Tag: Forum meetings

Minutes of September 2026 Meeting

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KINGS HEATH NEIGHBOURHOODS FORUM 

Abridged Summary of Minutes

9th September 2026 (7pm at Brandwood Community Centre)

There was a good attendance at the meeting with nearly 30 people. Given widespread concerns about a rise in crime and anti-social behaviour this topic was prioritised. Due to the length and complexity of the discussions around this topic, the abridged minutes are a little longer this month.

Crime and anti-social behaviour

What has been happening?

  • Matt, (Town Centre Manager for Enjoy Kings Heath BID), reported KH High Street affected by actions of a particular group of teenagers since late 2025, that have gone beyond ASB to criminality (e.g. assault, theft, mugging) Hamzah (local councillor), noted many incidents have been attributed by Police to actions of just two individuals, but a wider group are caught up or influenced by ongoing ASB.
  • There has also been a visible increase in drug-dealing around Kings Heath High Street, especially on the side streets on the east side.

What have the councillors and the police been doing to address this behaviour?

  • Hamzah explained Moseley and Kings Heath police (M&KHP) team (covering most of High St, North of Vicarage Rd junction) have been gathering information and formulating plans for dealing with the core group of offenders. One young person has been relocated from the area and another is facing court action. The sergeant for M&KHP has agreed to monthly meetings with the councillors. Hamzah had received less response from the Brandwood policing team, and he would continue to pursue this and aim for a similar monthly meeting. The councillors emphasised that they are having ongoing discussions with the police about how they allocate available resourcing.
  • Both councillors and Matt are concerned the number of police officers allocated to the local area was inadequate. Hamzah had been pressing the West Midlands Police & Crime Commissioner (“PCC”) for more resources to be allocated to the local police teams. He understood that the PCC in turn was lobbying central government for an increase in police resource allocated to the West Midlands. The councillors are asking the two MPs (Al Carns and Tahir Ali) who cover the Brandwood & Kings Heath ward to support this lobbying.  
  • Jordan (local councillor) has written and widely publicised a letter to the relevant police inspectors. This had sparked considerable media interest.

Topics of concern discussed at the meeting

  • A widespread perception of a lack of feedback and/ or explanation from the police about action taken (or not taken) after crimes are reported. The apparent absence of action being taken by the police on some incidents, and a perception from victims of either no, or insufficient explanation why is causing bafflement and upset.
  • The councillors said they’ve learnt in some cases this can be due to the non-intuitive way the police process cases; where the local team transfers a case to a specialist/regional police team for further action it will describe it as “closed (down)”, which (may) refer to its status within the local team as a task management item, rather than its status as a criminal investigation. Thus a case can be both “closed” and an active/”open” investigation for different parts of the police. 
  • Communication shortcomings, both in volume and specificity by the police mean they sometimes undersell what they’re actually doing. The response from the police to the media coverage only said they were busy working on the issue. This contributes to a perception there is little enforcement taking place. There was a widespread desire/request for the police to tell people more about what’s going on, especially relevant local organisations like Enjoy Kings Heath.
  • There is concern about resourcing to local police teams, whether the number of police officers is consistent, fair and appropriate at both the neighbourhood, city and regional level, when compared to other areas. As well as when we will see additional neighbourhood police resources promised in government announcements. In addition concerns over how local teams are using resources they have and whether enough of the on-duty officers at any given time are engaged in visible neighbourhood policing.
  • They were concerned about the potential for young teenagers to be groomed into becoming involved with more serious crime.  They were also concerned about the negative impact on the community of the repeated instances of ASB and criminal behaviour and noted that the safety of the community is a key priority. 
  • There are concerns from residents and councillors about criminal behaviour on roads on the east side of Kings Heath High Street, particularly visible/brazen drug dealing. With particular concerns relating to criminal activity regularly taking place around Mossfield Road, Hamzah had received quite a lot of reports about. He was aware that the police do patrol there, but he would like to see more. 
  • There are concerns about housing associations and other landlords not doing enough to support vulnerable tenants, or to have processes for identifying emerging needs, such as to identify and provide better support for tenants who may be vulnerable to getting involved in drugs and other crime. This is a particular concern with a recent vigilante attack on a vulnerable tenant, and the July 2025 murder of a vulnerable drug-affected person on Springfield Road. Matt mentioned a multi-organisation enforcement day on the High St in July, an outcome of which was relevant authorities sharing information and coordinating on locations where cross-organisational intervention and enforcement is required.
  • There were concerns where activity either falls short of the threshold for criminality, or encompasses issues outside of the direct police remit that these are not being appropriately tackled or enforced in a joined up way. Hamzah explained that when the police receive a crime report about a shop, if it looks to be in breach of trading standards rules, they refer onwards to Trading Standards enforcement. Hamzah said that complaints about council tenants can be lodged with the Council, which then has a process to follow.  The situation with exempt approved accommodation is more complex, but there are steps that can be taken. It was noted Kings Heath High Street (along with the centre of Moseley) is covered by a Public Space Protection Order (“PSPO”), which bans certain types of activity from public spaces.  At the full Council meeting on 14 July 2026, it was confirmed that no fixed penalty notices had yet been issued for breaches of that Order despite being in place for a number of years.  It could help if the Council put more effort into enforcing the PSPO.

