There’s a small white building in the middle of a Birmingham park that has become the unlikely headquarters for a quiet resistance movement.
A few years ago, a group of locals took over the quaint Sons of Rest building in the middle of Handsworth Park so they could host their own “tea and social” afternoon.
“We all hated the isolation of lockdown during COVIDso we decided to come together in this building a few times a week,” says Surinder Guru, one of the volunteers.
Image: Surinder says the building has formed a community spirit
In the beginning, they’d bring their own teabags. Then one man decided to make some soup. Then they all decided to take turns making soup for everyone.
And that grew into a community kitchen for anyone who wants to come.
“It’s turning into a meeting place for different groups who don’t normally meet,” says Surinder.
“We get Indian people, white British men and women, white European men and women, we’ve got Afro-Caribbean people, children and older people.
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“It’s making use of a building that would otherwise have been sold off to God knows who.”
Image: This is where the resistance movement lies
Communities under threat
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But this community haven – and thousands like it – is under threat because the council here is in a financial mess.
Birmingham City Council, Europe’s biggest local authority, recently declared itself effectively bankrupt, issuing what is called a Section 114 order.
That means the council does not think it has enough money to maintain essential services next year.
A backlog of equal pay claims and a failed IT system has crippled its finances.
It is a bit like in Monopoly, when a player runs out of money, their only option is to start selling off their assets.
So every asset that the council owns is now under review and could be “disposed of” to help meet a forecasted £760m equal pay bill.
Landmarks that help make the city unique are among the properties under investigation.
Nothing is off the table – historic buildings, libraries, parks, entertainment venues, car parks and community centre are all at risk.
According to Locality, the organisation which represents nearly 2,000 small community groups across the country, about 6,000 public buildings and spaces are sold off by councils every year.
Tony Armstrong, CEO of Locality, said: “We’re calling on all parties to introduce a community right to buy, which would make it much easier for local people to take local buildings into community ownership.
“And we also want them to go further, passing more powers to communities so they can help create local jobs, services and opportunities.
Image: Landmarks that help make the city unique are among the properties under investigation
‘Keep your hands off our communities’
Surinder says she is angry that the city has been put into this situation.
“My message to the council is ‘keep your hands off our communities’.
“And that message is not just to the council but to central government too.
“The council needs to make better decisions but governments also need to fund councils properly.”
Councils have seen a stark reduction in the amount of money handed to them from central government over the last decade.
These grant payments were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2019-20, from £46.5bn to £28bn, according to the Institute for Government.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said they were supporting the city and its concerned communities.
“Birmingham City Council faces a unique financial situation following its failure to get a grip of the significant issues it faces, from its equal pay liability to the implementation of its IT system.
“That is why we are working closely with the Commissioner team, who were appointed at the Council last October, to protect local residents and tackle the serious financial and governance problems.
“Our £150m Community Ownership Fund is also supporting communities to take ownership of assets at risk of closure and we have already secured the future of four community assets in Birmingham with £996,000 of funding.”
But now, overspent councils elsewhere are desperately trying to make the sums add up in order to meet their legal duty to balance their budgets by next April.
That is leading to cuts to things like museums, leisure centres, bus subsidies and grants to local charities.
At the same time there is relentless pressure on statutory services such as social care, and temporary accommodation for homeless families.
Campaigners across Birmingham are now fighting to protect their communities from the selloff in a David and Goliath-type battle.
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1:13
‘Inquiry into Birmingham City Council’
Fighting to save landmarks
The Save Birmingham Campaign was launched in response to the council’s effective bankruptcy.
Save Birmingham organiser Jeevan Jones said since the launch over 1,000 residents have nominated nearly 200 places on the savebirmingham.org website, ranging from community and leisure centres, parks and open spaces, heritage landmarks and cultural venues.
It is the first scheme of its kind in the country designed to scupper a sell-off of beloved community facilities.
“Our campaign aims to protect community places, to ensure the residents of Birmingham don’t lose out due to problems they didn’t cause. Once community places are lost, they stay lost.
“The last thing we want is for people to lose access to these community places.”
The campaign aims to register under-threat council-owned properties and spaces as “assets of community value” in an attempt to slow down the sale to give locals a chance to see if they can take them over.
“Our hope is the Save Birmingham campaign can act as a blueprint for the dozens of councils facing severe financial problems through positive community-led solutions that avoid damaging fire sales,” said Mr Jones.
Image: ‘The council needs to make better decisions but governments also need to fund councils properly’ says Surinder
‘No council is immune’
The Local Government Association says councils face a funding gap of £4bn over the next year and need more support from central government.
Councillor Shaun Davies, who chairs the LGA, told Sky News: “No council is immune to the growing risk to their financial sustainability and many now face the prospect of being unable to meet their legal duty to set a balanced budget and having Section 114 reports issued.
“It is therefore unthinkable that the government has not provided desperately needed new funding for local services in 2024-25.
Although councils are working hard to reduce costs where possible, this means the local services our communities rely on every day are now exposed to further cuts.
Sir Keir Starmer has said US-UK trade talks are “well advanced” ahead of tariffs expected to be imposed by Donald Trump on the UK this week – but rejected a “knee-jerk” response.
Speaking to Sky News political editor Beth Rigby, the prime minister said the UK is “working hard on an economic deal” with the US and said “rapid progress” has been made on it ahead of tariffs expected to be imposed on Wednesday.
But, he admitted: “Look, the likelihood is there will be tariffs. Nobody welcomes that, nobody wants a trade war.
