Action Briefing Aug 2003 - Sept 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Victoria Jubilee Allotments

Attached to Handsworth Park, two miles north west of the city centre, between Holly Road and the railway line to Walsall, are 18 acres of derelict private allotments containing mature trees, thick hedgerows and original country lanes: the Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA). These once thriving community gardens, now a buzzing haven of urban bio-diversity, could be recovered for allotments (much in local demand), playing fields or as a conservation area, linked by neighbouring railway embankments to other green sites harbouring rare birds, bats, insects, wild flowers, badgers and foxes.

But now the VJA is threatened by new housing and an access road, despite moral concerns raised by the church about “organised vandalism”, as well as detailed legal and planning arguments for retaining the VJA as green space. If implemented, this application could bring about the biggest single loss of green space in the area for 60 years.

Apart from developers Westbury Homes and the absent allotments holders who abandoned the site, no-one likes this plan but they can see no other way of buying it from a small committee of determined shareholders who deliberately blighted the VJA by refusing plot applications and selling it to a developer. For 10 years local people led by the Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG) and supported by campaigners for urban green space across the city, including Birmingham Friends of the Earth, have been campaigning against losing any more of Handsworth’s already diminished green space to building.

Supporters of our campaign, who include local councillors, the MP for Ladywood and Lord Rooker, former MP for Perry Barr, can see no good reason for building new houses in the area given the demand for wildlife conservation, allotments, playing fields and the scandalous level of empty and derelict housing.

Two years ago HAIG appointed 'Public Interest Lawyer ' Phil Shiner to challenge the proposed development. A sophisticated array of planning arguments supported by allotment demand data backed by legal arguments requiring an environmental impact assessment under the “precautionary principle” has been submitted to Development Control committee. “Green space, in all its forms,” argues HAIG, “adds to the value of surrounding housing. Removing more of it will further depress Handsworth’s prospects of regeneration and distract developers from seeking to make their business through the recovery of brown field sites and older housing needing restoration after years of neglect.”

After previous plans were turned down or deferred on the strength of the unprecedented number of objections received by City Planners to building on the VJA, a third attempt by Westbury to force their plans through the system is now up for consideration. Councillors have to ponder the implications of Westbury appealing a refusal to the Secretary of State. But years of studying planning law and contributing to consultations on the UDP make us confident that with the legal help we’ve procured we and our supporters have done our part in providing councillors on Development Control Committee with arguments that will stand up under inspection if Westbury, being rejected, go down that expensive route.

Officers of the Council and the developers' agent have worked industriously to negotiate the latest proposal, which unlike initial plans includes allotments, playing fields and other welcome community provision. But they remain trapped by the Section 106 formula by which, in this and other cities, the only way local councils can raise the revenue and capital to invest in and maintain green spaces is to surrender more of it to building, whittling away the green space vital to urban regeneration.

Had this view held in 1880 when building land was also at a premium we would never have had Handsworth Park! A political judgement, rather than a purely managerial assessment is now critical for the future of the VJA.

The VJA is just one site along with Springfield Road Allotments, Billesley lane Allotments and other green spaces in Birmingham’s “Edwardian green fringe” being partially sold to fund the increasingly diminished green space that remains. This is not a planning philosophy, but it is a straitjacket being gradually loosened by new research, new understanding, and new government planning guidelines on the vital role played by different kinds of green space in getting people to want to stay and live in cities.

More and more studies are showing the contribution of safe and accessible green space to health and other quality of life measures including people’s sense of place and identity. The fight to preserve and retain the VJA does not clash with the need for denser housing as city planners seek to attract people to want to live in the city - quite the opposite. The astute juxtaposition of high quality green space, housing, retailing and industry is critical to making cities into places where people want to live rather than where too many still feel trapped. The fight to save the VJA is one of many fights for the future of cities being carried on across the UK. We ask all who support Friends of the Earth to oppose the latest land loss compromise in Handsworth and to write to the press, to the planning department (see below), to MPs and councillors, making the point that if we are to strike a city-wide balance between housing and the green spaces that will attract people to live in Handsworth, building on the VJA is no solution.

Better to “mothball” the land securely until its asset value to the area as a well stewarded green space is acknowledged. The latest plans will be looked at by ward subcommittee in the next few weeks and months and will be determined or again deferred by the city’s development control committee. We invite all who care about the future of the site to watch out for notice of such meetings.

To view, comment or object to the latest plans write to Mr Alan Orr, Planning Direct, Planning Department, BCC, PO Box 28, Alpha Tower, Suffolk Street, Queensway, B1 1TU quoting reference N/01514/03/FUL. To view alternative plans for keeping the VJA as a green space integrated into a restored Handsworth Park, phone me 0121 554 9794 or email s.j.baddeley@bham.ac.uk

Simon Baddeley, 25th April 2003