What further steps should be taken?

  • Achim (Chair) provided background about the way the Kings Heath Neighbourhoods’ Forum, the Enjoy Kings Heath BID, individual businesses and residents, local councillors, the Police & Crime Commissioner (“PCC”) and the two local police teams worked together in the first half of 2025 to tackle open drug dealing in All Saints Road.  This was effective, but highlights the scales and challenges of coordination that can be needed to tackle habitual issues.
  • Action: Forum management committee, in discussion with councillors and BID to decide if a meeting with the PCC and others would be useful.
  • Action: Forum management committee and others to publicise monthly meetings run by the two local neighbourhood police teams 
  • Simon (committee) highlighted there is a need to address the fear and anxiety local residents feel about crime and ASB as well as addressing the incidents themselves. Pointing out crime statistics themselves are not usually what make people feel afraid or worried, and so greater reporting of statistics, prosecutions, etc from police or PCC may have limited impact on their own. Alongside police actions, we as a Forum and a community can think about how we can contribute to making things happen, which also make people feel safer. Suggestion forum could consider supporting the community setting up more in the way of coordinated Streetwatch groups. (Action: To discuss further at next Forum management committee meeting).  
  • Councillors will push for the police to communicate more with the local community in meetings/engagement
  • Action: Identified more could be done to help people who are vulnerable or being victimised into criminal activity.  The councillors agreed that this was important, not simply out of concern for the individuals concerned, but also as a way of tackling some of the root causes of crime. Councillors to push for more joined-up, multi-agency approaches to both vulnerable people and to people/ families with difficult background and behaviours.  The idea would be for better communication between social workers, GPs, housing providers, police, mental health teams, etc. 

Other matters:

Update on ward/neighbourhood organisation 

  • A new team has been set up at Birmingham City Council, consisting of around 20 Local Partnership Officers (“LPOs”) covering all of Birmingham’s 69 wards, to support councillors and local community organisations.
  • Darnell Richards, is new LPO for the Brandwood & Kings Heath, Stirchley, Billesley and Highters Heath wards. 
  • Suze (formerly lead of Our Scene CIC and Brandwood Buzz) has been appointed to one of these roles, but not for our local area. Due to conflict of interest rules, she has to take a step back from Our Scene and the Brandwood Buzz cultural action area; these will continue with other people taking the lead
  • LPOs will assist each councillor in their area to prepare a Ward List – a list of priorities for councillor allocated funding within the ward to influence how funding is spent. Ward Plans are being abolished and replaced by Ward Lists. LPOs will be able to help with coordinating local neighbourhood projects but will not have an active hands-on role in delivering them. 
  • Jordan and Hamzah will be organising up to four Councillor-led ward forums a year, supported by Darnell as part of the Ward List process. Along with an online ward survey, currently open to residents. In the previous council term the former councillors here ran their ward forums to prepare the Ward Plan in conjunction with the Forum, so this will be a slight procedural change for residents.

Report from Councillors (Hamzah & Jordan)

  • Jordan reported that Kings Heath Library will be part of a city-wide programme of renovations to improve sustainability and energy-efficiency, including installing a heat pump.

