Where is the Whitby Bus? A game for Brum Twitter crowd

Inspired from Jon Bounds’ #brumblogtig meme and Michael Grimes’ blog.  For 2009 we have “Where is Whitby’s Bus?”.

Ding, ding, ding!  I’m your bus conductor @simonhowes.  Mr. Whitby has offered his bus to the users of Twitter. 

The Game

Rules are simple:

1. You get on the #whitbybus at the stop you get picked up from by the person who nominated you (read on it will make sense)
2. You move the #whitbybus to a new location by placing a new push-pin on the Google Map.  This could be anywhere around the West Midlands, I did hear Whitby ventured to the Black Country once upon a time.
3. Give the push-pin a name of where you have stopped, and write who you are and other information such as your blog http address.  Also, give some fun fact, story, or anything else about where you have stopped in your push-pin.
4. At the end of your push-pin, you need to choose another person to get on the bus, include there Twitter names and also tweet them “@xxxx the #whitbybus has stopped in at xxxx rules: http://tinyurl.com/crhsz8″. Example, “@bounder the #whitbybus has stopped at Eastside. rules: http://tinyurl.com/crhsz8″.
5. People who are tagged start from rule 1.

All important link to the map.

To the annoyance of @citizensheep a second bus has been loaned to us. Sorry!  There are two buses currently in the system.

Help, how do I edit the map?

You can watch the video of how to edit the map on the google map’s support page. If you haven’t got a google account, add a comment to this post with the location and details and I will add it to the map, then pass to a new Twitter user as usual.

Have fun!

Where has the bus been?

I will be keeping a time table of where the bus has been.

Bus number 1

Destination	Time arrived	Who	Nomination
Eastside	00:01 27/03/09	@simonhowes	@bounder
St Andrews	15:00 27/03/09	@bounder	@parboo
Cannon Hill Park	17:00 27/03/09	@parboo	@graphiquillan
Selly Oak Hospital	19:00 27/03/09	@graphiquillan	@benjaminbrum
Ikon Gallery	19:30 27/03/09	@benjaminbrum	@jonhickman
		@johnhickman

Eastside and Digbeth RSS Feed

I have made an aggregated Eastide and Digbeth RSS feed using Google Blog Search.

RSS Feed

If anyone wants any other search terms added please comment.

The RSS feed can also be found on the lower part of the right column of each page.

Eastside User Map

I have just stumbled across Nicky Getgood’s “Eastside User Map“.

I have added some pins, will keep on adding.

EDIT: Cheers Nicky, the original source of the map is from Rescue Geography.

Lancaster Gateway, the next failure of Birmingham City Council

Some things make me angry, this time it is the turn of a development out of Eastside – Lancaster Gateway.   I want to rip this project apart. Wrong use, size and design for its location.  I’ll keep it short for now.

It is located on Lancaster Circus on the edge of the Gun Quarter, near to the old fire station and Aston University.

It’s use is for student apartments, of which there is plenty in this area.  In the summer the area will be a ghost town.

Birmingham City Council proposed two different potential projects, one 32 story (~120m in height) and one 15 story.  A lowrise 62m proposal has been accepted to go forward.

The design Is poor for a gateway project, the materials have to be of high quality.  With this being student apartments I doubt this will happen.

This is like Opal Court, it needs to be on the outer Queensway, not in a prime entrance to the city centre.

Birmingham city Council, I know many people have object to this development, why are you letting it go forward?

Next Orion tower anyone?

From planning Committee documents for 21/08/08.  Lancaster Gateway, planning application ref C/02232/08/FUL,

Approve-Conditions

The maximum height would be just under 62 metres.

Many of the responses received from public participation are in respect of the height of the building and materials proposed. My City Design officer has confirmed that all concerns raised at the Design Review Panel have now been addressed and the overall scale, massing and design is considered acceptable subject to high quality building materials, a dramatic lighting scheme and appropriate areas of bio-diversity roof. I concur with this view and have attached conditions to ensure acceptable materials, lighting and areas of biodiversity roof. I also consider that the height of the tower element and the lower building blocks to the rear provides a good transition in scale between the higher buildings within the City Centre and that of the lower buildings towards the historic core of the Gun Quarter.
I do not consider that the proposal would have a detrimental impact on the setting of nearby listed buildings or the Steelhouse Conservation Area

Recommendation
That planning permission be granted

1. That consideration of application C/02232/08/FUL be deferred pending the completion of satisfactory legal agreement relating to providing:
a) a financial contribution of £400,000 (Index Linked) to be used: £50,000 towards Public
Transport Services, £10,000 towards Safer Routes within the city centre, up to £100,000
onsite for landscaping/ public art, balance (ie. £240,000 + balance of £100,000) off/ onsite landscaping/public art/lighting and public realm improvements, such sums to be available for 7 years from the date of implementation.
II. That in the event of the legal agreement being completed by 21 November 2008
planning permission be granted subject to the conditions listed below:
III. That in the event of the legal agreement not being completed to the satisfaction of the Local Planning Authority, by 21st November 2008, application C/02232/08/FUL be refused for the following reason: In the absence of any suitable legal agreement to secure a financial contribution towards public transport services, safer routes, landscaping, public art, lighting and public realm improvements the proposal conflicts with Policy 3.57 of the Birmingham Unitary Development Plan 2005.
IV. That the Chief Legal Officer be authorised to prepare and seal the appropriate
agreement.
V. No objection be raised to the stopping up of Lench Street and that the Department for
Communities and Local Government (DCLG) be requested to make an Order in
accordance with the provisions of Section 247 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
VI. The development hereby approved shall not commence until a Section 257 Agreement has been signed/sealed for the stopping up of Highway (footways, footpaths and carriageway areas) that become extinguished by this proposal. The public footway fronting Lancaster Circus must be retained and included in the plans. Details of levels between the highway boundary and the site, as well as retaining the existing pedestrian link (currently steps) to Vesey Street.

