Eleven to noon in Brum
On loving Birmingham and being angry at those who've failed it
I don’t have a favourite place in Birmingham, I have a favourite time: Saturday, eleven to noon.
I leave the house to run, head out of the Jewellery Quarter and into Ladywood, nodding first to the silver-haired Rasta, in his usual place, sitting on a camping chair outside Costcutter, chonging on a joint.
Then it’s up past the leisure centre and to Edgbaston Reservoir. The rowing club are usually packing away as I arrive, their shells upended, draining away the water from their time out training. I do the loop, passing dog walkers in their wellies, and the lady on a bike, her helmet strapped tight, with a wobbly smile as if it’s always the first time behind the handlebars.
The Reservoir Café marks the halfway point; the smell of frying bacon enough to tempt even the most disciplined runner into stopping.
To Five Ways next, under the roundabout and onto Broad Street - the highlight of the run. It’s just under a mile, flat and by midday on a Saturday already filling up with hen-dos, their heads adorned with cowboy hats - loud and frantic and happy - standing outside Coyote Ugly for a group selfie and a vape as the old boys outside the Figure of Eight watch on in bemusement.
Across the tram-tracks, the stretch opens up into Centenary Square. Rollerbladers arc across the dry granite, reclaimed until the fountains run again. Nearby, teenage girls use the library’s windows as makeshift mirrors, TikTok dancing to their own reflections and a tripod-mounted iPhone. At half clip, I sneak a cameo - a second in the rhythm of someone else’s Saturday.
It’s then through Paradise’s canyon of glass, dodging the Big Issue man, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their mobile literature carts, and the early-goers into Albert's Schloss, before hitting a left and the final straight down Summer Row, cast in the shadow of the Octagon, up Vaults Hill and home.
I’ve run it hundreds of times. It’s my constant: a way to keep track of how the city changes - between seasons, and in time. I’ve meandered around heaps of rubbish during the depths of the bin strikes, paused in July to watch hundreds of people place flowers at Black Sabbath Bridge, passed through marches against digital ID, or for Palestine and Iran - and got to know the one-legged lady who stands cup in hand at the lights where the Plough and Harrow meets Hagley.
Eleven to noon and that 10km lap is a weekly reminder of why I love this city and why I feel so angry at those who have failed it.
I received my polling card for the local elections in the same week the council leader lost a no-confidence vote - pressured by a cross-party coalition of Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens and Independents. A hodgepodge of political parties that, along with Reform, now share a fractured council responsible for restoring the city’s reputation and economic vitality after over a year of bin strikes, bankruptcy and a string of other crises including an IT meltdown and equal pay failures.
Before the PR work can begin, they will have to actually solve the problems facing the city. An ITV News Central and Survation poll conducted prior to the election put residents’ top priorities as:
1st - Refuse collection and bin strikes - 59%
2nd - Potholes and road repairs - 44%
3rd - Housing and homelessness - 40%
We’re asking for basic services: to have our bins emptied, roads put in a drivable state, and the most vulnerable in our city looked after. It’s no surprise that more than half of the residents polled also said that Birmingham was “heading in the wrong direction.”
Whether in Sparkbrook or Stirchley, our patience has run out. The result is a city now handed to parties circling each other, with no coalition agreed and no single mandate to govern.
The hope is that, freed of an overall majority, the newly elected could put party politics aside and instead rally behind the city. To get the basics right, consistently and without fanfare, and show the competence needed to put Birmingham back on solid footing.
A pipe dream, perhaps. But we’re not asking for much. Indeed, we don’t need much. The city isn’t in need of rescuing. Neither are we. We endure. We’re cracking on, because we know Brum’s potential - we’ve already lived it.
Our message to those now in charge is simple: don’t get distracted by anything else. Start with emptying the bins, filling the potholes and getting the people off the street.
The rest? Leave that to us Brummies.