I don’t think I agree with Hannah on areas though and this brings up the issue of hyperlocal and what that means and how it relates to communities. On the simple point of this data Dave has already included Stirchley and other areas which may be in the Ward but certainly are not in what i would call Bournville.

In my view Ward boundaries are not always a good match with actual communities. In my case a Weoley Ward blog would not have much traction as Weoley Ward’s boundaries don’t correspond with meaningful communities. A blog for Weoley Castle might make sense but I don’t feel part of that community and I would guess that others locally don’t either. I used to be involved with Weoley Hill Village Council which is one of the resident/tenant groups within BVT. That covers the mainly 30s part of the BVT Estate this side of the Bristol Road but not Shenley.

I guess a blog for Weoley Hill would be possible but because it is almost completely residential with only a church and a handful of shops I don’t think it would work that well.

I think the best approach to local blogs is to be flexible and go with what might make sense to people and communities. My speculation, for instance, is that most people in Weoley Hill feel more part of Bournville that they do of Weoley Castle or Selly Oak. In practical terms we have to deal with BVT and the issues there are common for many tenants and residents across Weoley Hill, Bournville and Shenley for instance. To me it doesn’t make a lot of sense to fragment the communication. And looking ahead if hyperlocal sites start getting more advertising then either some will get much less (ie Weoley Hill) or have to pull advertising in from outside their area. This already happens with WH Village News.

And going back to the gritty data my guess would be that no one will want to have to check a hyperlocal site for every Ward when considering a journey through Brum.

I am happy to put in some voluntary time myself but I see that time as best spent contributing to blogs I already have a connection with rather than starting another one so I am contributing to Harborne Mile as I was brought up there and still visit and shop there. And I have offered through Dave to contribute to this Bournville blog as I live on the BVT Estate and spend shopping and leisure time in Bournville (however you define that) as well as having friends and family connections in the area.

But the key issue here is that the City has all this info. And the data that info is built on should be made available. If it was then it would take little more than a few clicks (he say optimistically) to translate it into a map that any local blog could make use of.

Much of what you describe is actually down as Northfield or Selly Oak on the City data. In producing the map I had to:
a) cut and paste the data from the council website into a spreadsheet (they only list alphabetically by road)
b) draw the lines on a google map

Once I’d done the guts of Bournville I stopped as it was simply taking too long. So yes, this isn’t all that helpful to all Bournville residents (trust or non-trust). The City could make this all easier by releasing the KML data for the actual routes that the lorries go on. I know it has this data, I’ve even met the man who looks after it. While it remains unavailable to the rest of us all we’ve got is attempts like mine to extrapolate and make sense of it

We need a ‘Free our Brum data’ campaign.