Updates on other community work and groups

  • Teams of volunteers (Clean and Clink) have been painting over unauthorised graffiti on High St
  • New local weekly podcast called Heath Talk highlighting positive things in Kings Heath. https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/chris-smith3/
  • Kings Heath Community Centre is going well.  The Football World Cup watch events had about 1,000 people through the doors.  There’s also a community meal taking place there once a month, alongside both regular and one-off bookings.  
  • Friends of Kings Heath Park would welcome more involvement/engagement in their activities. Forum will support this by inviting chair to future meeting.
  • The Forum, along with Kings Heath Community Centre agreed to provide support for setting up a new local photographic society/club 

Friends of Kings Heath Station (“FOKHS”) (Alan)

  • Since the opening of the new stations on the Camp Hill line there has been interest in local “friends” groups adopting the stations. An application for Moseley Village station has been rejected, but we understand the friends group are reapplying, and Pineapple Road station has been adopted by a group supported by the Dads Lane Community Association.
  • FOKHS is a long running group set up to push for and then support the opening of the (new) train station. The original group has dwindled in size and in its current form is not able to take forward any proposals to adopt Kings Heath station.   
  • The Forum has been supporting FOKHS by investigating if any other groups were looking into adopting the station (there are not), to gauge whether local residents favoured the idea of adoption (considerable local support), and to gauge interest in people either taking over FOKHS or setting up a new group to do so. One attendee volunteered to explore a group for adoption and the Forum will support by sending relevant information and facilitating links to other local contacts (Action).

Next meetings and events

14 October, 7pm: Committee meeting in Silver Street

Five people in high visibility jackets hold up an old station platform sign saying "Kings Heath"

Update on New Train Stations

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On Wednesday 1st October Kings Heath Neighbourhoods Forum hosted a public meeting with a panel of guests involved with the opening of the Camp Hill Line stations to update residents on progress and answer their questions. The slides from the meeting with extensive details and photos are available by clicking the link. The key information of interest to residents is summarised here, comprising information from the slides, the presentations and the Q&A.

Progress towards opening

The stations will be open for passengers in 2026.

At this stage they cannot confidently forecast or commit to an opening date – see below and the slides for further info on why. From various pieces of information given at the meeting it seems likely this will be no earlier than March ‘26, but before July ‘26.

There will be a lot of publicity once the open date is set, and this will be at least 4-6 weeks in advance of the opening.

It’s worth noting this does not represent any further delays to the work, as announcements earlier this year referred to the construction of the stations being completed, or the stations being “finished” by the end of ‘25, which is still on track to happen. Before the stations can be used by passengers there is a lengthy and complex process of testing, training, certification and transfer of ownership of the sites to the rail/train operator – called “Entry into service” works. See below project plan from the slides.

Project timeline from presentation slides

Entry into service works are very complex and normally take several months, although some testing can start before the building works are complete (see above) most of this work has to wait until construction is finished. Adding further complication to these sites the ownership of West Midlands Trains is changing in February ‘26, during this period of hand-over/entry into service. The lack of a firm opening date seems to largely stem from the combination of the complexity of the entry into service works leading to uncertainty in how long they will take to complete, along with the current ownership/management of the stations not (yet) being in the hands of the body that will open them.

Official opening

They intend to have a grand opening ceremony and/or party for the stations, but no details are available for this yet.

Further construction works and disruption

You can find update to date information on each station’s progress at any time from Transport for West Midlands’ dedicated Camp Hill line page. The picture as of the meeting date is:

Kings Heath

Highways work is largely completed now, at some point further minor works will be needed to bring the new pedestrian crossing lights into service, and to do some other finishing works including resurfacing one carriageway.

Pineapple Road

Highways work is ongoing and progressing well, expected to be finished in Mid-November

Moseley Village

Some further utilities and highways permissions are being finalised before work can begin fully, this is expected by mid-October, with roadworks to be completed by Mid-December.

Train service details

Trains will run into and out of New Street.

Trains will continue onto Kings Norton (from Pineapple Road) before “turning around”. Passengers will be able to get on or off at Kings Norton.

There will be 2 trains an hour between 06:00-23:00, Monday-Saturday; 1 train an hour on Sunday starting a little later, and finishing a little earlier.

Fares are “zone 3” meaning they will be roughly the same as Kings Norton to New Street, likely a little cheaper. (This is £3.80 peak fare currently).

