Almost two years later, anyone visiting the city by bus or rail is still met by derelict hoardings.

The view that welcomes visitors into the City from the £22.5 million Bus Station.

Fit for the 21st Century

Hardly fitting for a “passenger transport hub fit for the 21st Century” as Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Enterprise, Councillor Paddy Bradley was quoted when speaking about the scheme.

You might think that these hoardings are of some great importance, or house important equipment or a site office? Perhaps something that warrants them being left up two years? Why else would Wolverhampton City Council allow derelict hoardings to be left as a welcome to visitors of the City? You’d be wrong.

Within the compound that the hoardings create, there is nothing. The temporary site office made up of portacabins is long gone (demolished when the bus station opened), as is the car park for contractors working on the interchange (it’s been open for almost 2 years!). Instead there is just a large derelict space, smack bang in the middle of the city centre, right where visitors to the city enter and exit.

Hoardings (almost) as far as the eye can see. Even Sainsbury’s have even removed their ‘new store’ banners.

Responsibility

Some time ago I contacted Wolverhampton City Council and asked why these hoardings were still there.

The response I got said that the hoardings belong to Interchange contractor Neptune Developments Ltd. (of Liverpool). The Council also informed me that these hoardings were being left in place until ‘phase 2′ of the Interchange scheme began, but the they were unable to give a time scale on when this work would begin.

Further investigation of Neptune’s website reveals that they consider the Interchange as a ‘past development‘. They also mention the possibility of  ’phase 2′, but don’t appear to have any dates for this and nor does the Interchange website. Interestingly, Neptune’s mocked up photos of the interchange don’t show the hoardings right in the middle of the site. How convenient!

A Google Maps image of the hoardings as the site was being built.

Improving Perceptions

I know that I am not the only resident of the Wolverhampton to feel extreme frustration about this issue.

At a time when perceptions around the City centre are at all all time low, the  Council is making extensive ‘public realm improvements’ in an attempt to increase usage.

Why then, has nothing been done about these hoardings?

The interchange project has clearly stalled and the people of Wolverhampton are left with the bitter taste of yet more dereliction, despite Neptune Developments Ltd. claiming to be “committed to satisfying the long-term needs of both occupier and investor.”

Approaching the £22.5 million bus station.

I’ve just received this Tweet from @WolvesCouncil informing me the postcode bug has been fixed and this appears to be the case when I tested on an iPhone. Kudos to them for sorting this out.

Interestingly, discussion in the comments and on Twitter has raised the question of whether an app is the right solution for Councils?

Many people seem to be of the option that Councils should be concentrating their efforts (and budgets) on mobile optimised web pages, which would avoid the pitfalls of app development, OS fragmentation and would work on all relatively modern devices?

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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So today Wolverhampton City Council has launched it’s first iPhone app. I actually stumbled across this in the app store last week, so I download it and gave it the once over.

Whilst the app has a few nice features, one of the core functions doesn’t work – my post code cannot be found when I enter it into the opening screen, which would allow me to receive push notifications for bin collections.

The post code error.

Whilst I applaud the Council for trying to get with the times, this is yet another example of too little, too late and a local authority being embarrassingly out of touch with technology.

The app itself isn’t working properly due to this postcode bug and yet there is no mention in the app or press release about it being in ‘beta’. So it’s been launched with a known bug (I reported this last Friday before the app was launched).

No Android version

The app is only available on iOS devices; iPhones and iPads. The council justifies this by saying that 18% of traffic to it’s website (wolverhampton.gov.uk) is from iOS devices. They don’t mention the percentage of traffic from Android devices, but perhaps the reason for this being lower than iOS is because their website isn’t mobile-optimised and is very difficult to navigate on a smartphone sized screen, by touch?

I’d love to know what percentage of visits are from iPads (which incidentally, all Councillors now have) as opposed to iPhones. Android traffic is also harder to analyse, due to the larger number of browsers, devices and versions of the OS.

Had the Council done any research (there was no public consultation into what residents would like in a mobile app!), they would be aware that a larger proportion of residents on low incomes own Android & Blackberry devices, compared to more expensive iOS devices.

They might have also realised that these people on low incomes are less likely to have access to laptops, desktops and broadband connections and are more likely to rely on mobile phones in order to access the Council’s online services. Which begs the questions, why is there no Android app or mobile optimised website?

The features within the iOS app are quite good – you can get bin collection reminders (if your postcode made it into the database!) and you can browse through services such as rubbish tips, libraries, museums, galleries, car parks and leisure centres. You can also ‘star’ services & facilities to create a list of favourites for quick access – a nice touch.

