Love Where You Live

The Love Where You Live campaign aims to inspire everyone to think about their local environment and be empowered to make their neighbourhoods better places in which to live, work and play.
Birmingham City Council has been chosen as one of a handful of local authorities to work with Keep Britain Tidy as an ‘ambassador’ partner for the campaign.
If we all do something – however small – by working together we can achieve a lot, make Birmingham a better place and encourage a sense of pride in our communities.

Support the campaign
You can support the campaign by letting us know why your local area is important to you and what you are doing to make a difference.

• Find out more on joining in, go to the Keep Britain Tidy website

• Like the campaign on Facebook

They love where they live!
Be inspired by just a few of the Birmingham people who are making a difference to where they live and have pledged their support to the campaign.

To see all of the supporters' stories, click here.

Coral Howard

Coral first moved to Birmingham in 1977 because of her husband's job and although she didn’t want to come, now says she wouldn’t live anywhere else.

Litter has always been one of her bug-bears and drummed into her four children not to drop litter; now they are doing the same with their children.

When Coral first started visiting her husband's grave in Brandwood End Cemetery, the place looked a mess and she decided to join the ‘Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery’, immediately becoming one of a team of litter pickers.

Coral also keeps a litter picker tool in her garage and clears the occasional piece of litter outside her house; ‘When I find rubbish stuffed into my hedge, I feel pleased because if it is in the hedge it is not being blown around the neighbourhood’.

‘Birmingham is a great city to live in and over the last 35 years it has improved enormously. There is something for everyone no matter what their interests and full of open spaces which means that parts of the city can be enjoyed for free. The city has a rich inheritance of interesting buildings, many tree lined streets, parkland and nature reserve, all of which are there for public use. I am proud to be an adopted Brummie’.

Jane Edwards

Jane retired early in her mid 50's following a career in the finance industry and has always lived in and around the Birmingham area. No sooner had she put her feet up, Jane attended a public meeting to discuss the local concern over the deteriorating condition of the chapels and Brandwood End cemetery in general. At that meeting, she was asked to take a few notes and has remained as Secretary ever since!

Five years into retirement, Jane now works part time as a 'Schools and Community Liaison Officer' for Birmingham Trees for Life (Part of the Civic Society). She is also an Educational Volunteer at Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Secretary of several local voluntary Friends groups.

‘I love living in Birmingham and feel that we undersell ourselves as a city. I have many friends from all over the UK and the rest of the world and when they visit they are blown away by what Birmingham has to offer. You are never far from a park or open space in Birmingham, even in the inner city areas!

‘Since retiring I have had more time to notice all the little things that need doing around my local area and have got involved with all the local agencies/Councillors to help improve things such as new litter bins and grit bins, road signs replaced, graffiti and arranging for fly tipped rubbish to be removed.. I am sure many people would also do this but generally when you are at work you notice these things.

'Volunteering locally has meant that I have met lots of interesting people and discovered lots of green areas I had no idea existed.’

Madonna Hyde

Madonna is 17 years old and joined Voice is Power (VIP) – Birmingham’s Children and Young People's Parliament - two years ago because she wanted to be more involved in the choices that are made in relation to young people in the city.

Currently studying for her A Levels, Madonna still finds time to be involved in VIP activities including her recent work for a campaign against racism for which she helped, with other members, to plan and host a debate for young people.

‘I love Birmingham because it has a variety of cultures I am able to learn from and that inspires me to explore the world.

'It has been great to work with other VIP members who all have an interest in helping young people with different issues. What most inspires me is the passion of members younger than myself. If the people of Birmingham saw our work and the variety of skills all our members have in standing up for young people’s rights, they would be more inclined to listen to young people and understand that we do know what we want and can make sensible decisions for what is best for us.’

Patrick Pritty

Patrick Pritty has just turned 17 years old and is currently doing A Levels. He plays drums and electric guitar in a band and has grown up singing and playing music.

With friends, Patrick got involved in a school project with Envision* and agreed to do something for the environment and change their local community – they called their team 'EnvironMENTAL!' – and have already carried out four litter picks in Kings Heath.

‘We would go to the High Street a lot to eat lunch and noticed how disgusting some areas looked because people had carelessly dropped litter. So we vowed to, at least try, to make a change. Our mission soon became to clean up the community and when we had done that to make collages/sculptures with the litter which we picked up to discourage others from dropping litter’.

These sculptures and collages will soon feature in the Kings Heath Floral Trail and, hopefully, help the area win a 'Britain in Bloom' award in July.

‘I love to see a clean front garden, park and neighbourhood, and actually going round to clean these places has made me so much aware of how much litter there is and how much we all can and should be doing to change the way our areas look’.

*Envision is a youth educational charity that empowers young people to make a positive difference in their local communities. Every year, they help thousands of 16-19 year olds up and down the country to set up and manage their own social action projects around an issue they care about and have students developing projects based on everything from global poverty to mental health.

In Birmingham, Envision are running in partnership with The Co-operative Foundation’s ‘Truth about Youth’ campaign, aiming to challenge and change the widespread negative perception of young people and to bring about a cultural shift in the way they are perceived in this country.