I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year’s break, and had a chance to see our beautiful Cathedral on the BBC on Christmas Day – it was a really proud moment for me as a Lichfield District resident.

I was also delighted to read about Lichfield City being a destination for a ‘Great British Weekend’ in the Times travel section on Christmas Eve!

Extracts include:

‘A cathedral city by name, Lichfield is full of small-town charm and character, offering something of interest at every turn.’

‘The triple-spired cathedral is one of the two big draws in Lichfield, a cathedral city by name but full of small-town charm and character. The other draw is Dr Johnson, born there 300 years ago, who described Lichfield as a place of “real civility” and “a city of philosophers: we work with our heads and make the boobies of Birmingham work with their hands”.’

‘The whole city offers something of interest at every turn. But then, as Dr Johnson almost said: “Sir, when a man is tired of Lichfield, he is tired of life.”’

Thanks to our tourism team, Visit Lichfield, for arranging the trip, and to our tourism partners for hosting the journalist, including St John’s House, Ego, the Cathedral, Johnson Birthplace, the Heritage Centre and more!

Congratulations also to all those from our district who were lucky enough to be honored in the Queen’s New Year’s Honors, including John May who has run the marvellous Lichfield Talking News to bring news to blind people in the district for over 30 years!

Coming up this year – look out for news of how you can give your views on the updated designs for Friarsgate and how you can find out more about the Friary outer redevelopment. And, of course, remember to visit our events diary www.visitlichfield.co.uk so you can keep up to date with all the existing events this year, including the Olympic Torch visiting our district, the Titanic celebrations and the Queen’s diamond jubilee events!

Happy New Year to you all!

Mike

I was asked to prepare a Christmas message for a local WI group, and I thought I’d share it on my blog too.

Lichfield District is a lovely place to be in the run up to Christmas. From the city’s Christmas Festival, Burntwood’s lantern parade, the Lichfield Garrick’s production of A Christmas Carol and services at the Cathedral, there’s plenty to get you in the holiday spirit. I do hope that you have all had chance to get involved in some of the wonderful local events.

This year has been a challenging year, not just for us, but for families across the district. At the council, we’ve worked hard to cut our costs, whilst still providing a great range of vital services to local residents, businesses and visitors.

We’ve had some notable success – from our work clubs that have helped local people get back into work, through to the tour of the Staffordshire Hoard at Lichfield Cathedral, that welcomed over 14,000 people and provided volunteering opportunities for hundreds local people. We’ve also joined forces with businesses across the region as part of two new Local Enterprise Partnership that are set to deliver jobs, opportunities and economic benefits for our communities.

As a local council we care about our local communities. We care about the people who live here and about the villages and towns they live in. We care about the businesses that operate here and the people they employ. We care about our shopping areas, where people spend time to relax, and about our green and open spaces. We also care about the people who visit us, and the places they visit.

At the moment we are working on developing a new district plan, to help us to channel our resources and energies into providing the right support to the people who live, work and visit here.

The plan will also help us to shape the future of our places, and boost our local economy by supporting local businesses. Underpinning all of this, we want to continue providing a range of vital services that businesses, partners and residents rely on in their everyday lives.

As we look forward to next year, which is set to be a memorable one, with the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay passing through Lichfield District, the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, and The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, I wish you all the best for the future.

I hope have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. 

Mike Wilcox

e: mike.wilcox@lichfielddc.gov.uk
b: www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/leadersblog

If any of your bin were not emptied as usual on Wednesday 30 November, due to the strike, here’s what to do next:

If your black bin wasn’t emptied:

Please put it out on Tuesday 6 December. Our teams will empty it on either Tuesday or Wednesday, so please leave it out until the evening of Wednesday 7 December. Please put your other coloured bins out as usual next week.   

If your blue bin wasn’t emptied:

Please put it out on Wednesday 7 December. Our teams will empty it on either Wednesday or Thursday, so please leave it out until the evening of Thursday 8 December. Please put your other coloured bins out as usual next week.   

If your brown bin wasn’t emptied:

Please put it out on Wednesday 14 December. Because you will have missed a collection, if you have extra brown bin waste, please put it in clear, untied plastic bags next to your brown bin and we will take it.

If you are a trade customer:

We will empty your bin(s) next Monday 5 December. We are writing to all our trade customers who missed a collection to explain this further. Thank you.

Thank you to everyone for their patience and understanding. Find out more on the council’s website.

Me being interviewed by Midlands Today

Today was a busy media day!

At 7.20am I was interviewed by Phil Upton for Radio WM’s breakfast show. Phil quizzed me on why Lichfield is the proud home of a statue of Commander Smith of the Titanic.

