Nearly 30 Months of Neglect: Sparkbrook Social Centre Remains Abandoned

The Cot­tage of Con­tent social house at 147 Kyr­wicks Lane, Spark­brook has had a tur­bu­lent past two years. Fol­low­ing an evic­tion, crim­i­nal dam­age, an occu­pa­tion and attempt­ed restora­tion, fol­lowed by anoth­er evic­tion, the build­ing con­tin­ues to rot on the cor­ner of Mont­pel­li­er Street, with Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil seem­ing­ly obliv­i­ous to its pres­ence or its poten­tial.

The sto­ry of the Spark­brook social house and com­mu­ni­ty space goes back to April 2005, when on the 11th of that month, Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil served an evic­tion notice on the then occu­piers, a Yemeni cul­tur­al and social group, who used only part of the build­ing for week­ly meet­ings, Eng­lish lessons and a vari­ety of oth­er ben­e­fi­cial activ­i­ties serv­ing the Spark­brook com­mu­ni­ty, specif­i­cal­ly the Yeme­nis. The notice was served, the occu­pants evict­ed, and this key social space was sub­se­quent­ly board­ed up in May of 2005.

From that point Birm­ing­ham Prop­er­ty Ser­vices – the in-house prop­er­ty branch of Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil – deemed the prop­er­ty sur­plus and hoped to auc­tion the space off to the high­est bid­der. The pub­lic space was due to be auc­tioned on the 19th of July 2006, over a year after it was orig­i­nal­ly declared sur­plus. How­ev­er, pri­or to this intend­ed sale of pub­lic land, then-coun­cil­lor Harde­man sug­gest­ed a review of the prop­er­ty and its uses before it’s auc­tion. This review came to noth­ing, and the auc­tion was still to go ahead as planed.

Regard­ing the threat of this social build­ing being sold to pri­vate devel­op­ers for prof­it, a group of enthu­si­as­tic activists gained entry to the Cot­tage on July the 9th, 2006. Their inten­tion was to restore the Cot­tage back to being an asset to the local com­mu­ni­ty, and in the 69 days their occu­pa­tion last­ed, the col­lec­tive redec­o­rat­ed the inte­ri­or, tidied the exte­ri­or, repaired plumb­ing, some wiring and arranged for pub­lic meet­ings to debate the future of this com­mu­ni­ty space.

As a first-hand wit­ness, the work the Cot­tage col­lec­tive did in chang­ing the build­ing into a dis­used run-down shack to a viable and enjoy­able com­mu­ni­ty space was both pro­duc­tive and inspi­ra­tional. Sev­er­al music nights were orga­nized; a bar­beque par­ty went ahead and a mod­est col­lec­tion of books were col­lect­ed, free for any­one in the com­mu­ni­ty to bor­row, so long as they returned them. More crit­i­cal­ly, how­ev­er, was the cam­paign start­ed by the col­lec­tive and endorsed by local res­i­dents to save the Cot­tage of Con­tent.

The City Coun­cil issued an evic­tion notice, and the col­lec­tive were sum­moned to Birm­ing­ham Pri­o­ry Courts on the 24th of August 2006. Judge Sav­age not­ed that the Council’s claim to the land was in fact was too exten­sive than it should have been, and informed the Coun­cil that they only owned a part of the prop­er­ty in ques­tion. Judge Sav­age how­ev­er took no inter­est or sym­pa­thy in the Cot­tage of Content’s case, its pos­si­ble sale to the pri­vate sec­tor, nor the will of the com­mu­ni­ty and the col­lec­tive to restore it to a right­ful pub­lic com­mu­ni­ty space. The evic­tion notice was served, and the occu­pa­tion end­ed on Sep­tem­ber the 15th, 2006. The occu­piers who had done so much to the build­ing for the com­mu­ni­ty were forcibly evict­ed. Fol­low­ing this the coun­cil again secured the build­ing from entry and left it to stand for a fur­ther nine months.

