HERE are the stories making headlines in our part of the world, North Worcestershire and the Black Country.

The Bromsgrove Advertiser reports a couple from Rubery who started a supper club in their own front room are appealing for help to make their dream of opening a restaurant a reality. 

Husband and wife team Paul and Jo Corrall got the taste for success after turning their front room into a restaurant for the evening.

The full story is here.

Thousands of people flooded into Belbroughton when the village staged its annual straw-stuffed autumn festival at the weekend, the Stourbridge News reports.

The popular Belbroughton Scarecrow Festival saw hundreds of imaginative homemade wurzels dotted around the north Worcestershire village throughout Saturday and Sunday (September 26 and 27). 

The story is here.

FIVE hundred Halesowen people have signed a letter to their MP calling on him to press the Prime Minister to use his veto to stop an EU trade deal they believe would lead to the NHS being privatised. 

Campaigners from The People's NHS West Midlands group handed the letter in at the constituency office of James Morris, MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, earlier today.

Halesowen News' story is here.

Meanwhile a gambling addict who broke into a friend's flat has banned himself from bookmakers in Bewdley, a court has been told. 

Fast food restaurant worker Joe Tyler had just been paid but had spent all his money and was £15,000 in debt when he raided a flat in Springfield Rise, Bewdley, Worcester Crown Court heard. 

The court case is here.