Confusion reigns in the planning committee

Well, I've been to a few planning committee meetings in my time, but never anything quite like this.

All the councillors on the committee wanted to save the lovely Island House from demolition. There were some excellent speeches both from those who opposed it from the floor and from councillors, particularly Clancy, Smith and Henley. However, the planning officers seemed determined that there was nothing they could do. The hearing today was only over whether they should have to approve the method of demolition and then what is done afterwards.

There were proposals to say they should agree they need to approve it, but then not approve the conditions for 8 weeks to allow more time for building a case against demolition, but this was another of those cases where the council feared legal costs from a challenge by the developer, so they chickened out.

The biggest saving grace that should play in favour of saving this historic building is a section 106 agreement which the developer signed with the council that they had a duty to retain and renovate it. Follow this link to the consultation or search for 2012/00182/PA on the Birmingham City Council planning website - it is  now taking comments as to whether they should alter this agreement on retaining the building and will close on 6th Feb.

Scaffolding is going up around the building as I type, so who knows what will happen in the next few days. Will they just knock it down and pay whatever fine the council imposes? It probably wouldn't be a huge amount for a developer.

Accountability around planning in this country seems rather muddled and it seems agreements are struck behind closed doors that even democratically elected members are unable to do anything about. I hope that the developers don't just rise roughshod over public opinion and legal agreements, but nothing would shock me.

Joe Peacock

Digbeth's Future

Last Thursday, I went along to an event at the Eastside Projects called “Imagine the Digbeth Summit ...” and found it a really inspiring evening.

There was a real sense of the people there having a shared vision for what Digbeth and Eastside could and should be like and a real sense that people want to get together to help achieve this and stop the kinds of unsuitable development that we all think blights the area, too. The issue of cheap car parking taking over and the need for green spaces, community facilities and re-claiming public areas ran through much of what was said.

5 of us gave short presentations on what we're doing in the area and a little bit about what our vision is. First there was the Pigeon Project who I'd heard about before, but never fully understood what they did. It really is about pigeons and I'll be popping over there soon to have a look having heard what they say about the project.

I went next to introduce the work on Birmingham Friends of the Earth, including information about our building and the history of that, events such as Buy Nothing Day, In Town Without My Car Day and our opposition to the incinerator and airport runway extension. I wasn't sure what reaction to expect, but put in a mixture of the light-hearted side of campaigning and the more serious issues we campaign on and got some very positive feedback.

After that, Jayne Bradley spoke about Edible Eastside and also her thoughts on future developments around the canals. She is planning to get a garden going where people can learn about growing food in an urban environment. This is similar to what we had been hoping to get going with grow-sites, although we remain frustrated in our attempts to find land for this.

Next was Nicky Getgood of Digbeth is Good, who has been organising guerilla picnics under the title Reclaim the Spaces. Nicky has been passionate about Digbeth and promoting the best bits of the area for some time and this is a great idea. Certain parts of Digbeth have become almost "no-go zones" for a lot of people, so she wants to have picnics in these places to show that it is up to people to take them back.

Finally, we heard from Val of the Digbeth Residents Association who also showed her passion for the area and a real will to get things done. Tree planting was mentioned as was better use of public spaces and engaging businesses as well as residents in the group.

We had a question & answer session afterwards in which we heard more about future plans for bringing people together for a Digbeth Summit. This was linked to the need to develop Neighbourhood Plans that has been part of the government's Localism Bill. If Digbeth can bring people together to be ahead of the game in developing these, it will show that we have a vision that is far better than the council have produced in their many documents for the "regeneration" of Eastside, with which the whole room was unimpressed to put it mildly.

I await with great interest to see what comes out of these ideas for a Digbeth Summit and can't wait to get involved in more fascinating discussions over the future of the area.

Joe Peacock

Imagine the Digbeth Summit...

Next Thursday, you can find out about some of the exciting projects that are currently happening in Digbeth and put forward ideas for the area’s future development at this FREE public event.

With presentations from Birmingham Friends of the Earth, Project Pigeon, Digbeth Residents Association, Edible Eastside, Reclaim the Spaces and more, followed by a discussion chaired by Gavin Wade, director of Eastside Projects.

Thursday 9 June
6.30-8pm

Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AR, 0121 7711778, www.eastsideprojects.org

We are very much looking forward to taking part in this discussion and telling people how we envisage a sustainable future for Digbeth.

Joe Peacock

Sunflower seeds - help yourselves and brighten the city!

Sunflowers add a dash of colour and vibrancy, so we've been out planting seeds around Digbeth, but we've still got quite a few left.

If anyone else would like to take some and plant them in public places, we have a bowl of them in our reception, which are free for anyone to take and do exactly that. Please help yourselves and if you're popping in to use our meeting room, the Warehouse cafe, or the One Earth Shop.

