And, with organisers looking to improve on last year’s figure of 12,000 runners, the Olympic medallists will urge runners to sign-up and make the event another huge sporting success for Birmingham.

Cllr Martin Mullaney, Birmingham City Council’s Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport and Culture, said: “I am delighted to say that the EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon will be back for 2010. Last year’s event was a huge success attracting over 12,000 entrants and we hope that this year even more participants will take part.

“The EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon was introduced as a means of inspiring more people to be more active, more often and its success demonstrates yet again Birmingham’s ability to stage great major events.

“I would like to encourage people from across the city and region to come and be part of this event either as runners and volunteers or just by lining the route and cheering on the thousands of entrants as they take on this challenge.”

The event will once again be sponsored by EDF Energy, one of the UK’s largest energy companies, and will be known as the Race Against Climate Change.

Anyone interested in running in the 2010 event can sign-up via the official website www.birminghamhalfmarathon.com from Monday.

Famed for her BBC2 series Mary Queen of Shops, the renownedretail strategist joined forces with Style Birmingham to take a look at the one-off shops around the city centre, with the best in the business winning a £5,000 cash bursary and invaluable advice on developing a strategy for future success.

Mary chose Disorder, a clothing store in Needless Alley, for the top prize, describing it as a”one of the cleverest small retailers I have ever seen.”

”This is a company that designs and manufactures in Birmingham, which is great. There are very few big names in this industry that could do that,” explained Mary. Delighted winners husband and wife team Mark Howard and Thiri Myat-Howard have been running Disorder for more than ten years. They plan to use the money to help fund their newly-appointed apprentice, Dan Phillips.

Mark said: “It is great to be recognised for what we do, after all, independent stores like ours help bring a lot of wealth to the city. We employ tailors locally and encourage local designers and manufacturers to work with us. We have gone out of our way to prove that you cna manage successfully in the UK.”

The bursary scheme has been launched by Retail Birmingham to promote the 100 independent retailers in the city centre and continues to provide support and advice.

A passionate supporter of the small retail business, Mary added: “this is such an important initiative. The independnets have many issues to face, not least the fact that they are up against the big brands and we need to re-educate the cutomer to support them.”

For further information and to see an interview with Mary Portas please go to www.stylebirmingham.co.uk