19/02/2017 Midlands Today

Good evening. on the BBC News Channel,

It's emerged that the Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council

is leaving his job just days before a crucial meeting

Mark Rogers took over the role in 2014 after seven years

He's dealt with the fallout from the so-called Trojan Horse

affair and faced pressure from Government to improve services

There are fears that public parks in the West Midlands are set to slip

into years of decline as a result of budget cuts.

Many local authorities are looking to slash spending on green spaces

as they struggle to balance their books.

Birmingham's got 591 parks and it's proud of them.

In some, volunteers to do the things you might expect

the council or even the Environment Agency to do.

But times are tough and look like getting tougher.

We rely on park staff, park keepers and rangers

to support us and if those jobs are going, it's going to get harder

for us as an established group to do work

but more importantly, it's going to be much harder

for new friends groups just getting started.

The council won't say whether jobs will go,

but they are planning cuts of 1.2 million from the parks budget,

cuts forced on them, they say, by central Government.

None of us like the decisions we're making, but the fact

that we have not had a fair settlement in the city

Across the West Midlands, recent surveys show 70% of

local authorities are looking at transferring

Less than half our park managers feel their parks

And the percentage of parks in decline looks set to

more than double over the next three years.

Fran started a friends group six months ago to reclaim her

local park and it's a work still in progress

The rangers do provide valuable help, advice and can do a lot more,

so without the rangers, it would be very, very hard to keep going.

Visitors are surprised how green the city is.

The challenge now, keeping it pleasant for people

A man from Wednesbury has defied death not once,

Father of three, Ray Woodhall, had a heart attack whilst playing

He was rushed to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital where doctors

revived him, but his heart stopped working a further 26 times

Given what happened to Ray Woodall, his recovery feels like a miracle.

I think I should be getting a little breathless at times,

but I've never experienced that.

Ray's heart stopped beating not once but on 26

separate occasions after having a heart attack

One moment, Ray felt a pain in his chest.

The next thing he knew, he was in accident and emergency

at Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

The amazing thing was I always thought

So when I woke up and there were people around me

I was going, I've just been asleep here, it's OK.

Doctor Goyal saves lives most days, but rarely does he save

one man's life 27 times in a single shift.

I think when people have multiple cardiac arrests, there is a

very high chance that one of them could be the last one and we

may not be able to bring them back, so we have to use different

treatment regimes to try and help people in this sort of situation

to try and maximise their chance of survival.

Every time Ray stopped breathing, the team of doctors and nurses

got his heart are going again.

Now, thanks to a couple of stents in his heart, he's strong enough

It's just a minute spot on my wrist, that's all I've got to show

for all the trauma that I went through

Ray feels indebted to the medics received his life but they

He should be back playing walking football within a couple of months.

The future of Peugeot's headquarters in Coventry is at risk according

to a motor industry expert in the region.

The warning comes as the Prime Minister Theresa May

has agreed to meet the boss of the French car group

to discuss its proposed takeover of Vauxhall in the UK.

There are concerns within the industry that any takeover may

have an impact on thousands of jobs, many of them in the Midlands.

then they will only need one UK headquarters.

There are hundreds of people employed at the Peugeot

I think the question then is will it be that operation

that stays open or will it be General Motors' head office?

Rugby and Premiership leaders Wasps have been stunned by Sale Sharks.

Wasps came back from being 31-9 down.

Let's have a look at the weather forecast now.

After a mild weekend, our temperatures are going to

continue to rise as we go into the working week.

Overnight, plenty of low cloud around.

I think we'll see one or two outbreaks of light,

There will be some mist and murk and hill fog around.

Overnight lows of 9 or 10 degrees Celsius, so really mild for the time

of year and not much down on our daytime highs.

It will be a mild start the day tomorrow and a fairly cloudy day.

One or two bright intervals and feeling pleasant in any sunshine.

That cloud thickening up with some outbreaks

We will see a bit more in the way of a breeze.

We are looking at an unsettled week and I think it will

feel noticeably cooler by the time we get to midweek.

I'm back with the late bulletin at 10:22pm.

on and on. It is because of the direction of the wind. Tomorrow's

temperatures might be higher than today by a couple of degrees. There

has been a lot of cloud. But we had some lovely pictures coming in. Some

sunshine, but predominantly the clouds have been -- the skies have

been cloudy. This will continue as well as a smattering of rain. For

all those reasons it isn't going to be a cold night. In fact a night's

temperatures will be higher than the daytime maximum averages for this

time of year. A murky grey start in the morning. Hill and coastal fog.

Rainfall western Scotland and Northern Ireland and a real

buffeting from the winds. East of the Grampians could be particularly

nasty on