Swan Corner Workshops begin

Freya and Turtles admire their
artwork  at Swan Corner

Yesterday (11th March) we began workshops at Swanshurst School with 30 young volunteers eager to improve our environment - making it safer and bringing people together to discuss parking, traffic and other issues, thanks to funding from Near Neighbours, as part of Hall Green Arts & Kings Heath Centre for Space Exploration project.

Not too surprisingly, young people raised similar concerns to other local residents about what the problems are - here's a summary of the problems they identified:



The group also had a good grasp of some of the problems local residents have already identified.  Here is a summary of what they thought problems residents would have:


Given the problems have been around for a long time what difference can we make?  Well, I suppose that's where a group like Swan Corner Community Group, newly started, could be influential in bringing about the conversations, raising issues with appropriate bodies, and getting out and doing things.

The Swanshurst Group will be making a big impact straight away in bringing about may of the Community Group objectives over the coming months by:

• Improving the local environment, creating a garden space for people to use
• Talking to local residents and finding out what's important to them through surveys
• Creating a dance performance outdoors at Swan corner, for residents and locals
• Adding wood sculpture to complement the gardening, improve the environment adding value to Swan Corner

There's a lot of other parts to what Swan Corner Community Group will be doing to make a safer, nicer Swan corner for everyone who uses it - our next meeting on 25th March will include Councillors, representatives from the Police and Sustrans, as well as local people and Swanshurst school to discuss parking, traffic and road improvements.