Shaping Birmingham’s Transport

Wow, what a conference. As I sit in Starbucks surrounded by the steering group and some of the UKYP Birmingham members reflecting on today, we realise what exactly what it is we’ve done today. Young people make up 37% of our population, and today they were able to speak to high-level decision-makers to do with transport in Birmingham. The guests they were consulting with were:

• Councillor Len Gregory: Cabinet Member for Transportation
• Councillor Jon Hunt
• Councillor Tim Huxtable
• Stephen Rhodes: Bus and Highways Director, CENTRO
• Martin Hancock: Commercial Director, National Express
• Inspector Gordon: British Transport Police
• Ben Martin: Friends of the Earth
• Andy Marlow, Richy Rana and Tyrone Fowles: UK Youth Parliament

A huge well done to Jamie P, Aaron and Jamie H for winning the Your Vision: 2026 competition with their Brumderground concept. Congratulations also to the two runner-up entries.

The idea of today was always to produce practical actions that the council can act on, tommorow, in the short-term and in the long-term… we certainly had a wealth of ideas that came from the rich discussion on each table. The Birmingham Mail attended and commented on how successful they thought it went. The young people involved really did make it what it was, so thanks to them for attending, and also to all those who put in so much to make the event happen. We’ll be updating this blog with the solutions you came up with over the next few days and weeks, as well as some of the photos taken on the event. Alternatively, you can find us on Facebook to keep up to date. Leader of the Council Mike Whitby has said he’s interested in hearing how the event went, and where we can take it from here; we’ll let you know how it goes. We recommend subscribing to stay informed.

As Bilal said in his closing remarks: “This isn’t going to be compiled into some big report where we try and pass it on to the relevant agencies; the appropriate people have already heard and noted what you’ve said.” He’s right. And so it ends? Don’t be silly; this is just the beginning.

Well, the build-up towards the event is certainly picking up pace as we near 2 months to the date of the youth conference. We recently launched the competition, and this week we’re doing some further press work - so keep your eyes and ears open.

Stephen Rhodes (Director of Bus and Highways, CENTRO) and Martin Hancock (Commercial Director - Bus and Coach, National Express) have confirmed that they will be joining Cllr Len Gregory (Cabinet Member for Transportation, Birmingham City Council) to attend the event and listen to young people’s ideas on Birmingham’s transport. This shows how seriously the project is being taken by the decision-makers across the city. In the next few weeks, we will be confirming many more names of relevant people who have been invited to attend.

Registration for people wanting to attend the event was also opened recently and we’ve had keen interest from a lot of young people across the city, so I’d suggest that you head over to the Conference page and fill in the application form as soon as possible to snap some places. To ensure that we have a representative group of young people attending the event, we are limiting places to 5 per institution (i.e. school, college, youth group).

The Shaping Birmingham’s Transport group on Facebook has been rapidly increasing in members since its launch, and there are some interesting discussions taking place on it. So I’d definitely recommend having a look and adding your own input - as it could influence what is discussed at the conference.