In addition to this there is a news feed (taken from the Council’s website) and a basic contact page.

Problem Reporting

Sadly, the app is somewhat lacking, not only in the fact that it’s only available on one platform, but also because it is missing one obvious function – a ‘fix my street‘ style problem reporter. Apart from a somewhat obscure explanation mark icon, which takes you to a page on the (non mobile formatted) website, there is no way to report issues from the app.

Surely launching a Council app is a golden opportunity to allow people to report problems such as fly tipping, graffiti, pot holes etc. straight from their phones?

So often people complain about things, but don’t know how or where to report them, why not Make it easy for them? Allow users to snap a photo, add a location and submit a report directly from their phone! Features like these aren’t cutting edge – they’ve been around for years!

The brilliant fixmystreet.co.uk

Shop Local

The press release accompanying the app launch states that it was developed by a company called ‘LoudCloud’, who have “a proven record of building and deploying local authority apps”.

You might have thought the Council would ‘shop local’ and look to employ one of Wolverhampton’s many talented web / app development companies to create such an app, especially given the current economic climate, but alas – they decided to send our money all the way to Exeter. Way to go supporting local business.

To sum up, Councillor Paul Sweet is quoted in the press release as saying: “The WCC App is another sign of the new, innovative spirit in the council”.

Unfortunately, to my mind this is another sign of a Council with a short-sighted approach, desperately trying to keep up, and not even managing that.

A selection of the app’s screens

By James Clarke
Digital Strategy Specialist
Replenish New Media

I take a lot of photos with my iPhone, but they don’t usually turn out as well as this one of St Paul’s Church in Birmingham did.

Having read an article on advanced exposure and focus techniques on the iDownloadBlog I decided to try the tips out the next day.

I’m pretty pleased with the result!

Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0).

Frustrated by not being able to subscribe to planning alerts on Wolverhampton City Council’s planning website, I have taken Openly Local’s data feed and fed it into Twitter to create  @WolvesPlanning.

This means that whenever a new planning application is entered on the Council’s planning portal, Openly Local picks it up and it’s posted to the @WolvesPlanning Twitter account.

In an ideal world we should have both RSS Feeds for postcodes and email alerts for planning applications, but this should do the trick for now.

Follow @WolvesPlanning if you want to subscribe to the latest planning alerts.

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Photo: Marvel

When going to see a film at the cinema you now often see a “Love film? Hate piracy.” campaign during the trailers.

This campaign includes shots of people laughing and having a good time in a cinema, juxtaposed with shots of a tiny audience in a decaying cinema. This campaign really annoys me and it doesn’t make me feel any empathy for the film industry or the cinema industry, if anything it makes angry with them.

Yesterday, Steph and I took TBK to see The Avengers at Cineworld in Birmingham. The film was great and we all really enjoyed it, however the cinema going experience is one that I enjoy less and less as time goes by. This particular cinema is pretty good, the staff were pretty friendly, the place is relatively clean and well kept, and the seats are comfy – it’s a far cry from our local Cineworld in Wolverhampton where the whole place feels tired and tatty, the staff have been reduced to the bare minimum and are therefore completely demoralised and uninterested in customer service. It’s the kind of place where they call you ‘mate’ not ‘sir’.

Despite singing it’s praises, I would expect Cineworld on Broad Street, Birmingham to be a quality cinema,  it’s probably the busiest cinema in the City and one of the busiest in the country.

What I can’t understand is how cinemas can charge what they do and then complain when families choose to download a film and watch it at home, legally or otherwise.

Yesterday we bought x2 adult tickets, x1 child ticket, x1 hotdog, x1 popcorn (small), x1 drink (large) and x1 ice cream, totalling £38.70! Yes, £38.70! For a single visit to the cinema! We didn’t even have a drink each, we shared the drink, popcorn & ice cream!

Is it any wonder, with prices like this that people are turning to piracy? We are a family of three, but imagine a family of five and you’re looking at £60+ for 2 hours entertainment.

What really irks me about this whole ‘love cinema, hate piracy’ campaign is that the film industry seems to be learning nothing from the mistakes that the music industry has been making for the past 10 years.

I have tried both the major film streaming services in the UK, Netfilx and Love Film and they are both pitiful in terms of the selection they offer. The reason? In part because the film studios (the same ones who are complaining about massive losses and paying for ads about hating piracy) refuse to license their films to the same services, so you can only get films from studio ‘x’ on Netflix and studio ‘y’ on Love Film.

