Balti bastion Shababs goes up in flames

Dear readers — we hope you had a fun and refreshing weekend. Thanks very much to the almost 300 people who responded to our brief survey last week which has given us an invaluable insight into what you want to see more of in (and what you’d prefer we leave out of) our pages. If you’d like to have your say on your experience of reading The Dispatch, just click the button below.

This week starts with the loss of a Birmingham institution: Shababs on Ladypool Road set alight yesterday, with one man resorting to jumping out of a window to flee the flames. Thankfully, no one was badly harmed. That’s at the top of today’s Brum in Brief. Plus: a recent poll marking 100 days of the bin strikes reveals who city residents really think is to blame for the never ending dispute. But there’s positive news as well, with two new launches coming to Birmingham at the end of summer. Read on to find out more.

Catch up and coming up:

• On Saturday, Jon Neale took us back to the corruption and controversy of Brum’s brutal slum clearances in the 1950s and 1960s. The comment section was alive for this one with readers sharing their own family memories of displacement. “Yet again another fascinating article about little known aspects of the history of the city,” said one commentator.
• On Thursday, Alex Taylor reported on a new University of Birmingham scheme which resulted in a cluster of film students being sent to an isolated Scottish island to film a low budget sequel to cult folk horror, The Wicker Man. 
• Do any of our readers have links to people in Iran? We’d like to hear from you about how the attacks by Israel and the US are impacting you.

Brum in brief

🔥 Famed Birmingham balti house Shababs set alight yesterday morning, reportedly due to a kitchen fire, says the Birmingham Mail. One man had to jump out of a first floor window to safety, reports the BBC and five people were treated at the scene by emergency services. Shababs opened in 1987 and is an anchor of Birmingham’s declining Balti Triangle: which was severely diminished by restaurant closures during the pandemic. According to The Guardian, as of 2023, only four balti houses (including Shababs) remain in the triangle — after this weekend, that number is down to three. Early investigation suggests the fire started in an air fryer before spreading to the rest of the building. Shababs’ owner, Zaf Hussain, has said that “everyone is ok,” although the West Midlands Fire Service report that one person was injured in the blaze. Prior to the fire, the restaurant was planning to expand,due to high demand, but this development is now on hold as Hussain assesses the damage.  

🚮 The all-out bin strike has passed 100 days and a poll by LBC suggests most Brummies think the council is to blame. The survey asked Birmingham residents who is most responsible for the dispute which has seen widespread delays to collections and public health concerns. Just over 45.7% pointed the finger squarely atBirmingham City Council, with just 4.8% blaming striking bin workers. But 44.8% said both sides shared responsibility, while 4.7% said they didn’t know. Interestingly, the results differ from a nationwide YouGov poll taken in May which  found almost three times as many respondents blamed the bin workers. Who do you think is responsible? Let us know in the comments.

🍻 Following last week’s rather depressing news that the Anchor pub in Digbeth has closed and Hockley Social Club will be shutting its doors at the end of the year, another venue has announced last orders for good. On Friday, the landlord of the Post Office Vaults on New Street, Mike Perkins, took to Facebook to share that after 15 years of “great memories, friendships and laughs I’ll carry with me forever”, keeping the pub open is no longer financially feasible. He cited a downturn in trade following Covid-19, and a 30% rise in the cost of bottles post-Brexit as key factors. A thread on the r/Brum Reddit page has dubbed it the “end of an era” for fans of rare imported beers, which were the Vault’s speciality.

🍔 To lift the spirits a touch, there are a couple of exciting new hospitality openings in the calendar, including a city centre food hall set to launch on 5 September. Society at One Colmore Square will be an open plan dining hall with a terrace that’s open from day to night. Local favourites Shokupan (the Japanese sando specialists) and the small indie burger chain Slap and Pickle are already confirmed. Next up, a brand new Celtic festival called Halfway Fest will bring four days of Irish and Scottish trad music (with some Irish comedy thrown in) to Norton’s in Digbeth between 17-20 September, marking the halfway point to St Paddy’s Day.

