Digbeth Residents Association and Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) is committed to working with West Midlands Police (WMP) to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in Digbeth.

Further to our last update in March, there have been positive changes to the Partnerships Unit, outlined by Sergeant Swallow below:

You are no doubt aware that we recently lost Vicki Smith our Partnerships Officer. Vicki’s role will be maintained, but we will have to struggle through until the replacement arrives. We expect to have someone in post at the start of June.

In the interim, I will begin e-mailing you with burglary and vehicle crime on a weekly basis showing the previous week’s crime.

Please find below the first crime figures for your area and many thanks for your patience.

Police Sergeant 6178 Swallow
Partnerships Department
Birmingham West & Central Local Policing Unit

BURGLARY
Useful link – West Midlands Police website

No crimes reported.

VEHICLE CRIME
Useful link – West Midlands Police website

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Digbeth is not the only place to have a website dedicated to it. Our Lightmoor Village Residents Association in Telford, Shropshire run Lightmoor Life.

Lightmoor Life recently live streamed a Telford and Wrekin Council meeting to their site with great success. What do we mean by ‘success’? Well, four members of the public attended the meeting in person. Over 100 watched online.

If people do indeed ‘vote with their feet’, we’d say that was pretty much a landslide victory for virtual democracy.

This story has inspired Digbeth Residents Association to ask if you would more readily engage with Birmingham City Council meetings if you could do it from the comfort of your sofa? All Birmingham Councillors are accountable to the electorate and regularly hold Ward Meetings that everyone can attend. If you could pose questions without having to go to the meeting, would you be more willing to exercise your democratic rights?

You can read more about the Lightmoor Life story on their website. In the meantime, we’d love to hear what you think – comment below or join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter.

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Birmingham’s Digital Media Businesses Cluster hosted a Digital City News Day at the BBC yesterday. I was very happy to have been invited, especially as it turned out to be a very interesting, informative and useful event.

As a prelude to the event, Dave Harte yesterday published research showing that Birmingham has more hyperlocal news websites than any other council area. Read more about Dave’s research here.

At the event, we were introduced to a BBC website pilot, Local Live. This is a news ‘ticker’ updated live from 8am – 6pm daily, right on the BBC Birmingham and Black Country pages. The aim of Local Live is to bring the newsroom closer, by including tweets and other social media interactions with the BBC from people like you and me on their website pages. Even Digbeth is Good was featured at the weekend! See the BBC website for the ticker (on the right side of the page) or click here to leave any feedback.

As part of the day I was interviewed about hyperlocal blogging, and as such featured in the Midlands Today programme later in the evening! Click below to see the full report, courtesy of David Gregory-Kumar:

With new research suggesting that people’s memory for Facebook posts is much stronger than their memory for human faces or sentences from books, it seems there is an opportunity for relevant social media to become the prevalent source of news. Digbeth is full of technology pioneers, which can only be a good thing for our patch going forwards.

To learn more about the Digital City News Day, see a great storify of the event below courtesy of Twitter interactions.

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On Monday 10th December, Digbeth Residents Association held their final meeting of 2012 at the Old Crown in Digbeth.

The meeting featured presentations on the History of the Bullring Markets from Jo-Ann Curtis, Curator of the Birmingham Museum, and on the Future of the Birmingham Wholesale Markets from Keith Simpson of Technolink. Both presentations were recorded and will be available to watch soon for those unable to attend the meeting. Thanks to Rob at Media Dog for loaning us a light for filming.

The inaugural Digbeth Community Awards were also held at this meeting. We were delighted to present awards to residents Val Woodward, Adam Robins, and The Custard Factory. All three recipients of a Digbeth Community Award were recognised for their valuable contribution to the Digbeth community and support of DRA.

Finally, the meeting was followed by the DRA Christmas party. All the fresh produce at the party was donated by traders from the Bullring Markets, emphasising the need for us to fight to keep this important service in our community in Digbeth. Digbeth Residents Association will continue to support the campaign to keep the Wholesale Markets in Digbeth.

Digbeth Residents Association would like to thank the Old Crown for hosting our meeting, and cooking up a fantastic feast for our party! Thanks also go to the market traders who very kindly donated fresh produce to DRA. We are very grateful to our presenters, Jo-Ann and Keith, for taking the time to prepare two very interesting talks, and last but not least, thanks to all who have supported DRA in 2012.

Here’s hoping that 2013 will be just as successful for DRA! Remember that we’re always looking for volunteers to contribute to our website, help organise events, and even to take on committee positions such as Chairperson. If you’re interested in finding out more, register your interest by email to contact@mydigbeth.co.uk.

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When: Friday 14th December, 17:00-23:00; Saturday 15th December, 12:00-18:00
Where: Minerva Works, Fazeley street, B5 5RS

Wrap up warm and join IKON, Grand Union, Stryx and VIVID at Minerva Works for some arty goodness at Winter Fest.

More details below:

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