There are about 25,000 people, including 8,000 children, on Birmingham’s social housing waiting list, living in temporary accommodation or on the streets. Of the many estates built post-war to house the thousands bombed out of their homes or living in slum conditions, there are two estates currently earmarked by Birmingham City Council for redevelopment:Druids Heath and Ladywood. It is difficult to imagine the insecurity generated by knowing that your home may be taken away from you even though you may own it. This is the reality for many residents on these estates, that when built were loved and appreciated.
Both estates have suffered decades of neglect and planning blight. Regeneration is long overdue so this regeneration could be considered a “good” thing if it was not for the way that it has been handled and the implications for the residents that are now emerging.
For the residents of Druids Heath, the future became clearer on 23 October when an outline planning application for the first phase of the estate’s regeneration was brought to planning committee. The application was met with a storm of protest from residents attending the meeting in the public ‘gallery’. Voting six in favour and six against, the application was approved on the chair’s casting vote. Given the impact of the years of neglect and obfuscation experienced by the residents of the estate, it is no surprise that the meeting descended into chaos as they expressed their deep frustration. Are we happy that a vote as close as this gives the city a mandate to upend people’s lives? Does the format of a planning committee meeting give hundreds of residents, including those who have lived on the estate since it was built, the opportunity to have their say? Three minutes for one representative to express the anger and sheer terror of being made homeless is hardly adequate.
Druids Heath has seen little in the way of ongoing investment since it was built to great acclaim in the 1960s. At the time, it was seen as a flagship estate, welcomed by residents moving out of city centre back-to-backs: ‘they got all this open space… you’re in this lovely open air, they thought they had landed in heaven’. Decades of neglect culminated in the 2017 closure of Baverstock School. The opening of the big Sainsburys on the edge of the estate forced the demise of local stores. The last of three pubs closed and the city’s current financial situation has brought reduced opening hours to the library, the community centre and the youth club. “If you look at that area as a process, it feels like it has always been subtractive … things are taken away or things are so degraded they no longer function and nothing new ever goes in’.
The critical nature of the housing situation in Birmingham was highlighted recently at Moseley Hive for Birmingham Fair Housing Campaign’s Fight for Home Festival. Speakers with a wide range of experience of homelessness shared their stories. Stories of the impact on people’s physical health of living in substandard accommodation, and on their mental health of the difficulty of persuading landlords, including the city council, to deal with the damp, mould and infestations which blight their lives. Representatives of the residents of Ladywood and Druids Heath estates spoke of the effect of the protracted talk of regeneration on the mental health of residents. Both estates are threatened with swathes of demolition, but over the years there has been little clear information about where and when, leaving residents anxious and distressed.
To be fair the city is making an effort, but it may be too little too late. A Regeneration Room has been set up in one of the vacant shops on the Druids Heath Estate. The welcome is warm, the place buzzes with conversation and the plans as presented seem plausible enough. Homes will be built on the vacant Baverstock School site and offered to those displaced by the first phase of demolition. So far, so good, but nobody answered questions about the number of homes for social rent, or affordable homes, questions which were also raised at the planning committee meeting where they were met with the mind-numbing complexity of different funding streams. And there is no getting away from the figures that are given in the plans: 800 fewer affordable homes than there are now; 11% of the total to be built. Is 11% acceptable when the city’s policy is that all developments of over 15 dwellings should have 35% affordable housing?
Then there are those who purchased their homes through the right to buy scheme which will now be compulsorilypurchased. The cost of a home to replace the precious house and garden in which they raised a family and anticipated as a safe haven for their retirement is likely to be £100K more than the sum offered for the old home. Talk of shared ownership is met with little enthusiasm and some suspicion from residents.
We mourn the loss of the optimism and social generosity of the 1960s when Birmingham’s progressive utopianism was applauded across the nation. The Ladywood and Druids Heath estates were built on prime sites, one close to the city centre, the other on the edge of the city with views across opencountryside, making both vulnerable to increased density andgentrification. Yes, these estates need investment and the city is desperate for more housing so the density will have to be increased but why is it always those least able to shoulder it that take the hit?
By Brutiful Birmingham and the Save Smallbrook campaign.
Brutiful Birmingham is an organisation that maintains that the best buildings are the ones already standing, and retrofitting is always more eco-friendly than rebuilding. It campaigns for heritage buildings in Birmingham to be maintained and remain standing.
Joy in Enough 