FURY OVER 49 CANCELLATIONTravellers ‘unhappy’ over new servicesBy Jayden Coby

NEW JOBS AT EX-ROVER SITE

By Calvin Wyatt

The residents of Longbridge were today given a massive boost when it was announced that the long-mooted project that is aiming to revive the town’s fortunes following the closure of the Rover factory, which crippled many household incomes across Bir-mingham, has been newly funded.The backers will, for now, remain a

mystery but an official city council state-ment is expected to surface at some point later today, and they are expecting to announce that the money received will be used to kick-start the building of the complex. The building of the complex will facilitate

1,000 new job opportunities and will help to further the development of the area af-ter the Rover collapse, after recent de-velopment of Rubery Great Park.FULL STORY ON PAGE 9

BIRMINGHAM ECHO13th October 2009 www.birminghamecho.co.uk 35p

WIN A HOLIDAY TO PORTUGAL - PAGE 27

Angry commuters have been left reeling today after the cancellation of the 49 Solihull-Northfield following the introduction of revised bus timetables.They “will help to simplify bus routes that have been in

place across South Birmingham for over 20 years to give an easier to understand network” according to the Network West Midlands website. However, this was not a feeling that was shared by pas-

sengers when the new bus routes officially began today.The service, which has been replaced by a modified 44

and a new 131 service, had been very popular as one of the few to link places like Shirley and Frankley to Birming-ham. But that has not stopped the service from being chopped

by ruthless transport top-cats who seem not to be taking the needs of the service using public into account.Councillor Jones (Con Solihull) said, “It is an absolute

disgrace that residents of my local constituency, as well as residents of places like Frankley and Shirley, have been put at such a severe disadvantage by the local authori-ties.”“It seems strange that the government would replace this

route with a combination of 2 other routes that won’t even work out to go in the same direction.”“In the current economic climate it is now more vital than

ever that the public has access to lots of places via public

transport as they may choose to save money on fuel, thus also becoming more environmentally friendly.”Despite coming under fierce criticism from both the public

and the government, it looks as though the revised timeta-bles are here to stay.Last night nobody from Network West Midlands was

available to comment, although we have been contacted

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Inside Today...Weather...........................Page 6TV Guide........................Page 19Puzzles............................Page 34Letters.............................Page 42Business..........................Page 43Sport starts......................Page 49

49 FURYFROM PAGE ONE

by irate would-be passengers, who, if the service hadn’t been cancelled, would have been using the 49 to travel to work on a daily basis. John, 47 and from Northfield, said, “I re-

ally don’t see how Network West Midlands can describe the new services as improve-ments, they have inconvenienced a lot of people who live on main roads to try and connect lower-key places to Birmingham yet they never used these buses in the first place. It’s a farce.” Student Sophie, 18, had this to say, “I

don’t know why they (NWM) think that these new timetables are a good idea at all.” “The bus I normally get (the 49) won’t

stop at my college any more, and because I live far away I don’t know much about the surrounding area, so I haven’t got a clue about any other buses that are running.” The 49 is just one of the services that

have been modified or scrapped complete-ly under Network West Midlands’ “South Birmingham Bus Network Review” which is said to cover “an area running from Warstock in the east, to Weoley Castle in the west”, as well as the 3 major main roads in South Birmingham, the Alcester, Pershore and Bristol Roads. Other changes that are being mooted in-

clude the 44 also being scrapped and re-placed by a new 20 service, with parts of the route being covered by the extended 19 and 27 routes. The 45 will be diverted off the busiest

part of the Redditch Road to ensure that it still serves Cadbury College whilst improv-ing traffic flow and increasing the level of safety, while the popular 63 will no longer serve Birmingham Great Park directly and will now terminate in Frankley. Passengers who travel further afield will

be most disrupted with a recent ECHO poll revealing that the more changes you have to make, the level of disruption generally increases, as while 15% who only use one bus to travel found the changes disruptive, this increased to 32% when passengers had to travel on two buses, and a mas-sive 49% when having to travel on three or more buses. These results will further make a mock-

ery of Network West Midland’s claims that these changes are to the benefit of pas-sengers and are making public transport more effiecient. Anybody who needs to further informa-

tion about the service changes can visit http://www.networkwestmidlands.co.uk/ or visit the exhibition at Hawkesley Commu-nity Centre, Edgwood Road on Wednesday 21st October between 12pm and 4pm.

HALF-TERM FUN DAY A HIT WITH THE KIDSYoung Villa faithful treated to open training sessionBy Colin Sawyer

Local Premier League club Aston Villa were today re-ceiving huge praise after its decision to put on a free open training session at Villa Park attracted just under 3,000 people. The half-term event did prove hugely popular with every-

one in attendence, be they children, parents, grandparents and even sneaky older siblings! The turnstiles opened at 9.30am yesterday morning, with

the lower tiers of the North Stand, Trinity Road and Doug Ellis Stand all open for the public. The training session was just the culmination of the day

as it turned out, as Villa had planned various activities to keep the younger members of the crowd happy. Football freestyler Jeremy Lynch was first up with the pre-

session entertainment, finishing with a strange trick involv-ing removing and then re-instating his shirt whilst balancing the ball on his back! Villa manager Martin O’Neill then addressed the crowd,

initially explaing how things would work, before then mov-ing on to thanking all the suporters in attendance, although with Martin being Martin, he finished with a jokey warning towards the fans sitting behind the goals! After the training session had finished, ten lucky competi-

tion winners all got to take penalties against Sunderland

shootout hero Brad Guzan, who actually was beaten a few times on this occasion!The press surrounded the occasion as it was the only

event of its type that was open to the press during the half-term holiday. Among the broadcasters present were Sky Sports News,

who grabbed interviews with England stars Emile Hes-key and Ashley Young, as well as club commentator Jack Woodward, who was in this case in charge of making an-nouncements to the crowd when he wasn’t busy grabbing a quick word with anyone he could! Also the BBC’s local station Midlands Today were present

in an effort to try and capture the local mood towards the event.The mammoth attendance was a testament to the level

of support given to the club in the wake of a busy recent fixture list with three games in just the past seven days.All the first team squad were present as the fans were

given this opportunity to enjoy a rare expense-free glimpse of their claret and blue heroes in action at close hand with just two days left until the next match. The Villa players and staff all stopped to sign autographs

and chat to the fans after the session, so all-in-all it was a very good day out for some of the young Villa faithful!

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The Villa players under the watchful eye of coach Steve Walford