The City of Birmingham and its municipal authority is a safe bet for big investment.

Moody’s ratings agency has just given the council a AAA rating, while Standard & Poor’s has awarded it a AA+, with a stable outlook.

As Paul Dale has pointed out in the Post, not only does the Moody’s rating place the council above the USA in terms of credit worthiness, it also puts Birmingham ahead of many major banks.

Meanwhile, reports claim that Barclays is actively backing a serious market in UK municipal bonds with credit ratings for UK municipal authorities on the way to facilitate it, possibly by the end of this year.

Finally, something from Barclays which makes real sense.

It’s time to run with this, Birmingham, and it should be the start of the renaissance of confident economic self-determination in this city.

According to the reports, council bond issues remain ‘on the agenda’ for the ‘back half of next year’, so apparently says Chris Hearn, head of local authorities and education at Barclays Corporate bank.

This is an exciting opportunity. I hope that one of the reported six authorities who are working on this with Barclays is Birmingham. We’ll see. If not, we need to get on board immediately.

It’s time to stand on our own two feet and make real decisions about what to invest in and how to invest it in Birmingham.

Instead of the nonsense of going cap-in-hand to London begging for a loan from the Public Works Loan Board (the old traditional route, which centralises) there is now a real likelihood of a new financial independence for this city.

Literally independent, because we are not dependent on streams of finance simply from central government or traditional city routes.

It will require brave and bold thinking and a break with the past.

Once up and running, City of Birmingham Bonds, Brummie Bonds, should also become immediately the basis for seeking out new investors in the city.

Not just old money from the City of London (welcome though that would be), but new long-term investors and partners from, for example, the pension fund investment community throughout Britain and the world.

Let’s sell investment in Birmingham industry and Birmingham people to the sovereign wealth funds of Norway and Japan, and the emerging markets of the world.

Regular readers of blogs and columns at the Post will know that David Bailey and I have been calling for this for years – since 2004. Indeed, legislation passed in 2004 enabled councils to issue bonds for capital projects. The city issued £215 million of Brummie bonds to refinance the council’s stake in the NEC.

Importantly, Brummie Bonds need not be about city-centre, big prestige projects. To be honest, private money tends to come in for that already.

Brummie Bonds can be small scale, for housing or local infrastructure. In the USA a street of houses is often built through small-scale issues of munibonds (as they call them). Even though the US boasts a $2,800 billion muni bond market, big bond issues aren’t the standard.

Issue of municipal bonds for housing in Birmingham is a real investment option, especially for pension funds. Long-term bond issues can find a clear asset base and income stream in municipal housing – as is the case in MuniBonds throughout the world.

But the big prize has to be to issue bonds for long-term investment in Birmingham industry and jobs across the city in all of its wards. The bonds might be used to fund a municipal investment bank in this city that takes equity shares through patient finance in Birmingham businesses.

This can place Birmingham at the heart of a sustainable industrial reawakening which rebalances the nation’s economy.

First port of call, ironically, has to be local government pension schemes in the UK who desperately need to get out of equities now.

They need a flight to safety; and investment in bricks and mortar or industrial steel, glass and plant in this city are the clear routes to diversification of their assets and in the best long-term interests of their savers.

Indeed investment in MuniBonds can have the knock-on effect of increasing their funds’ active contributors.

And last, but not least, let’s allow ordinary Brummies to invest in them too, once they’re up and running. Mancunians and Liverpudlians are welcome to invest too. Let’s hope their own authorities get in on the act, too.

We need an advertising campaign to match the privatisations of the early 80s to get the citizens of Birmingham and the West Midlands to have confidence in this city and invest directly in its future, too.

Tell Sid – or Saeed or Sarah, from Sparkbrook or Sutton.

So, Birmingham, it’s time to step up to the plate. This is not the time for caution. We need to grab this and run with it.

It is a real chance to re-make Birmingham’s municipal role as a key driver of economic activity and investment in this city and region.

Buy Brummie Bonds!

* John Clancy is a Birmingham City Councillor and director of www.mediafuturesalert.com and www.justliteracy.com