A packed weekend

On the run...

It was a very busy weekend. Saturday brought the excellent Stechford Police Station open day, which gave people a great opportunity to see their police service up close.

On the left, you see a demonstration of public order officers about to detain a violent thug carrying a weapon. Actually, that's Sgt Danny Cooke in heavy protective kit so that the officers involved can safely use the right level of force to detain him. It was also good to have a chat with the Flightpath Protection Team, who keep an eye on a sizeable area of the West Midlands and Warwickshire that falls within the take-off and landing flightpaths of Birmingham Airport. Alongside a range of community groups, we also had attendance from the Royal Signals and Sheldon fire station, who provided a demonstration of how they can swiftly create a Mondeo convertible with only the help of powerful cutting equipment. It was also good to catch up with some colleagues. The left hand picture shows me with Diane Donaldson, the Labour candidate for Stechford and Yardley North in 2014, Cllr Zafar Iqbal, Cllr Jess Phillips (our parliamentary candidate for 2015 for Yardley), Cllr Nawaz Ali, Cllr Yvonne Mosquito (Deputy PCC) and myself. The next shot also includes Cllr Maryam Khan, Police and Crime Commissioner Bob Jones and Cllr Mohammed Aikhlaq. It was also good to catch up with Bob and have a brief chat about policing in Acocks Green and raise a couple of issues from residents - in particular the hardy perennial that is the anti-social use of motorbikes on parks around the ward.

Sunday brought the annual Sheldon Country Park Festival which was blessed with warm weather. Again, a good turnout for this local show with plenty to see and do and the decent weather was welcome!

Acocks Green Labour - down to work!

After that, a quick dash back across to Acocks Green to help out with the cleanup on Millennium Green. Cllr Stacey, Cllr Phillips and Rachel Seabright, our candidate for election in 2014, were already hard at work - collecting rubbish and painting over graffiti on the end wall of the garages. I joined in, with the help of one of my children, in clearing rubbish from the banks of the stream.

This is all in aid of today's visit by the Britain in Bloom judges, who came to visit Pemberley Road last Friday and will be around and about Acocks Green this morning. Thanks must go to Fran and the team for their hard work over the past months in creating the orchard and generally tidying up. I've also got to note the support of the Business Improvement District, our Parks team and the Fleet and Waste Management crew who have supported the work throughout.

Incidentally, Sunday also saw the judging of Birmingham's entry in the Entente Florale, a Europe in Bloom competition, where Birmingham is the sole UK entry this year. Given our outstanding record in horticulture, we should have high hopes of success, so fingers crossed that the eight hour judging period worked for us.

I had to abandon the team early and dash across to the Arden Road residents' association tea party, who had kindly invited Stewart and myself over. As always, it was good to catch up with local residents and talk about local issues. They'd laid on a fine spread, too, with jam produced from berries harvested in the garden of the hall. I couldn't resist buying a jar of Bee 27 honey - produced from a hive in the road.