WHEN people ask me what achievement I am most proud of there used to be several answers I could give.
But just before Christmas I got a fantastic early present with the news that Balaam Wood Academy in Frankley was going to be included in the Government’s £1.8billion school rebuilding programme.
Most of the schools in the local area have been upgraded or rebuilt in recent years but with Balaam Wood it remained a 1970s building.
The staff at Balaam Wood have been fantastic and headteacher Damian McGarvey in particular, but in such a dated building there would always be limits.
This project will see a new school built for students in a part of the city that was ignored by some politicians for years.
But I know how important this is.
There are many things I press Ministers for but this one is perhaps the most important of all.
I know when I was voted in as local MP in 2019 people were hungry for change.
That desire for change was mostly from people who felt politicians took them for granted and just hoped they would go away.
They were often the people, in frustration at not being listened to, who simply stopped bothering to vote – thinking it did not matter.
But these are the people who need our help the most!
If we want to bring Frankley forward into the next decade then we need to give the young people in this often forgotten community a school that they can be proud of.
The current building with leaking roofs and a pub next door is never going to help these bright young people reach their potential even with the great work the teaching staff put in.
So now there will be a process to decide exactly what is built and exactly where.
There will be discussions with Birmingham City Council and with local residents.
There will, unfortunately, be some disruption as this massive change takes place.
But at the end of it all in one of the more deprived areas of the West Midlands, there will be a fantastic new school building, funded by this Conservative Government, that will help the next generation from Frankley thrive.
And I couldn’t be happier or more proud.