How exactly is this, combined with rocketing cinema prices encouraging people to pay for films legally and turn their backs on piracy?

Meanwhile, The Avengers has smashed the record for the biggest US opening weekend, taking £123m. I wonder how much the cinemas made on refreshments?

Not content with failing to credit hyperlocal blogs whose stories they ‘borrow’, Wolverhampton’s Express & Star now seem to think that Creative Commons licenses on photos don’t apply to them either.

A recent story on the rise in visitor numbers to Baggeridge Country Park on the Express and Star website features a lovely photo of the coal-mine turned beauty-spot. This photo was very similar to one I recently took myself, so out of curiosity I did a Google image search for ‘Baggeridge Country Park’.

Lo and behold, whilst the first image in the search result wasn’t mine, it was the one the Express & Star had used in their article.

Clicking on the photo led me to this Wikipedia page and the original photo. Like many photos on Wikipedia (and other photo sharing sites), the shot was published under a creative commons license. This allows others to use the photo for free, under certain conditions.

Creative Commons Attribution

The image is clearly marked as being licensed under the ‘Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License‘, with attribution (credit) needing to be given to the owner, in this case someone called ‘Frank Smith’. Which according to the licensing terms means…

You are free:

• to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to remix – to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

Nowhere on the Express & Star article is there any attribution to Frank Smith.

You might have thought that the paper would at least go to some effort to hide the fact that they’ve broken the licensing agreement of an image and not credited the original photographer, but picking the first photo in a Google search (lazy journalism!) and not even renaming the file before uploading it to their website suggests otherwise! Indeed, the image they have uploaded to their website has the exact same file name as the wikipedia one ‘Bag_Pool__Baggeridge_Country_Park_Sedgley_-_geograph.org_.uk_-_154307.jpg’.

A quick search reveals where the wikipedia image originated from and guess what? You can see the Creative Commons license there as well!

I would like to know why staff at the UK’s most-read regional newspaper think it’s okay for them to ignore the licensing terms of a photograph such as this?

How many other people’s photographs are they using without the required credit?

In doing so they are making a mockery of creative commons licensing, which in the long run helps news publications like the Express & Star save money by using photographs for free.

Is is really too much to ask for a simple credit, or even perhaps a link back to the original image?

Hardly a great example for a local news publisher to set, is it?

Links

• Express & Star article
• Wikipedia image
• Express & Star image

Screengrabs

• Express & Star article
• Express & Star image

Photo © Copyright Frank Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Steph and I went into Wednesfield on Easter Sunday to cover the Vaisakhi celebrations for WV11.

We didn’t know much about Vaisakhi, but had seen photos from previous years and it looked like a sight to behold. Keen to make our local news coverage as diverse as possible, we made a couple of enquires and headed down to Alfred Squire Road in Wednesfield, which leads to the local Sikh Temple (the Guru Nanak Gurdwara).

Soon after arriving we bumped into Paul Singh, a local resident who we know through various WV11 activities, Paul was kind enough to give us a brief description on camera about the Vaisakhi celebration.

We were able to keep track on the progress of procession via our local Police Sgt, Simon Causer who was live-tweeting as he Policed the route.

I shot the video above which has some highlights of the procession, whilst Steph took some really great photos which are over on her blog, along with a more in depth description of what Vaisakhi is all about.

All in all it was a very entertaining couple of hours and we learnt a lot about Sikhism and a part of our community that we knew little about. The coverage on WV11 seems to have a had a really great respsonse as well.

On Easter Saturday we braved the rain and wind and headed back to Baggeridge Country Park for our second visit.

This time we took Steph’s parents along with us and we all had a great time spending 3 hours walking through the park and around the pools, discovering areas we didn’t get to on our first visit a couple of weeks before.

There’s so much to do at Baggeridge that you could spend all day there and I’m sure we’ll be making many return visits, especially as the weather picks up over the summer months.

We walked up to the toposcope where the view was pretty good even on a murky day and then meandered down through the woods until we eventually found Spring Pool, almost at the boundary of the park.

We were lucky enough to spot a Heron fishing on the pool and he/she very kindly did several circuits flying around the pool, before diving for fish and generally posing for photographs, definitely a highlight of this visit!

Find out more about Baggeridge on their website or their excellent Facebook page – it’s a great place to visit for all ages and is within 20 from Wolverhampton city centre.