Moseley Road Preservation Society

Moseley School of Art, Moseley Road. Image Courtesy of Brett Wilde

A new group has sprung up on the internet.  The Moseley Road Preservation Society is organising partly through the social networking website Facebook.  To see what they’re up to you will need to use (or create) a facebook account for the link here.

Terry Grimley recenly wrote in the Birmingham Post that the Number 50 bus route shows how the Moseley Road has declined:

In short, Moseley Road is a bit of a mess. Despite the fact that a remarkable number of distinguished buildings survive – just – along its length, it seems unloved and unregarded, and it certainly isn’t getting better. My point is this.

Whose responsibility is it to do something about it, to recognise that a street is more than the sum of its parts and that some co-ordinated action is necessary to uplift its environmental quality?

I know that local government is strapped for cash, but if it’s not the council’s job, whose is it?

Back in the 1970s the council lifted whole inner-city residential areas back from the brink with its innovative “enveloping” schemes, in which the external fabric of Victorian housing was renewed whole streets at a time.

The group is arguing that this area of South Birmingham needs special attention:

The Moseley Road runs from Bradford Street through Highgate and Balsall Heath until it meets Alcester Road at the Moseley B13 border and is just over a mile long

It has in total of 26 listed building in its short length although the 110 year old Friends’ Institute is very strangely is not one of them

This must make the Moseley Road one of the most listed and historical in the city

The city council and private landlords have let many of these buildings decay and there has been continuing problems with many of the listed historical buildings that that they own

The buildings under threat include the

Balsall Heath Library
Moseley Road Baths
The Old Moseley Art School
The Old Tram Deport
The Friends Institute
Plus the many derelict historical buildings down its length

Moseley Road Preservation Society aims to bring all this together

Our main aims are

Campaign to have the Moseley Road made into a Conservation Area or special regeneration zone

Bid for some of the £33.5 million cash coming into the area in the near future with the planned A34 Corridor Regeneration Scheme to be spent on the Moseley Road

Encourage the regeneration of Moseley Road which should act as a catalyst for the improvement of both the Highgate and Balsall Heath areas of the City to the benefit of all the local residents and future generations

Campaign for the reopening of the Camp Hill Station if the proposed Camp Hill Lline is itself is reopened to provide transport for the new Joseph Chamberlain College and access to new employment developments planned to the south and west of the city centre.

I don’t have any details of how to contcat the group other than through Facebook, although I’ve left a couple of  messages and hopefully details might appear in the comment section below.

The Image is courtesy of Brett Wilde. To see more of his fab pictures click here.