KINGS HEATH NEIGHBOURHOODS FORUM

Management Committee Minutes

14th October 2026 (7pm at Whitesmith Croft, Silver Street)

NB: These are an abridged and reorganised version of the approved management committee minutes from the meeting focusing on points likely to be of most interest to residents. In this summary we cover the key updates and discussion points made, rather than who made specific contributions; names are generally omitted with the exception of councillors, committee members, and invited guests presenting information to the Forum. Where names are mentioned we try and clarify their position/who they are on first usage.

1. Crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) – update

These updates follow on from discussions and action points raised at our previous meeting in September

• Hamzah (Councillor) has established monthly meetings with Moseley & Kings Heath police team, and hopes to replicate with Brandwood team. He has found it helpful to be communicating face to face with them. He has kept the momentum with the police going following concerns and publicity around crime earlier in the year; not just on youth crime, but also on drug crime, thefts, and other criminal activity.
• Matt (Enjoy Kings Heath – Business Improvement District) has met twice with Sergeant Choudry from the Moseley & Kings Heath team. They have started drop-in sessions with the police, specifically for businesses.  The first one has already taken place and was useful.
• The Moseley and Kings Heath police team have increased their visible presence locally, including mounted police patrols. They are looking to hold a public meeting in Kings Heath, possibly in November.
• The police emphasise the value and importance of reporting crime and ASB via 101 for incidents that don’t justify an emergency 999 call.
• In response to concerns about perceived lack of, or limited actions taken by staff in some shops to apprehend shoplifters it was explained that there are sometimes company policies which don’t allow staff to physically intervene or apprehend people imposed by insurance policies.
• Following research undertaken by Matt related to the question raised at September’s meeting about what we can do as a community, The Forum are supporting people volunteering for Streetwatch. This is an initiative by WM Police where trained local volunteers provide a visible presence on local streets of people actively looking out for their neighbourhood by undertaking group patrols in hi-vis jackets. Streetwatch is about deterring crime, not dealing with it (which is a police job), volunteers have no policing powers.
• Anyone interested in getting involved can email streetwatch@westmidlands.police.uk
• In light of the steps being taken by the councillors and Matt, the committee agreed a proposed meeting with the Police & Crime Commissioner was not necessary at this stage.
• The Forum will attempt to liaise with the local police forces to help publicise their public-facing meetings to local residents. Aiming to work with the councillors in creating a flyer that combines info about upcoming Forum meetings with details of police meetings and possibly Councillor surgeries, which the Forum can help put up on noticeboards around the ward
  

2. Kings Heath Community Kitchen

• Achim (Forum Chair) thanked Adam Basey, Jo and Sue from Kings Heath Community Kitchen for coming to our meeting to tell us about their organisation.
• Kings Heath Community Kitchen (“KHCK”) started 12 months ago with the aim to provide a free hot meal to rough sleepers in the Kings Heath area. This was prompted by the numbers of rough sleepers Adam had seen when he moved to Kings Heath and his own past experience of rough sleeping and knowing the value of making services available to people living in this situation.
• KHCK is a donations-based organisation. In 12 months KHCK has grown from providing a meal to 18 rough sleepers in their first session, up to now providing a range of services to a broad range of people experiencing social isolation and insecure housing, with 109 people at the most recent session on Sunday 11 October 2026.
• KHCK provides a free community meal on the 2^nd and 4^th Sunday of every month, at the New Life Baptist Church, opposite Asda on Kings Heath High Street. Every table has a volunteer/ befriender seated at it. They offer a range of additional services, such as free haircuts, showers and clothing.
• They also now run two Wednesday advice sessions a month, to help signpost people to appropriate sources of help.  Sometimes specific advice organisations will also attend. So far, referrals and signposting by KHCK have resulted in 37 people successfully being rehoused. Adam has a database of services and resources across Birmingham and is happy to share this with others.
• KHCK are keen to welcome local people to pop in to their sessions – you don’t have to be in one of their main target groups in order to drop in.
• You can donate to KHCK via their Crowdfunder page:  https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/more-than-a-meal-kings-heath-community-kitchen (If anyone prefers to donate by bank transfer, they will need to contact the KHCK team).

3. Related local issues on housing

• Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (a Labour peer and former government minister) had visited a KHCK session very recently and had observed that the organisation’s work is in line with the prime minister’s stated aim of getting people off the street.  The KHCK team had taken the opportunity to give him feedback about what they saw as major structural failings of the system, including for 18 year-olds leaving the care system and for prisoners at the point of discharge.
• A seminar on homelessness in Kings Heath (10 October) and a BBC article [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm62y80yxw9vo] highlighted Birmingham as currently the “HMO capital of the UK”.  [specifically “supported exempt accommodation” (SEA) which is one type of HMO]
• Councillor Jordan arranged to meet the KHCK team separately for a longer conversation.

