The key issue (a line in the sand)

This is the big one.

The one where we explain why we cannot trust what’s going on behind the scenes, and why we had no choice but to launch our campaign.

The one where we need to take a stand to avoid losing a huge chunk of the park.

After the city had been awarded the rights to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games, the Leader of Birmingham City Council, Councillor Ian Ward, attended a public meeting at Alexander Stadium where he addressed a packed audience of residents from across Perry Barr.

The audience gave a cautious welcome to the games.

Proud of the opportunity for our city to host a prestigious sporting event and show what it has to offer to the world.

But concerned about the impact on the local area and the price the immediate local community would be expected to bear.

Councillor Ward promised the audience that, at least as far as Perry Park was concerned, we had nothing to fear, “there will be no impact on the footprint of the park” during or after the games.

Perry Park is sandwiched between slices of infrastructure - the M6 to the east, the Tame Valley Canal to the north, the A34 Walsall Road to the west.

Yet it serves communities in all directions - and the park plays a significant role in enhancing the physical and mental wellbeing of residents in those communities.

We saw that most powerfully during the shock of the first Covid-19 lockdown, when the open parkland was still available for public use, and pairs of people flocked for their socially-distanced glimpses of the outside world.

Visitors to Alexander Stadium often don’t realise that behind the stadium, partially hidden by a recently-thinned treeline and a hop across the canal, lies the Perry Beeches estate, for which Perry Park is (or was) the closest and safest green space.

You can see that treeline in the photograph which accompanies this blog post - just above the line of white fencing that runs along the length of the picture, towards the background.

Before the Commonwealth Games, the area you can see in the photo was well-used by the local community.

Families would gather from the surrounding estates so their kids could play in a safe, sheltered spot.

Dog walkers would bring their furry friends to this space knowing their pets could run around away from cars.

You’d often see human runners too, building their endurance heading up and down the length of the treeline, from Perry Reservoir at the foot of the slope up to the top by the canal bridge.

Sometimes you’d see people having an informal kickabout, or if the weather was good you’d see people stopping for a picnic, and occasionally in late summer evenings you might even find people looking up into the sky watching the bats that would forage along the treeline.

But after that first Covid-19 lockdown, once the Council’s contractors mobilised to rebuild the majority of Alexander Stadium in order to meet the requirements for hosting the Commonwealth Games, all of the parkland from Perry Reservoir up to the top of the slope by the canal bridge was fenced off.

Behind those fences, the contractors worked the soil, flattening it into two plateaus - on the lower level they installed a running track so that the athletes would have a professional surface to warm up ahead of races - and on the upper level they grew a smooth carpet of grass and added those cages you can see, creating a practice field for throwing events.

The Council granted itself planning permission for these changes, but on the basis that the upper level (the throws field) would be returned to community parkland after the games were over.

After all, there was to be no impact on the footprint of the park.

So, what’s the problem?

Aside from the fact that the parkland serving communities to the north and west remains fenced off over six months after the games concluded?

Well the problem is that the promise to return this parkland to the community might not be kept.

On 11th October 2022, the Cabinet in charge of Birmingham City Council met to discuss and decide a range of issues, one of which was the post-Games development of Alexander Stadium and the park in which it sits, namely Perry Park - you can read the associated documents on the Council’s website.

The report was authored by the Project & Client Manager for Strategic Sport at Birmingham City Council - someone who, credit where it is absolutely due, oversaw a complex programme of works against the clock and during a pandemic in order to redevelop Alexander Stadium in time to host the Commonwealth Games.

There is a diagram which accompanies that cabinet report, which has not been published in the public domain, which includes some potential uses for areas within Perry Park.

(One of those ideas is to convert the former bowling green field north of the brook, over in the eastern half of the park, into wetlands - some people might question whether perhaps that idea is because the work to construct the flood-retention bund compressed the soil and left it in a less than desirable state - but let’s not digress…)

The issue of greater concern to us is the idea to retain not just the warm-up running track but also the throws field, permanently, as formal sports pitches - not returning them to parkland use for the local community.

No more kids running around freely, no more dogs walked safely, no more informal (free of charge) physical wellbeing activities - if you live to the north or west of Perry Park, bad luck, but then you’ve had plenty of time while the area has been fenced off to get used to it, right?

What happened to that promise that there will be no impact on the footprint of the park - surely this must be a mistake?

On 25th January 2023, the Project & Client Manager for Strategic Sport at Birmingham City Council attended the Perry Barr Ward Forum, held at Perry Hall Methodist Church, and answered questions from people in the audience of around 40-50 people.

At that meeting we asked if the intention was indeed to retain this area for formal sports pitches and go back on the promise (and the requirement of planning permission) to return the area to public parkland.

And we were told very clearly and refreshingly honestly that yes, that was the aim.

The audience reaction was also remarkably clear - one of the local ward councillors asked for a show of hands for who agreed with the aim to go back on the promise and turn the area into formal sports pitches (nobody raised their hands) and who thought the promise should be honoured and the area returned as public parkland (everyone in the audience agreed).

Undeterred, the Project & Client Manager for Strategic Sport informed the audience that if we disagreed with their aims then it was up to us to do something about it.

Keen-eyed readers will have noticed that we allowed four weeks for the Project & Client Manager for Strategic Sport to respond to us with a less confrontational approach - sadly, that didn’t happen, and so we launched our campaign to highlight the significant problems across Perry Park and to save the whole of the parkland from broken promises.

The punchline?

You see the stony area in the mid-ground of the photograph?

The stated aim in that diagram we were shown by the Project & Client Manager for Strategic Sport is to build a beach volleyball pitch in that location.

(Which, given the typical weather around here, would presumably be a covered facility, further eroding the visual appearance of the park.)

Beach volleyball is not renowned in these suburban parts as an accessible sport with high demand from people desperate to play, and there are plenty of other, more appropriate locations around the city if such facilities are required.

There’s no justification for carving out a chunk of the footprint of the park and breaking the Leader of the Council’s promise, in order to fence off formal sports pitches (when so many are available locally) and to build an artificial beach.

Sometimes the community has to come together and draw a line in the sand…

Please sign our petition to ensure the Leader of the Council keeps his promise!