After a bit of rain it should be quite easy to get them into the ground, so let's brighten up the city with sunflowers!

Joe

Looking for growing space in Digbeth

At this point in time we have so much access to information on how to live a healthy lifestyle; how much exercise we should do, how many units of alcohol we shouldn't exceed, what foods are good for us, etc.

But with prices of fresh fruit and vegetables booming and a bag of chips still £1 who can still afford to eat a healthy diet?

It would appear that people are getting sick and tired of paying over the odds for vegetables that have travelled over seas, grown in soils that are pumped full of chemicals, when they can grow their own organic vegetables for a fraction of the price.

Communities all over England are now taking it into their own hands and working together to set up allotments and grow-sites; and now Birmingham Friends of the Earth are jumping on the bandwagon! We want to create a grow-site in Digbeth for residents and people working in the area.

We have the knowledge, we have the hands to help produce our urban allotment, but what we do not have is the land!

There is so much disused land in Digbeth, but finding a piece of land we can use even for one year is proving extremely difficult.

If anyone knows of any sites in Digbeth that may be available, even temporarily, please contact rosie@birminghamfoe.org.uk or call me on (0121) 632 6909.

Our aim is to produce a grow-site with enough space for at least 10 plots, space for 2/3 compost bins and a shed for storing tools, ideally with a water point. Which we can then open up to the public for a day and people can come and sign up for a bed.

Digbeth Residents Association 07.02.11

Last night I went to my first Digbeth Residents Association (DRA) meeting. I started at Birmingham FoE as Outreach Officer last month and am working on creating links with residents groups, as well as organising events (such as our HS2 debate) and finding opportunities for us to go out and talk to people.

I was asked if I would like to attend after sending a few e-mails to Val and Pam about the possibility of establishing a grow site in Digbeth. We have been involved in others, so it would be good to do one here where we're based.

Upon arriving at the Alcester suite of the Paragon hotel I was welcomed in by friendly faces. These included residents of Digbeth, a police officer from the area and people interested in the Digbeth area.

After all the introductions were out the way the DRA spoke passionately about Digbeth's future. They feel strongly that the Digbeth area needs more greenery. They have been given 20 Birch trees by the Eastside Projects, with the idea that they will be planted in Highgate park, although the DRA are hoping to set a few a side to be distributed around the area. Another idea was to use the abandoned Victorian rail viaduct as allotment space. We also touched on the subject of grow-sites in Digbeth; which is something I've been looking into myself. Everyone there seemed enthusiastic about the idea and I think it will be a great success... that is when the pain-stakingly long process of finding land we can use is done!

Other issues raised concern the section 106 improvements to Bradford Street, St Patrick's day parade, film nights in the spotted dog, police presence at the meetings and the Digbeth summit.

Overall it was a great insight into all the planning and hard work that goes into making Digbeth the exciting and creative place that it is today!

Rosie Cervelli

Digbeth: Past, Present & Future

I went along to the Digbeth: Past, Present & Future discussion at Ikon Eastside on 6 October, as BFoE has long been involved in the area both from a campaigning front and the fact that BFoE's building 'The Warehouse' has been located there for 32 years (well the building has been there much longer, but BFoE have been in there for 32 years).

The event was very well attended, with only a handful of seats left. The event started off with the showing of a short film made up of old archive film footage of Digbeth through the years, which included:
Holiday crowds leaving the bus station and Moor Street station (1956)

The opening of Midland Red Bus Station (now Digbeth Coach Station) (1958)

An escaped bull from the slaughterhouse running through the streets of Digbeth (1963)

Deritend flats due for demolition (1965)

Birds Ltd leaving the Custard Factory (1965)

The Irish Protest march (1969)

National Front Rally and rival protests by the anti-fascists (1978)

Closure of the Typhoo Tea factory (1978)

It was very interesting, and sometimes amusing, to see the old Digbeth and how it has gradually transformed over the decades.

Following on from this was an open discussion with the panel made up of Nicky Getgood (of the Digbeth is Good blog) who was chairing the discussion, Adam Crossley (of Digbeth Residents Association), Joe Holyoak (architect, urban designer and vocal supporter of Digbeth's heritage and future), Jonathan Watkin (Director of Ikon Gallery), Dave Harte (Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Birmingham City University), and James Hall (Architect for BCU's BIAD building from Associated Architects). Philip Singleton (Assistant Director Planning & Regeneration at Birmingham City Council) was also due to be in attendance, but cancelled at the last minute due to a double booking.

