Digbeth residents living on or nearby Cheapside will have received the above letter from Birmingham City Council Planning Department, inviting them to comment on a planning application to change the use of a newly built apartment block on the Cheapside/Alcester Street crossroads. The four-storey building was intended to be a residential building containing 20 luxury apartments with 12 car park places and a retail unit on the ground floor.
However, the original developers went into liquidation and the building has been sold on to Journeys Group, who want to change it into a tourist hostel ‘to provide short stay overnight ‘tourist type’ accommodation comprising of 53 no. total bedrooms (256 bedspaces) with en suite facilities and dormitories with shared facilities’.
There is some quite vocal local opposition to this drastic change of use for the building. Paul Sankey of PS Graphics (just opposite the building) has sent an email to local residents and business-people rallying for support in contesting the application:
The change of use has to go through Planning and will be vigorously opposed by all tenants and property owners around here as these details are staggering. We have little tourists to the city and already have a good range of cheap Hotel accommodation including The Paragon within 100yds of this site. l can imagine that as they start off, suddenly we will have many very undesirable characters turning Digbeth into a place not to live or work in. This is exactly the type of use for a new building we all should be opposing.
If you would like to comment on the planning application you can do so by 5th August by on the application details on Birmingham City Council’s website, by emailing at john.davies@birmingham.gov.uk or writing a letter to John Davies at the address below. Quote the application reference C/02504/09/FUL in your correspondence.
John Davies
Planning Service
Birmingham City Council
PO Box 28
Alpha Tower
Suffolk Street Queensway
Birmingham
B1 1TU
Imaginary Undesirables!
Undesirables! Those pesky tourists bringing money to the local economy!
A hotel sounds like a good idea to me. An influx of tourists (why are they assumed to be undesirable?) might then hasten the arrival of much needed facilities such as cash point machines, banks, post offices, general stores and eating places that are currently much lacking in the area. It would also bring life to a part of the city which is currently dead at night.
Haven’t stayed in a Jurys but they have good reviews as well run and friendly. Why should tourists looking for low cost accommodation be undesirable? I’ve stayed in hostels in other cities and I think I’m ok.
We need businesses and people to come to Digbeth – not keep them away.
As to the assumption that I would object because “‘the next leap would be very small to change it to an emergency/drop in and temporary
accomodation(sic) for new comers to this country” – it was as offensive as it is unfounded.
As a close neighbour to the proposed development I have far more objections to the xenophobic not to say borderline racist tone of Mr Sankeys email – “the next leap would be very small to change it to an emergency/drop in and temporary accomodation for new comers to this country”. Who exactly are these undesirables, and why so undersirable ? I also object to the way he assumed all residents would agree with him. I do understand people’s reservations, but Digbeth and Highgate have been a stopping off point for new residents in the city for literally hundreds of years (Jewish and Irish and Italian communities in the 19th and early 20th century for instance) and I hope Mr Sankey would not disagree that those communities made a contribution to the city or were they ‘undesirables’? Many of the residents he refers to have only been here for a relatively short time and we haven’t seen the previous residents up in arms about that. Let’s be a bit more Brummie about it and treat it positively, as Epilogue said, it might help bring some necessary resources to the area.
I think some people do not see the point l was making and it is not a racist one. The planning application shows 256 beds, these would be bunk beds 1 up 1 down, 10 people in a room. The project as a Youth Hostel or Tourist stay is not a valid one this is Birmingham not London? Do you really think there would be tourists coming in and choosing to stay in a room of 9 other people they do not know! We all want an increase in Commerce and a Digbeth to be proud of with more people living and working in the area. The real point is that it would not work as a Tourist stay, the outcome to make it a cost effective project would be to fill it in whatever way they think they can get away with. What l care about is Digbeth being improved for all those who live and work here! The fear l have is using this building for all those who HAVE no where to stay and get moved around and stuck into a Digbeth hostel instead of helping them. In the past we had to put up with being asked every day for money for a drink by vagrant men hanging around, they frequently used the outside here between cars as a toilet and we used to have to wash down the drive twice a week. They needed proper help not just an overnight doss house. This is the 21st century and l thought we had moved on from that and would not want to see Digbeth used as a dumping ground.
Thanks for the comment, Paul. You emailed me earlier to say you’d heard that the development company has gone into administration and all their assets are up for sale, so it looks like nothing will be happening with the building for a while.
New developments, and changes of use for existing ones should the original plans not come to fruition (something likely to happen more in the current climate) is something local residents need to feel fully informed and consulted about, and able to openly discuss.
I’m not surprised there were reservations and speculation here as the first residents heard about the hostel was a planning application letter from the council containing just a short paragraph of pretty bare facts about it. Perhaps if the developers had made more of an effort to initiate dialogue with local residents and businesses, to fully explain their intentions for the building and answer questions about what would and wouldn’t be in store, people might have been more open to and supportive of the idea?
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if people believe this will be a tourist hostel, they are living on cloud cukoo land.
birmingham city council are currently putting people on bail up in hotels due to lack of accomodation.
You can be assured this place will be used for people on bail. we already have a bail hostell at st annes and that has its problems. we most certainly don’t need another one. i have tried talking to the council but keep getting fobbed off.
It is a shame more people did not attend the resident’s meeting yesterday at the Paragon. Most of us oppose the plans as it will most likely NOT be beneficial to the area. It has nothing to do with racial or xenophobia issues and PLS do not make it out into one. Many of the residents OPPOSED to it come from different racial / religious backgrounds.
There are already more than adequate existing hotel and hostel facilities as well as planned hotel and hostel facilities approved by Birmingham City Council, both in the immediate vicinity and within a one mile radius or less of the site.
Traffic will be a major issue. While the existing use of the building includes 12 parking spaces, the proposed hostel use of the building reduces the number of parking spaces to zero. We already know the crossroads where Alcester Street meets Cheapside is a traffic accident prone area.
There is still time to voice your objection online or even dropping in to their offices on the 9th Floor at the Alpha Tower in the city centre (near the Crowne Plaza off Holliday Street) tomorrow!
You may wish to register your right to speak at the planning committee via http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/planningspeakers.bcc.
You will be given a maximum of 3 minutes to speak at the planning committee. If you register as a group of 10, you will still get 3 minutes max so best to register individually…
A template letter of objection is available.
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I think that some people do not understand tourism in Birmingham. We have two hostels here, one just over the digbeth high street and another in hockley. Our digbeth hostel has rave reviews. The coach station and this hostel did not improve any facilities within digbeth so I would not expect this to change. Many people do travel to Birmingham and share in dorm rooms. These are mostly backpackers, students looking for some place cheap. As a former backpacker it is my experience that we spend very little when we travel hence the reason we stay in a hostel, the main problem is that we have a problem with traffic and parking for this. Also is digbeth really safe enough for 250 tourists coming in each day and walking the dark streets of digbeth? Would this just raise our council tax bills for extra police etc? One thing Birmingham has plenty of is hotels and hostels. Especially in Digbeth with most pubs having a B & B. Do we want a big comany to come in that do not care about our area? I think not.
I have just received a week-old letter (dated 23rd Sept) in my postbox today! A report will be presented to the Planning Committee on 1 Oct 2009 (which is tomorrow) and the officer’s recommendation to Members is that the application BE APPROVED subject to conditions. I am unable to attend this meeting due to work commitment. The council recorded my written address wrongly and sent it to the wrong place!!!
Luckily Paul Sankey is able to attend on our behalf and hopefully the Committee will decide fairly.
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