Petition to save ‘beating heart of city’s culture’
Station Street may be lost to another tower, fear campaigners
APETITION launched to save Station Street in the centre of Birmingham from developers has attracted more than 20,000 signatures in a matter of weeks.
It means the council has been forced to organise a full debate on the future of the road behind New Street Station, which is home to The Old Rep theatre, recently closed Electric cinema, and Crown pub, where Black Sabbath played their first concert.
Large parts of the street could be handed to developers to build a 50-storey tower.
A number of stars have backed the calls, including Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight, actor Brian Cox and singing queen Ruby Turner.
The petition, started by arts lover Darren John on change.org, amounts to an appeal from the city’s residents to anyone with the power to intervene.
Backed by multiple organisations including Birmingham Open Media and Jez Collins, of the Birmingham music archive, the petitioners want politicians to get behind the mission to designate the street as a site of cultural significance and a historic asset.
Cox, the patriarch in the hit series Succession, has become the latest to back the petition. He is a patron of the Old Rep theatre and it is hoped he will prove a powerful ally.
The city council’s rules say that petitions with more than 20,000 signatures
will trigger a debate at a full council meeting. Cllr David Barker (Lab) will submit it to the next council meeting on behalf of campaigners.
The future of the street, which runs behind has come back into the public conscience following the sudden closure of the muchloved Electric Cinema.
Proposals to create yet another towering block of apartments at the Crown end of the street is one potential plan for the area.
The Crown is the former pub which where many music stars found their feet. “It’s our Cavern Club, the birthplace of heavy metal,” says Mr John. “It should be restored and given life as a small music venue, music education centre and bar for experimental and interesting music to thrive.”
The Old Rep, a grade II-listed theatre and Britain’s oldest rep, is also located nearby.
Ideally the street should be pedestrianised and become a cultural ‘beating heart’ of the city.
The organisers said in a statement: “Birmingham has been down this path before. Destroying historic and beautiful architecture of nationally cultural significance only to regret it shortly after.
“Do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Birmingham needs apartments but there are huge supplies of land in Birmingham city centre more suitable than this.
“A city with no culture or history is a just a block of flats and a train station taking people elsewhere in the long run. Birmingham calls on its leaders to stop the destruction of Station Street now before it is too late.”
Much of the street is linked to freeholds owned by the Vyse family, whose links to the city go back more than 150 years.
Mayor Andy Street has said the closure of the Electric had acted as a “lightning rod for people’s deep concerns about the future” and pledged to investigate.
Birmingham has been down this path before. Destroying historic and beautiful architecture of nationally cultural significance only to regret it