🚄 A damning review has christened HS2 a “litany of failure” and revealed further delays to the high speed rail project which, despite an initial budget of £33bn, is now projected to cost over £100bn. Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander claimed Labour had inherited a project that was “wildly overbudget” and confirmed it won’t be completed until beyond 2033, nor will cancelled legs to Leeds and Manchester be reinstated because “we can’t afford” them. In a television report on ITV News, Conservative MP and Public Accounts Committee chair Sir Geoffery Clifton-Brown said the situation was “becoming embarrassing” for the country and a schedule and budget needed to be “tied down”.

Quick Hits: 

✈️ An AirIndia flight from Birmingham to Delhi received a bomb threat on Saturday, reports the Times of India. The plan diverted to Riyadh where it landed safely and security checks were completed.

🚆 All train lines between Birmingham and Wolverhampton have been blocked today, due to an “incident”, causing delays, West Midlands Railway has announced on X.

🚀 A  group of Birmingham mosques have issued a set of demands to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the escalation of conflicts between the USA, Israel and Iran. According to the Birmingham Mail, the mosques sent four demands: oppose UK involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict, uphold international law, prioritise de-escalation, and apply consistency in foreign policy. 

❗Birmingham's Labour controlled council cabinet have released a new corporate plan aimed at setting out the next three years of local policy. The BBC have reported that this led to clashes in the council house with Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors pointing out that Labour may well lose the 2026 election and that the plan: “looked as if council resources have been spent on a Labour election pitch."

🏚️ The Express and Star is reporting that Walsall Council has approved tougher controls on HMOs (Houses of Multiple Occupation) in the area, required landlords to seek planning permission to convert a house. HMOs currently make up 11% of Walsall’s private rented housing stock. 

Media picks

📰 Former Spectator editor Fraser Nelson’s weekend essay in The Times explores the rapid rise of Reform, a party which “barely existed” a year ago but now has five MPs and is the bookies current favourite to win at the next general election. He is convinced Reform’s successes are — much as with Trump in the US — a result of successfully harnessing an “anti-establishment war cry” that appeals to a multiracial working-class coalition, one that has astonished political elites. Nelson’s essay preempts a new documentary he has made for Channel 4, one which intentionally opens with voters “not in Brexit heartlands but undecided ones in the Midlands”. A focus group of 10 people in Solihull suggests that Reform’s success is a result of disappointment with the major parties, especially Labour and the Conservatives. “Farage is a gamble, but better than the certainty of failure with the others,” he writes.

📰 A piece from the archives. Back in 2022, The Critic reviewed the publication of Birmingham and the Black Country, a new book in the ‘Buildings of England’ series started by the University of Birmingham trained architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner. The book was the first in the series to treat the West Midlands as a coherent area stretching from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. The author of the article, James Stevens Curl, seems to be a partisan of Victorian Birmingham, over its later Modernist iterations, writing that: “ruination of self-confident Victorian Birmingham in the post-1945 period is still extremely painful to anyone not aesthetically completely desensitised.”

Photo of the week

The Jug of Ale pub, now Tipu Sultan, in Moseley was the Midland’s centre of the Britpop revival — featuring early performances from Blur, Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene (local lads) who even named their second album, Moseley Shoals, after the Brum suburb. The Jug of Ale closed its doors in 2008. 

Were you kicking about in Moseley during the 1990s? Have opinions on its reputation as Birmingham’s bohemian heart? Contact us at editor@birminghamdispatch.co.uk.

Our to do list

🗣️ Over in Harborne tomorrow, enjoy a heritage talk about the Birmingham Medical School — now 200 years old — by Professor Jonathan Reinarz.

🎸 It’s less than two weeks before the Black Sabbath homecoming gig and Ozzy fever is well and truly underway. Catch the Ozzy Osbourne: Working Class Hero exhibition at BMAG from Wednesday.

🌳 Connect with nature at the Neighbourhood Futures Festival, now in its third year. Between Thursday and Sunday, enjoy free workshops and family-friendly performances at the tranquil Birmingham Settlement Nature & Wellbeing Centre in Ladywood.

🎶 Artum has built a reputation for throwing great parties in the relatively short time it’s been open. Head there for Ting-a-Ling, a night of Dancehall, RnB and Ragga on Friday with 241 rum punch.

Correction 23/06/25: An earlier version of this article referred to Liberal councillors at Birmingham City Council. This has been corrected to Liberal Democrat councillors.