Twen­ty-sev­en months will soon have past from when the prime piece of pub­lic real-estate was board­ed up back in May 2005. So much has hap­pened to 147 Kyr­wicks lane, but regard­ing the Coun­cil noth­ing much seems to have been done at all. Fol­low­ing enquiries regard­ing the cur­rent state of the prop­er­ty, the Council’s plans and if it is for sale, this par­tic­u­lar jour­nal­ist is still await­ing a reply, almost a week after ini­tial­ly fil­ing my Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request.

When return­ing to the Cot­tage after almost a year since I cov­ered the occu­pa­tion and evic­tion, I found the place in a sor­ry state. Offen­sive graf­fi­ti scrawled across the sides of the build­ing, evi­dence of var­i­ous arson attempts by bored youths, bro­ken glass lit­tered every­where amongst oth­er things, and a severe­ly unkempt gar­den that lay tes­ta­ment to the neglect this build­ing suf­fers from peo­ple in high places.

In pho­tograph­ing the build­ing in dis­re­pair I came across three Asian youths local to Spark­brook, sit­ting on the bench­es in the over­grown gar­den of the Cot­tage. I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask them if they knew any­thing about the build­ing.

“Yes, we knew there was an occu­pa­tion and we attend­ed one of the meet­ings, but before long the Coun­cil threw them out, and board­ed the place back up again, so it was short lived” explains Akbar, 22, who has lived in Spark­brook all his life.

When asked about the poten­tial of the build­ing for his neigh­bour­hood, Akbar enthused: “There is just so much you can do! For instance I know a lot of young moth­ers who would love the oppor­tu­ni­ty of day-care for their chil­dren, which would give them the time to work more. This build­ing could pro­vide that.”

Akram, Akbar’s friend, com­ment­ed on its cur­rent state: “It’s a dis­grace, I mean look at it. The younger kids try to break into the place and smoke weed or do dam­age to the inside, because there’s noth­ing else to do here for the younger youth.”

Akbar agreed: “I’ve even seen a pros­ti­tute use that place one time, climbed in through one of the open win­dows with what I’m guess­ing was a client. But that was rare, that doesn’t hap­pen all the time. The lit­tle kids how­ev­er, they are always try­ing to break in, to smoke weed and mess about inside. There’s noth­ing else for them to do.”

Akbar con­tin­ues: “In its cur­rent state it [the Cot­tage] is just a mag­net for unde­sir­ables, you under­stand? Peo­ple go here to do things in secret because they know no one will both­er them”. “Even though the police have been called here a few times” says Akram, “about the noise and dam­age, local youth still get into trou­ble in there”.

“I didn’t have a chance to see much of the work the activists did” con­tin­ues Akram, refer­ring to the occu­pa­tion in 2006, “but with­out a doubt the build­ing would have been in a bet­ter state than this – at least it was pro­vid­ing some­thing to the com­mu­ni­ty. This is just a run-down rel­ic of neglect, like they [the Coun­cil] have for­got­ten about it com­plete­ly”.

Akram may not be far off the truth. Almost 30 months ago the Cot­tage of Con­tent pro­vid­ed a small but use­ful and appre­ci­at­ed ser­vice to the locals of Spark­brook. For 24 of those 30 months it has been a “mag­net for unde­sir­ables”. For the remain­der, dur­ing the occu­pa­tion, strides were made in re-estab­lish­ing the build­ing as a free-for-all com­mu­ni­ty resource. If the Coun­cil chose to give the com­mu­ni­ty a chance to han­dle its own prop­er­ty, who knows what ser­vices could be offered, and what poten­tial could be ful­filled at the Cot­tage of Con­tent?

Notes for edi­tor:

BCC put social space up for auc­tion:
http://www.bondwolfe.net/docs/NEW%20LO-RES%20CATALOGUE.pdf

Start of Occu­pa­tion:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/346958.html

Cot­tage of Con­tent Events [dur­ing occu­pa­tion]:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/347378.html

Court Case:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/348962.html
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/349118.html

Post-Evic­tion:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/351346.html