“But I have to act in the national interest and that means all options have to remain on the table.”
Sir Keir added: “We are discussing economic deals. We’re well advanced.
“These would normally take months or years, and in a matter of weeks, we’ve got well advanced in those discussions, so I think that a calm approach, a collected approach, not a knee-jerk approach, is what’s needed in the best interests of our country.”
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Downing Street said on Monday the UK is expecting to be hit by new US tariffs on Wednesday – branded “liberation day” by the US president – as a deal to exempt British goods would not be reached in time.
A 25% levy on car and car parts had already been announced but the new tariffs are expected to cover all exports to the US.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, earlier told Sky News he is “hopeful” the tariffs can be reversed soon.
But he warned: “The longer we don’t have a potential resolution, the more we will have to consider our own position in relation to [tariffs], precluding retaliatory tariffs.”
He added the government was taking a “calm-headed” approach in the hope a deal can be agreed but said it is only “reasonable” retaliatory tariffs are an option, echoing Sir Keir’s sentiments over the weekend.
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0:28
‘Everything on table over US tariffs’
Mr Trump will unveil his tariff plan on Wednesday afternoon at the first Rose Garden news conference of his second term, the White House press secretary said.
“Wednesday, it will be Liberation Day in America, as President Trump has so proudly dubbed it,” Karoline Leavitt said.
“The president will be announcing a tariff plan that will roll back the unfair trade practices that have been ripping off our country for decades. He’s doing this in the best interest of the American worker.”
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3:09
Trump’s tariffs: What can we expect?
Tariffs would cut UK economy by 1%
UK government forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said a 20 percentage point increase in tariffs on UK goods and services would cut the size of the British economy by 1% and force tax rises this autumn.
Global markets remained flat or down on Monday in anticipation of the tariffs, with the FTSE 100 stock exchange trading about 1.3% lower on Monday, closing with a 0.9% loss.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% after a volatile day which saw it down as much as 1.7% in the morning.
However, the FTSE 100 is expected to open about 0.4% higher on Tuesday, while Asian markets also steadied, with Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 broadly unchanged after a 4% slump yesterday.
Kristin Smith, CEO of the US-based Blockchain Association, will be leaving the cryptocurrency advocacy group for the recently launched Solana Policy Institute.
In an April 1 notice, the Blockchain Association (BA) said Smith would be stepping down from her role as CEO on May 16. According to the association, the soon-to-be former CEO will become president of the Solana Policy Institute on May 19.
The association’s notice did not provide an apparent reason for the move to the Solana advocacy organization nor say who would lead the group after Smith’s departure. Cointelegraph reached out to the Blockchain Association for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith’s April 1 announcement. Source: LinkedIn
Smith, who has worked at the BA since 2018 and was deputy chief of staff for former Montana Representative Denny Rehberg, will follow DeFi Education Fund CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine, leaving his position to join the Solana Policy Institute as CEO. According to Whitehouse-Levine, the organization plans to educate US policymakers on Solana.
With members from the crypto industry, including Coinbase, Ripple Labs, and Chainlink Labs, the BA has filed a lawsuit against the US Internal Revenue Service, challenging regulations requiring brokers to report crypto transactions. The group often criticized the US Securities and Exchange Commission under former chair Gary Gensler for its “regulation by enforcement” approach to crypto, resulting in steep legal fees for many companies.
Less than 48 hours after the Solana Policy Institute’s launch, it’s unclear what the group’s immediate goals may be for engaging with US lawmakers and advocating for the industry. The organization described itself as a non-partisan nonprofit group.
The most senior and long-serving civil servants could be offered a maximum of £95,000 to quit their jobs as part of a government efficiency drive.
Sky News reported last week that several government departments had started voluntary exit schemes for staff in a bid to make savings, including the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs, the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office.
The Department for Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government have yet to start schemes but it is expected they will, with the former already set to lose staff following the abolition of NHS England that was announced earlier this month.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, confirmed in last week’s spring statement that the government was setting aside £150m to fund the voluntary exit schemes, which differ from voluntary redundancy in that they offer departments more flexibility around the terms offered to departing staff.
Ms Reeves said the funding would enable departments to reduce staffing numbers over the next two years, creating “significant savings” on staff employment costs.
A maximum limit for departing staff is usually set at one month per year of service capped at 21 months of pay or £95,000.
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Whitehall sources stressed the figure was “very much the maximum that could be offered” given that the average civil service salary is just over £30,000 per year.
Whitehall departments will need to bid for the money provided at the spring statement and match the £150m from their own budgets, bringing the total funding to £300m.
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5:04
Spring statement 2025 key takeaways
The Cabinet Office is understood to be targeting 400 employees in a scheme that was announced last year and will continue to run over this year.
A spokesman said each application to the scheme would be examined on a case-by-case basis to ensure “we retain critical skills and experience”.
It is up to each government department to decide how they operate their scheme.
The voluntary exit schemes form part of the government’s ambition to reduce bureaucracy and make the state more efficient amid a gloomy economic backdrop.
The move could result in 10,000 civil service jobs being axed after numbers ballooned during the pandemic.
Ms Reeves hopes the cuts, which she said will be to “back office jobs” rather than frontline services, but civil service unions have raised concerns that government departments will inevitably lose skilled and experienced staff.
The cuts form part of a wider government agenda to streamline the civil service and the size of the British state, which Sir Keir Starmer criticised as “weaker than it has ever been”.
During the same speech, he announced that NHS England, the administrative body that runs the NHS, would also be scrapped to eliminate duplication and cut costs.