Media Watch – August 19

Top Birmingham City Council stories

Taylor Wimpey in payments battle over Calthorpe Estate project (Birmingham Post website): The construction firm has challenged the financial agreement, known as a Section 106, to pay £180,000 towards affordable housing as part of its plans to build 43 homes on a site in Highfield Road, Edgbaston. The company claim this could threaten the viability of the scheme.

Free Wi-Fi now at Bull Ring markets (Express and Star):  Coverage of launch of the free Wi-Fi  network at the markets, as part of the council’s network of 200 hotspots in public buildings. Cllr Trickett quoted.

Taxpayers ‘ripped off’ by authority set-up (Halesowen Chronicle): Article suggesting taxpayers living in Dudley are paying three times as much per head than residents in Birmingham, according to UKIP MEP Bill Etheridge.  Leader of Sandwell Council, Cllr Darren Cooper, said it was right that an equal contribution is made so that all members of the combined authority would have an equal voice.

Bosses are backing combined authority (Halesowen Chronicle): Chief executives of Chambers of Commerce in the Black Country, Coventry, Greater Birmingham and Warwickshire are supporting the seven council leaders in wanting to set up the West Midlands Combined Authority, in a letter published ahead of a conference at Birmingham Chamber of Commerce today.

Regional headlines

A new Office for National Statistics report has revealed that Birmingham and other West Midland towns and cities are falling behind the rest of the country in terms of job creation and making money.

BBC workers are to stage a 24-hour walkout at the broadcaster’s Mailbox offices today, in protest to cuts being made to BBC Asian Network.

Hundreds of brides have been left out of pocket after a Halesowen-based wedding company Bake A Cake has ceased trading. Government agency Action Fraud is investigating complaints against the firm.

National headlines

E-cigarettes are 95 per cent less harmful than tobacco and could be prescribed on the NHS to help smokers quit, according to a review by Public Health England into ‘vaping’.

Lord Coe has become the new head of world athletics, after he won the election to become the IAAF’s president in Bejing.

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