Media Watch - Jan 28
Top Birmingham City Council Stories
Cities set out stalls (The Times and FT website) The leaders of Birmingham and Leeds City Councils along with the Mayor of Bristol met 30 investors from Britain and abroad at the inaugural Investment into Cities event at Downing Street yesterday.
Swingers’ club based at historic house (Birmingham Mail) One of the city’s oldest and most historic houses, Stratford House in Highgate, has been transformed into a swingers’ club. Council quoted as saying that when a change of use planning application was submitted (from office use to a private members club), no objections were received – but the local authority will investigate to determine if any licensable activity is taking place on site.
Council denies responsibility over new-born twins’ deaths (Birmingham Mail, BBC WM and Mirror website) An investigation into an incident at Pleck House, which saw paramedics unable to immediately access the building to help a pregnant resident, has determined there was no evidence the council could have reasonably done any more to change the outcome of the incident (which saw Jocelyn Bennett lose her twins). The council is now exploring improvements to access arrangements for emergency services – with Jocelyn’s father quoted as saying the council has been honest with its investigation.
Hundreds of live and dead cockroaches found in kitchen, microwave and crawling up walls of pizza takeaway… but inspectors close it for just three days (Daily Mail website) A pizza takeaway was shut for just three days after health inspectors found it was infested with hundreds of dead and alive cockroaches. Pizza Pan in Perry Barr was ordered to shut after baby cockroaches and eggs and 20 of the insects were discovered ‘huddled together’ in a cupboard where pizza bases were kept.
Regional Headlines
Walsall FC are set to play at Wembley Stadium for the first time in their history after winning through to the final of the Johnstone’s Paints Trophy.
Two men have been charged with the murder of missing Coventry mother Nicola Payne, who disappeared 23 years ago.
Walsall Council has abandoned a budget proposal to introduce a garden waste charge – but five libraries will have to close to help balance the council’s books.
National Headlines
US technology giant Apple has reported the biggest quarterly profit ever made by a public company. The net profit of $18bn (£11.8bn) in its fiscal first quarter tops the $15.9bn made by ExxonMobil in the second quarter of 2012.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said a new Islamic State (IS) video threatening to kill hostage Kenji Goto within 24 hours is “despicable”.
More than a million adults in the UK may be wrongly diagnosed as asthmatic and be receiving unnecessary medication as a result, warns an NHS watchdog. NICE says a third of adults diagnosed with this common lung condition have no actual clinical signs of asthma.
