confident they will be resolved and we will make the service better".

Refuse collections in Birmingham have been disrupted twice since a strike in 2017 about the changes to working patterns.

The Supreme Court has overturned a decision by Birmingham City Council to declare a mum-of-four as "intentionally homeless" after she could not afford to pay her rent.

Terryann Samuels fell into arrears in 2011 after a shortfall between her housing benefit and £700-a-month rent for a house in West Bromwich.

PA

The council found her home was "affordable" and she had "flexibility" in her budget, which was made up of other benefits including welfare and child tax credits.

"I find it hard to see on what basis the finding of intentional homelessness could be properly upheld," Lord Carnwath, one of five Supreme Court judges looking at the case, said.

It was ruled Ms Samuels should not have had to use her other benefits to make up the shortfall in housing-related benefits and the judges called on the council to "accept full responsibility".

Homelessness charities supporting Ms Samuels, Shelter and Child Poverty Action Group, welcomed the ruling.

When someone is forced to choose between rent and keeping their children fed, they cannot be viewed as 'intentionally' homeless when they choose the latter."

Birmingham City Council has formally declared a "climate emergency" in the city and called on the government to help it become a zero-carbon city by 2030.

BBC

At a meeting on Tuesday, councillors agreed that climate change posed a "profound" risk to "life and property" in the city.

The newly formed Climate Emergency Task Force has been charged with creating a formal plan to cut the city's emissions by January, including a review of the Labour-run council's investments into transport, housing, waste and energy.

The authority's only Green Party member, Julien Pritchard, said it was a "watershed moment" and Labour's Lisa Trickett said the council "has to act and act now".

The declaration was welcomed by Birmingham Friends of the Earth who said it was an "historic" move.

The campaign group Extinction Rebellion has been staging a demonstration in Birmingham city centre.

BBC

About 50 protestors presented a petition to the city council, calling on it to act to tackle climate change, and make the city carbon-neutral by 2025.

The proposal is being discussed at a full council meeting.