Roughley News Ewan Mackey

📣📣🚨Today is THE day - it is POLLING DAY!

Polling stations are open from 7.00am to 10.00pm. Don't forget to take your Photo ID when you go to vote today.

Vote for your Local Conservatives team.

Just a reminder if you are one the thousand or so properties that are not scheduled to receive fibre to the premises and therefore could potentially miss out on future services that need that bandwidth there is still funding available via the government's BDUK voucher scheme to cover the cost of the installation via Evolve. Obviously this grant money is finite and accessible via the QR code or URL in the graphic.

Latest Apri 2026 Unemployment Update from Birmingham City Council

The latest monthly claimant count Unemployment Update is attached with figures for March 2026, released this morning by the ONS.
Please Note: Recent changes to Universal Credit (UC) including a further transition of some claimants on legacy benefits and an increase in the Administrative Earnings Threshold has resulted in many more UC claimants being moved into the ‘Intensive Work Search’ category and thus being counted in the claimant count figures. More detail can be found here.
Key findings from the Unemployment Update include:

· Unadjusted claimant count unemployment in the city increased by 1,625 between February and March to stand at 77,715. The claimant count in Birmingham increased by 2.1% last month, the claimant count also increased for the core cities (+3.5%) and the UK (+2.1%) last month.

· The 50+ age cohort was the age group to see the biggest proportional increase in unemployment last month with numbers up by 350 (+2.4%).

· Birmingham's claimant unemployment rate stands at 13.6%; above both the West Midlands (6.8%) and the UK (4.9%) rates.

· The claimant count increased in all of the twelve core cities last month, and in all of the seven West Midlands Met areas.

· Claimant count unemployment increased in 58 of the city’s 69 wards last month.

· Unadjusted youth (18-24) unemployment in the city increased by 315 last month to stand at 15,780. The youth claimant rate increased to 19.0% as did the youth claimant proportion, up to 10.9%.

The latest resident employment data from the ONS Annual Population Survey shows that in Q4 2025 there were 507,200 working age residents in employment, down by 13,500 on the previous quarter. The resident employment rate locally decreased to 67.0%, down by 1.9 percentage points on Q3.
The latest data on online job adverts shows that in February 2026 there were 11 686 new online job adverts posted in Birmingham. This was down by 3,079 (-21%) on the previous month.
The latest qualifications data from the APS for 2025 shows that the proportion of working age residents in the city with RQF3+ level qualifications increased to 64.8% and the proportion with no qualifications fell to 9.3%.

Your postal vote can help clean up Birmingham and kick Labour out.

But only by voting for the Local Conservatives.

Independent website Poll check shows the Local Conservatives set to gain the most seats with Reform in 4th place and out of the race.

But in a hung Council a Labour led coalition of chaos could still leave Labour in charge of the Council they bankrupted.

Casting your vote for the Local Conservatives will help us win and deliver a strong mandate for our plan to clean up the city, end the strike and save weekly bin collections!

Our 6 Point Plan Birmingham City Council has been effectively bankrupted, and residents have faced a double whammy of higher Council Tax (over 18% in 2 years) for fewer services.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2191239/reform-khan-unholy-alliance-green-belt

Reform accused of 'unholy alliance' with Khan over London green belt Tories have accused Reform of an 'unholy alliance' with Sadiq Khan that would let the Mayor bulldoze London's green belt and precious open spaces.

There are 1600 homes in Sutton Coldfield that have missed the Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) roll out and so stuck at the slower Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC). Moor Hall Drive is one example. However a Government grant via Project Gigabit has now become available. The grant is claimed through a contractor based in Derbyshire and due to the way Facebook works these days the link is in the first comment below. The scheme does need about 200 people to sign up but the only cost to the resident is the standard monthly Broadband Fee.

Our Town Council has been in dialogue with representatives from WM5G regarding a programme of financial support for eligible residents and businesses in Royal Sutton Coldfield to receive gigabit capable broadband as part of the Project Gigabit programme. WM5G is a wholly owned subsidiary of the West Midlands Combined Authority, (WMCA) whose remit is to work with the Combined Authority and central government to highlight areas that need interventions to support the delivery of the programme.

Please find below an update on the programme and how it should help improve the take-up of gigabit capable broadband within the town. Hopefully this will prove useful should you receive any queries from residents and businesses.

Project Gigabit is a government-funded programme to enable hard-to-reach communities to access fast, reliable gigabit-capable broadband. It targets homes and businesses that are not included in broadband suppliers’ commercial plans, reaching parts of the UK that might otherwise miss out on upgrades to next-generation speeds.

The connections delivered by Project Gigabit will address pockets of poor connectivity in urban areas; some of which are located within Royal Sutton Coldfield; particularly within parts of Sutton Four Oaks, Sutton Mere Green & Sutton Roughley Wards. According to the latest stats for coverage for the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) area, the percentage of premises in Royal Sutton Coldfield with Full Fibre and Gigabit access compares less favourably to Erdington, Birmingham and the WMCA area.

Gigabit-capable broadband provides a download speed of at least 1 gigabit per second (or 1000 megabits per second). It is at least twenty times faster than the current average broadband speed in the UK. The infrastructure that supplies gigabit-capable broadband can be much more reliable than older telecommunication networks. It is often delivered through fibre infrastructure - glass cables, encased in a thin layer of plastic, which transmit data via a light signal. This technology enables five times fewer faults than old copper-based networks, with less time spent on infrastructure repairs which can create local disruption like street works. This maintains a consistently fast speed to premises delivering a better service for residents and businesses.

The majority of gigabit-capable broadband infrastructure across the UK will be delivered by broadband suppliers’ commercial rollout. However, there remain some areas which will be too costly for a broadband provider to cover on a commercial basis. If a premises is within these types of areas, the government’s Project Gigabit has a number of interventions designed to provide gigabit-capable broadband. This includes a Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) helping people upgrade their broadband connections through localised projects, providing small grants for residents or businesses that suppliers can accumulate towards the cost of the network build. Eligible homes and businesses can access vouchers worth up to £4,500 to help towards the costs of installing a gigabit-capable broadband connection.

At the end of last year, approval was obtained for a GBVS to cover 1624 premises across Sutton Coldfield. A direct mail shot will shortly be sent to every property available to claim vouchers.

The engineering works are scheduled to start in the Spring of this year to build the network with the first connection expected in the Summer.

Please find below a hopefully useful link:

Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme information We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.