News on HS2 in Birmingham

Today saw the announcement of new projects awarded funding as part of the HS2 Community and Business Funds, with three projects in the West Midlands receiving over £170,000 combined. To date, £1.9m of funding has been awarded across the Phase One route.

In Solihull, the Kingshurst Children’s Sports Project has received £40,000 to install a multi-use games area at St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School in Kingshurst. The games area will improve physical activity for children attending the school and allow them to play a wide range of sports and games and take part in a greater range of extra-curricular activities, which currently cannot be offered by the school due to a lack of space. The games area will be placed on the school field close to the school playground and will be available for the community throughout the year, including outside of school times.

Again in Solihull, over £60,000 has been awarded to the Solihull Community Housing – Community Roots Project which will empower local residents to take ownership of, use and improve their local green spaces for positive activities. The project will increase local biodiversity and develop the skills and environmental knowledge of local people living in four tower blocks in Chelmsley Wood.

Lastly, The City of Birmingham Basketball Club have received over £70,000 to run a selection of basketball activities for children and teenagers in Nechells. The group already run a number of competitive teams who train and play in leagues, but also want to make basketball accessible for young people who don’t want to play as part of a league but do want to play just for fun. Their project will focus on these young people and on increasing the amount of enjoyable social sports activities they can offer. All sessions will be led by the organisation’s locally recruited, qualified basketball coaches who are experienced at working with young people. All sessions will be free to attend, with many young people coming from low-income households.

The community and business funds are administered and managed by independent community charity, Groundwork UK. For more information on Groundwork and the funds themselves click here.

You can also see an interactive map showing all of the projects awarded funding so far by clicking here.