Then at 3.00pm I as interviewed by Laura from BBC Midlands Today, on the same subject. She also asked about why Lichfield was chosen as the home for the statue and why we are so proud of it.  The piece on the statue and the Titanic will be aired on Friday throughout the day on BBC Midlands Today.

The interviews were sparked by calls made by a local Hanley resident who feels very passionately that as Captain Smith was from Hanley, the statue should be cited there.

Whilst we applaud this chap’s passion for our statue, we are not considering any proposals to move it anywhere, and here’s a quick history of how we came to have the statue and why we love it so!

• The statue has been a key focal point in Museum Gardens for nearly 100 years (since 1914) and is much loved by local people to this day.
• It was lovingly restored by Lichfield District Council & Lichfield City Council in 2010 as part of the Lichfield Historic Parks project.
• The call to move the statue of Captain Smith ‘back’ to Hanley is incorrect. The statue was never destined for Stoke. It was designed and made specifically for Lichfield.
• Lichfield is very proud of the statue and whilst we understand people in Stoke may wish to have a similar statue to celebrate the life of Captain Smith, we have no intention of considering any proposal to move the statue anywhere.
• The idea that all statues need to be sited in city in which the subject of the statue was born is unusual to say the least! Just imagine what would happen if Nelson’s column had to be moved to Norfolk, or if the statue of David in the Accademia gallery in Florence had to be moved to ancient Israel, or the Statue of Liberty had to be sent to Rome!
• The story of the statue began in 1913, when a Mr Stevenson from Suffolk wrote to Lichfield City Council to ask it to find a suitable location for a statue to Captain Smith of the Titanic. 
• Mr Stevenson suggested that as Captain Smith was a Staffordshire man, and that Lichfield was the centre of that diocese, that Lichfield would be the ideal location for the statue.
• In 1914 Lichfield City Council unanimously agreed to offer a site in the Museum Gardens grounds. 
• A newspaper cutting from the time said: “Captain Smith was a native of Hanley, and a tablet having been placed in the town hall there, Lichfield was selected for the statue as the centre of the dioceses to which he belonged by birth, and as a convenient calling place for visitors travelling between London and Liverpool.”
• The original cost of the statue was £740 in 1914 and it was raised through local and national contributions which were sent to the Lichfield branch of the National Provincial Bank of England and were used for the statue and for the new Cathedral in Liverpool.
• Before the statue was erected Lichfield City Council received a petition from 74 local people against the erection of the statue.
• After a lively debate, this petition was unanimously rejected by Lichfield City Council.
• The statue was proudly unveiled in 1914, (six days before WWI was declared) in the presence of a large local and distinguished audience, including the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Kathleen Scott (the sculptress of the statue and widow of Scott of the Antarctic).
• Kathleen Scott studied under Rodin in Paris.
• The statue is made of bronze.
• It stands on a pedestal of Cornish granite.
• The plaque underneath the statue was fixed by Lichfield stonemasons Robert Bridgeman & Son and shows the pride the city of Lichfield felt for Commander Smith: “Commander Edward John Smith. Born January 27th 1850. Died 15th April 1912. Bequeathing to his countrymen the memory and example of a great heart, a brave life and a heroic death, Be British!”

To commemorate the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, we’re working on plans for a range of events, and we’ll be posting details of this to our council website, so keep an eye on www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/titanic  (this web page will go live in the next few weeks). We’d love it if people from Hanley would come and help us to mark next year’s centenary.

Last week my colleague Cllr Louise Flowith issued a statement in response to the announcement that the government will be making £250 million available to support councils to relaunch/introduce weekly bin collections.

I was also interviewed on Radio WM with Paul Franks on the drive time slot – have a listen (it will probably be online for about 5 days)!

Loads of people have already been commenting on our website about our current collections and what they think about the announcement - take a look at our news blog to see what they’ve been saying.

Here’s what my colleague Cllr Louise Flowith, Cabinet Member for Operational Services, said last week: “We have an award winning recycling service and our residents regularly tell us how much they like it.

“We visit local homes every week to empty bins, and collect different types of waste each week – recycling one week and general waste the next. 

“Emptying both types of waste each week would see our lorries travelling twice the distance and our crews doing twice the amount of work. We’d also use twice as much petrol and cause twice as much damage to the environment, only to generally empty half full bins. 

“We’ll read the government’s proposals with interest. However, at a time when the country is trying to save money and cut our carbon footprint, at first glance the proposals seem at odds with this.

“My initial thoughts are that, whilst the proposals may be appropriate for some areas such as inner cities, they may not be for appropriate for everywhere.”