Trains are 4 carriage, Class 196 diesels. These have a more “open” design than some other more cramped local train types, with increased standing space, and fewer seats. There is nominal storage for 3 bikes per train, but at the discretion of the conductor (as is transport of more than 3 bikes), so it seems likely this will be difficult, if not impossible to guarantee or depend on during peak times.

Station infrastructure

There will be community workshops in the coming months to help inform the details of design and artworks. They intend to have some mosaics as well as some information/history/heritage boards at each site (see examples on the slides). There is a possibility Kings Heath will have a mural, given the strong links with the High Vis Street Art festival and Enjoy Kings Heath (the KH BID).

Kings Heath and Pineapple Road have storage for 32 bicycles, while Moseley has storage for 50.

Parking

None of the stations will have parking, but will have drop-off areas only. There is a station car park at Kings Norton.

Parking on surrounding streets will be monitored. The panel mentioned Birmingham City Council and the WM Mayor office have made assurances they will provide specific support for parking enforcement around the station, in terms of illegal parking.

There has been a previous parking survey conducted to assess the baseline parking levels around the stations prior to them opening, if there are reported issues with a greater volume of parked cars after station opening there will be a second survey conducted around 6 months after opening to compare to the earlier one and assess where these problems are occurring. If problematic increases are shown in the survey comparison then it will trigger a planning and consultation process for making changes to address these issues.

It’s worth noting any concerns and issues which arise can be best addressed at a local level with the local councillors for Moseley, Brandwood & Kings Heath & Stirchley. As well as, from a more long-term perspective, with the respective Neighbourhood Forums for the wards. Neighbourhood Forums are responsible for developing the local ward plans (alongside councillors), and incorporating aspirational measures to tackle problem parking in specific locations can be a useful tool in advocating for future funding allocations. The opening of the stations will roughly coincide with the next local council elections, which also means a subsequent review and update of the various ward plans with the incoming councillors which could be timely.

The future of the line

The station platforms have been built to accommodate up to 6 carriage trains, so there is a possibility of increased capacity there if there is high demand.

The number of trains per hour is constrained by the capacity of New Street and there is very unlikely to be any increase in the number of trains per hour within the next 10 years or so

Opening up further link lines (the “chords”) to take trains into Moor St instead of New Street, and allow more trains per hour is a theoretically possibility but there are no firm plans on table for this at the moment.

It is unlikely the line would be electrified as there is no likelihood of funding to support this.

There are no plans for a process to “name” the line, but this may happen in the future.

The trees cut down near to the line, (mostly between Kings Heath and Pineapple Road) will not be replanted, as these were removed for operational reasons. There may be some replanting with smaller shrubs in places, but sightline and noise issues for residents will be addressed primarily with a 1.8 m high fence.

Forum Meeting Dates 2024

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The dates have been set for our monthly meetings of the Neighbourhoods Forum.

Note: Meetings start at 7pm

Please note at the last committee meeting it was agreed to change the meeting start time to 7pm to improve accessibility. We will publish an updated poster soon with the correct time.

If you live in Kings Heath or Brandwood you are welcome to attend any of our monthly meetings as a visitor.

Kings Heath Residents’ Forum Annual General Meeting 2019

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Wednesday 18 September 2019, 7.30-9:00pm
Kings Heath Community Centre, Heathfield Road, B14 7DB
Open to all residents

Come and hear about the events and activities we’ve been involved with during 2018-2019, including:

  • Working with our councillors Lisa Trickett and Mike Leddy (who will be present)
  • Fighting for clean air in Kings Heath
  • Campaign to reopen Kings Heath train station

We welcome new members to join us, particularly to help with work on air pollution, traffic surveying and community engagement. If you’re interested in joining us, please come along to the meeting.

Kings Heath Residents’ Forum Annual General Meeting 2018

Achim Jung1 Comment

Wednesday 18 July 2018, 7.30-9pm
Kings Heath Community Centre, Heathfield Road, B14 7DB
Open to all residents

Come and hear about the events and activities we’ve been involved with during 2017-2018, including:

  • Fighting for clean air in Kings Heath
  • Campaign to reopen Kings Heath train station
  • Police Crime Commissioner listening event

We welcome new members to join us, particularly to help with work on air pollution, traffic surveying and community engagement. If you’re interested in joining us, please come along to the meeting.