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Dear #SubscriberFirstName# #SubscriberLastName#,
DECEMBER ISSUE
Christmas Greetings from all at ebns
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ebns Chief Executive, Graham Edwards, and all of the ebns team send their festive greetings and wish all our readers a very happy and prosperous New Year!!Thank you for your time.
New Bus Service Links Fort Dunlop to Birmingham City Centre
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Launched on the 19th November, shoppers and office workers who wish to travel from Fort Dunlop, the Fort Shopping Park and Birmingham City Centre will no longer require a car. The new Fort Dunlop bus, with its striking black and orange livery, is operating along the North Birmingham A47 Heartlands Spine Road into the city centre along a route that is previously not served by public transport. The scheme has been backed by the Fort Dunlop developer?s ? Urban Splash, and Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and East Birmingham North Solihull Regeneration Zone (ebns), with a contribution of £206,000 from AWM. The bus is being run by the Green Bus Transport Company with the hope that a hybrid bus will eventually be in use next year.
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Running hourly on weekdays, the Fort Dunlop Bus will depart from Corporation Street at 7.20am, and travels via The Mailbox, New Street Station, Moor Street Station, Millennium Point, the Fort Shopping Park and Fort Dunlop, with the last drop off at 7.20pm at New Street Station.
The bus scheme is aiming to reduce the number of cars on the road, and the launch coincides with Birmingham City Council?s ?Car Share Lane? trial. Workers and shoppers alike will have a reliable service which will help to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution in the city.
WorkWise Scheme Scoops Top Transport Award
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ebns is pleased to be able to congratulate Centro on their success in winning a Guardian 2007 Public Services Award. The project which is funded by AWM/ebns helps those looking for a job and newly employed people get to wok by public transport.
ebns has supported the scheme since 2003 which has operated in Sparkhill and North Solihull.
Earlier this year, ebns was delighted to announce that Chelmsley Wood Jobcentre Plus was to become the focal point for North Solihull WorkWise following a funding pledge totalling £264,860.
?The Guardian Award confirms the view of both ebns and its partners that WorkWise is an excellent way of helping people into sustainable employment. WorkWise in North Solihull is already exceeding expectations for supporting people into work since funding started in April this year!? (John Turner, ebns Employment Development Manager).
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Paul Fellows, WorkWise Officer for North Solihull concluded: ?WorkWise is a big help to those people who find a job but would otherwise struggle to meet the cost of getting to the job, particularly if they work a month in advance.?
Birmingham Eastside Briefing by Liam Byrne MP
The minister for the West Midlands, Liam Byrne, has issued a briefing on the regeneration of Eastside, the biggest physical regeneration project in Birmingham. The Eastside project has been continually supported by ebns, where a significant proportion of funding has been allocated to the procurement of land to host the Learning and Leisure Quarter and the Technology Park.
The briefing outlined the three key parts of the Eastside Development:
The learning and leisure quarter will be situated around Millennium Point, and be delivered by AWM to deliver 23,000 learning opportunities. Birmingham City University (BCU) will relocate the Birmingham Conservatoire and Institute of Art and Design into the new quarter, which will serve over 5000 students. Millennium Point is already home to 2500 BCU students at the TiC and Birmingham School of Acting.
A vertical theme park (VTP 2000) is also planned for a site between Millennium Point and Cardigan Street, bringing cafes, restaurants, shops and leisure facilities to Eastside.
Goodman have committed to build the first phase of Eastside?s Technology Park ? Ventureast, consisting mainly of offices, SME offices and a hotel, which will open up 90,000 sq m of potential space for mixed use development.
For more information on Ventureast, visit www.ventureast.co.uk
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Eastside City Park will be the first major new city centre park in Birmingham, creating a significant new environmental and leisure facility for the city, and doubling the amount of open space within the centre.
Although the £15million funding from the Big Lottery Fund was turned down, various alternative funding strategies are now being explored by AWM and Birmingham City Council. |
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AWM Launches New West Midlands Economic Strategy
Advantage West Midlands (AWM) launched the new West Midlands Economic Strategy earlier this month. The strategy ? ?Connecting to Success? outlines the region?s approach to closing the £10 billion output gap. It aims to recognise, for the first time, Birmingham as the ?economic driver? of the region.
A consultation on the Draft Delivery Framework for the Strategy has also been launched, providing an opportunity to contribute views on how the strategy should be delivered and how organisations and partners across the region can contribute to closing the output gap.
The consultation will run until 22 February 2008, with implementation of the final Delivery Framework commencing from April 2008.
Connecting to Success can be downloaded from the AWM website: www.advantagewm.co.uk
Free Transport for Solihull College
Solihull College is running a free transport service ? ?Woodland?s Express? from South Solihull to the Woodlands Campus in Smith?s Wood. This service will be free to all students on production of a valid College student ID. The service will run from:
Monday ? Friday
7.30am Solihull Lane, Robin Hood Island
7.45am Solihull Train Station
8.00am Solihull Ice Rink
8.45am Woodlands Campus
The return journey departs form Woodlands at 4.40pm
For more information or to reserve a space, please telephone 0121 678 7391 or visit www.solihull.ac.uk
ebns
www.ebns.co.uk
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