Why is Art and Culture used to stimulate redevelopment?

I have been contacted by a student from the University of Manchester who is writing his major dissertation titled “What role does art/culture play in urban regeneration?”.

He has asked some specific questions and wanting my own opinions, however after a week of deliberating thoughts, I can’t get to the bottom of the true reasons to why art/culture is used to attract investors for regeneration.

His questions are:

1. Why is art used in regeneration in your opinion?
2. What sort of art should it be?
3. How should this type of art be produced?
4. How should it be incorporated into the development?
5. What impact does art have on the development?
6. What are the impacts upon the local population?

Please post your own ideas, get some thought process happening to aid this student.

Two firms fined £52k over Fan Park screen blow-over

The BBC write that £52,000 of fines has been given to two companies “responsible” for the collapse of the large LED screen at Fan Park in 2006 located outside Millennium Point.

You can read the quote below, however I will give an explanation to what really happened.  I believe this has never been public, and as a sound engineer I find it odd the companies were fined, as in my opinion they followed the correct health and safety procedures.  I watched the whole screen fall so I was a good witness on the day too.

So, what happened on the day of the blow over…  It is not just a common practice, but a mandatory procedure set by the Health and Safety Executive and manufacturers to lower screens that are flying if winds exceed 30mph.  The screen was lowered to the ground as by the book (you can see it is lowered from the BBC video).  So, you think the whole structure is safe?  Answer, no it isn’t!  The rigging that flies the screen is designed so the centre of gravity is correct when flown, when the screen is rested on the ground, the centre of gravity has changed, all that was required is a little gust of wind to make the screen collapse.  Would you believe it, that is what happened!  When the screen was lowered, they did mark off the area with cones to keep both staff and public away.  Oh, and it was known it may/was going to go over, people even had time to wire up cameras and put them on tripods to film it.  I know the event organiser and he had a big grilling from the HSE.  Yes, good job nobody was hurt, just a shame it wrote off a lot of Camco Vortex amps that were powering the Nexo line arrays, and now the fine to boot!

I highly doubt it would have blown over if it wasn’t lowered.  Reminds me of a gig at the NEC where crush barriers were not bolted to the ground.  If they were bolted down to the floor, as required by HSE, people would have died.  Instead the barriers moved forward prevents crushing.

Sorry, I shouldn’t question court judgments, and I do not know exactly what was said in court.  Just gave my two cents.

“Two companies have been fined a total of more than £52,000 after a giant TV screen put up to show World Cup games in the centre of Birmingham collapsed.

The screen at Millennium Point blew over in strong winds in June 2006. No-one was hurt.

The Health and Safety Executive took Media Control UK Ltd and Trapeze Rigging Ltd to court.

Both companies pleaded guilty to failing to protect the public and were fined at Birmingham Crown Court.

Fan park

Media Control UK Ltd also pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to protect its employees.

The firm was made to pay a fine of £28,000 plus legal costs.

Trapeze Rigging was fined a total of £24,000 plus costs.

The screen, measuring 20ft (6m) by 30ft (10m) had been set up so football fans could watch all the England games in the 2006 World Cup.

It had been one of Europe’s biggest “fan parks” and people paid £3.50 for tickets to go and watch games on the screen.“

Blog is fine

Some people have been asking me about my chat with the Dean of TIC faculty regarding this blog.

It was a quick chat to make sure I know not to overstep any lines regarding inaccurate information and that  I need to keep a sense of balance to it all.  I’m not out to be libeling/slanderous or negative, so no need to worry.

I do have my own opinions on some matters, and I will not be censored.

Sometimes good things can come from negative comments; I know from a couple of chats with developers that action was made due to posts made on this blog and elsewhere and they have been rectified as a consequence.

Where there is £multi-million developments comes large legal teams (hello there if you’re reading).   This blog is for no commercial gains and is out of my own pure interest.

I quickly had the blog checked over, all seems to be fine.  I’ll cary on from where I was. 

Actors wanted for voice dubbing of “Kiki’s Delivery Service”

I’m asking a favour for any volunteer actors who would be willing to spend two to three hours in a studio re-recording the voice work for a four minute clip of Hayao Miyazaki’s “Kiki’s Delivery Service“, this is for a university project.  I need a male and female to play Tombo and Kiki.

Location of the studios is at Millennium Point in the city centre.  Date of recording will be the beginning of May.  See contact page for contact details.

See full blog post for script.

Birmingham Planet

From the Brum Bloggers meet up, I got speaking to Pete Lewis.  I have been toying for several months on creating a Birmingham Planet – a web site that syndicates feeds from web sites into one, and can be organised.   The idea came from two Planets I have become involved with, “Camino Planet” and “Planet Mozilla“.

Our plan is to register a domain and buy some hosting, and have an experiment for a week or two using different Planet software to see which one we prefer.

It will make a nice hub for content, hopefully.

Funding for a PA system?

Slightly off-topic for this blog, anyone know any sources of funding or sponsorship for an installed PA system for a church?

St Chad’s Church in Coseley is in need of a new sound system, however ~£10,000 is required for a decent system to be installed.