We want our say on ballroom plans

DEAR Editor, I was surprised that your article (Old Tower Ballroom site on market for housing, Post February 15) made no mention of how users of Edgbaston Reservoir feel about the council’s plans.

For upwards of 20 years, various groups of people from across Birmingham and the region have been fighting for the preservation of the reservoir. Despite the site of the muchloved Tower Ballroom being a major feature of this unique semi-wild environment, the council insists on regarding it as part of the city centre.

Their Edgbaston Reservoir Masterplan claims to provide ‘clear guidance to protect and enhance the natural environment’.

Proposing to build a mini-Brindley Place on its boundary is a nonsensical way of doing this.

Your readers should know that there is a huge groundswell of opposition to the present plans for the Tower Ballroom site.

For five years now, we have been trying to co-operate with the council but to little avail. Notwithstanding claims about ‘consultation’, they have consistently either blocked our representations, not responded to our questions or have mis-represented our views.

On this we should be clear: we fully support building affordable housing but are against doing so in ways that threaten to undermine the environmental integrity and social value of the reservoir as a Local Nature Reserve (LNR).

The marketing brochure shows that part of the pathway round the reservoir, used weekly by thousands of people, is for sale to private concerns.

We want this to remain in the public domain: free and open to anyone at anytime. Selling off other parts of the LNR, however small, should be agreed by the

LNR committee, which includes public representation, but this has been rendered ineffective by the council.

Left to decisions by developers, housing in the four-storey mixed-use blocks envisaged for the footprint of the former Tower Ballroom would be ‘luxury apartments’. Noisy cafes and 24/7 light-polluting clubs and bars on the lower floors would have a devastating effect on the wildlife of the reservoir. Any community facilities would likely be one room at the back, thoughtfully near the toilets.

It is not an either/or matter: there is room for a balance between housing and community amenities. As reservoir users, we are looking to genuine and effective collaboration with developers on two key issues.

The former car park alongside Osler

Street must include a substantial number of affordable houses, What eventually goes onto the Tower Ballroom footprint must reflect and enhance its natural location and social value.

Perhaps a future issue of Birmingham

Post could include an article about what Birmingham people are doing to secure an alternative future for Tower Ballroom site ?