The debate flowed quite seamlessly between issues of urban planning policy, creative industries, Digbeth as a digital district, art, education, communities, music, entertainment, voluntary and social groups, and generally back through and around all of these subjects and the issues surrounding them on multiple occasions. Personally, I thought this highlighted the complex interconnected web of people and uses that makes up Digbeth, and that each subject can't be considered on its own when it comes to the area's future. As well as the discussion amongst the panel, the audience also contributed a great deal, both vocally and through Twitter, with a projector and screen rigged up to show a live feed of people in the audience tweeting their questions, comments, facts and associated links. I thought this was a very innovative approach to engaging the audience, and seemed to work well, allowing the less physically vocal members to contribute to the debate, or simply to add links to facts and points of interest elsewhere on the web that were mentioned in the debate. Many of these items were brought into the discussion, I think these will be added to the Ikon website along with the film footage at some point soon.

As I said, a great number of issues were covered in the discussion, but there was a great deal of debate around the physical form of Digbeth. The lack of a coherent planning policy for the area was brought up, and the absurdity of the conservation area guidelines (which include the banning of trees and greenery, as well as resistance to opening up the canals and River Rea to the wider urban environment), and the fact that planning policy was tossed aside when the 'vanity' scheme that is The Beorma Tower turned up. A great deal of concern was also raised about the wholesale levelling of buildings to make way for new large monolithic developments which lost the character and plot history of the area, some of which had gone ahead, and some of which have now stalled, leaving a barren wasteland of rubble in their wake with seemingly no redevelopment in sight. Especially highlighted for critisism were the Bradford Street area and the Eastside/City Park area, the latter also attracting comments about the forcing out of local businesses and residents such as Rosa's Cafe, Los Canarios and Fred Grove in order to make way for new architecturally annonymous large scale development that has still yet to happen. This despite the showing of a flashy computer generated fly-through of the Eastside redevlopment and city park set to suitably upbeat marketing music and regularly pointing out large sums of money that are to be spent - I got the impression the audience was distinctly unimpressed with this, and it also received a few derogatory comments from the panel too!

There seemed to be a lot more support for the incremental organic development of Digbeth, more in line with Professor Michael Parkinson's report (rather than Big City Plan), with a greater emphasis on keeping the historic grain, concentrating on smaller developments and reusing buildings. On the last point, ideas were also forthcoming on putting artists and other creative and small businesses in touch with landlords of vacant buildings to see about leasing these on a short term basis for affordable rents. Such an initiative could help prevent the sorry story that comes from the government's ending of tax relief on empty buildings, which results in it being cheaper to demolish a vacant building than to pay the business rates on it (but that's another issue I won't get started on right now!).

We were also given a presentation from James Hall of Associated Architects on the new Birmingham City University BIAD (Birmingham Institute of Art & Design) building. Comments were made that this should help to connect the wider Digbeth area with the Eastside/City Park area (which is currently severed by the railway line) in both a physical sense and as a means of fostering links with Digbeth's vibrant creative scene.

Talk also turned to the creative sector, and with the council seemingly wanting to make Digbeth the 'creative district'. Whilst there are a great number of creative industries and organisations now resident in Digbeth (I for one was certainly surprised to hear that Digbeth now has more art galleries than any other area outside of London), it seems that people were generally happier to be to amongst the current melting pot rather than be pushed into a prescribed 'creative quarter'. To me the council's approach is again tied to it's often two dimensional planning use zoning, which lacks the dynamism of a place like Digbeth that ebbs and flows at a far greater rhythm than planning policy ever does.

Tying into the whole creative sector was the council's efforts to enable 'Digital Digbeth' through the provision of a very high speed data connection. The council seems to be making big moves with this plan, and people seemed broadly supportive, although they thought it should be accessible to all areas of the city rather than a specific area, and should be about providing the infrastructure rather than prescribing a use for it. However, it does sound like Digbeth will be just the first trial area.

Topping off the discussion were the ongoing issues of the lack of life's basic necessities, such as a grocery store and a cash machine, as well as noise complaints about live music venues from a seemingly vocal minority, and the risk that this may put the brakes on Digbeth's reputation for live entertainment and nightlife which is an integral part of it's vibrancy.

Overall I thought it was an excellent evening, with a great panel, well attended, with an innovative use of Twitter, and resulted in a very wide reaching, but focused discussion that I feel contributed a wealth of information to the debate about Digbeth's future. It was just a pity Philip Singleton of Birmingham City Council wasn't in attendance, he missed a great opportunity to engage with a talented and passionate group of people who had a Typhoo Tea Factory full of great ideas to progress Digbeth in a way that respects it's past and nurtures it's future. Perhaps those passionate Digbethites should make their own plan, if we can have 'BCC-DIY', a community version the Birmingham City Council website, why can't we have a community plan for the future of Digbeth?
'Digbeth-DIY' anyone?