4. Parking Enforcement & Related Issues

• In September Jordan updated the Forum about some successes in getting abandoned vehicles removed.  Since then, there’s been an increase in reports. He advised that not all vehicles with the appearance of being abandoned can be tackled.  For those that can, there are compulsory steps for the Council to go through, so they often can’t be removed straight away.  It won’t be obvious when work is going on in the background to get to the point where they can be removed.
• Jordan said there is a wider issue of illegal parking, on which he’s also been working. There are currently not enough Civil enforcement officers to deliver the levels of enforcement desired by councillors and others, and the council have been asked if staffing numbers can be increased. Jordan is liaising with the Council’s Parking Enforcement team to see if patrols can be scheduled more effectively to make best use of the current numbers. Matt has met with Parking Enforcement who are planning to set up two new enforcement hubs (currently they just have one in the city centre where all officers are based), one of these will be in Kings Heath, which should help with them getting more local intelligence about parking offence hot spots.
• On parking issues around schools Jordan had been looking at the possibility of private car parks allowing parents to use them for drop off and pick up, but having spoken with local parents some wanted to drop off their children very close to the school gates due to safety concerns. He’s reflecting on the best way to refresh issues on schools and parking. He was urged to encourage school leadership, especially from schools drawing from larger catchment areas to take an active role in encouraging parents to work with them on means of making sure journeys to school are responsible.

5. Places for People

• The Council has recently released an update to confirm that they’ve recommenced work on redesigning the plans for the east side of Kings Heath High Street, with Institute Road and Springfield Road being two of the key roads to be addressed.
• People who have signed up for Places for People updates can expect to get an update about every 6 weeks (you can sign up on the Kings Heath & Moseley Places for People pages on the Council’s website).

The council website for the Kings Heath Places for People project has received a broader reorganisation, and among other things now lists helpful summaries of the previous stages of planning, actions and consultations together.

6. Waste collection

• There were no new updates on resolving the bin strike.
• Roll out of the new waste collection system is continuing, with 23 of the 69 Birmingham council wards now included in the pilot. A timeline is still awaited for rolling out the pilot to the rest of the city.  Jordan said many councillors are as frustrated as residents about the lack of a timeline and are feeding back this frustration to the Council.
• Green waste is not part of the pilot, so there is no indication at all about when collection of green waste might restart.
• In wards where the new system is being piloted, there has been a one-off emptying of the old recycling bins at the outset. Jordan hopes the same will apply to the remaining wards.
• Enjoy Kings Heath, along with others have ongoing work to tackle rubbish issues around Kings Heath High Street.

7. Other local organisation and initiatives

• The Coventry Loo Alliance had heard about the accessibility work on Kings Heath High Street and had contacted Matt to find out more.
• Christmas lights will be going up along the High Street (in addition to the tree lights, which are periodically lit up throughout the year).
• Achim attended the Kings Heath Community Centre AGM, where he heard about the very positive developments. Since moving out of Council control, the number of regular user groups had doubled from 16 to 32. The monthly “Home on the Heath” pay-as-you-feel community meal is being well-received, with 60 to 80 people each time. It’s following a Danish model of mixing people up between different tables.
• Achim fed back from a previous meeting that he is taking steps to contact the Friends of Kings Heath Park.
• Achim met with Darnell, the new Local Partnership Officer covering our ward, to explain what we believe to be the main issues facing the neighbourhood.
• Friends of Kings Heath Station. A resident who expressed an interest at our September meeting is looking into the possibility of getting together with others to work towards applying to adopt Kings Heath station. The committee agreed in principle to a request to fund the cost of joining an organisation called the Community Rail Network should a friends group be set up.
• Our annual AGM is pencilled in for January, in Kings Heath Community Centre, with (hopefully) Julien Pritchard, the Deputy Leader of the Council as guest speaker, to principally focus on questions around climate resilience in the area, covering things like fire and flooding, which came up quite a lot in the ward survey.

8. Next meetings and events

• 11 November, 7pm: Committee meeting in Brandwood Centre
• There will be a councillor-led ward meeting on Monday 30^th November, 7-9pm at the Brandwood Centre. The councillors will feed back on the ward survey at this meeting and also give people a chance to prioritise spending ideas for the funds allocated to each ward.