Dear readers — well, the sun was nice while it lasted. Allow us to brighten up your day with a jam-packed Monday Briefing, starting with a reminder that this is the final week you can apply to work for The Dispatch.
We are looking for a new reporter, someone who can write stellar sentences while breaking big stories and who has a nose for investigations. If that’s you, head to the link below and send us your application by Sunday 22 March.
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Catch up and coming up:
- On Saturday, we published our first ever Good News edition which pleased readers. One commented: “I loved reading this so much. Thank you for brightening my weekend!”
- Last Wednesday, photographer-reporter team Harry Mitchell and Fonie Mitsopoulou headed to the NEC to capture the oddity that is Crufts.
- Do you have any fond memories of eating chips and watching the world go by at Neo Cafe in the Bullring market? Send them in to editor@birminghamdispatch.co.uk
Now, on with today: in Stirchley, where house prices and rents have risen faster than you can down a Guinness on St Patrick’s Day, locals are reeling from some housing-related news. The Stirchley Cooperative Development (SCD) has been ten years in the making and was meant to provide 39 affordable homes for locals to own. But Green Square Accord, the housing association that owns the land and took over construction of the building two years ago, has just delivered a blow: they plan to rent the flats out instead. Find all the details on that dispute in your Brum in Brief below.
Elsewhere, do you remember John Sweeney? He was the 2024 candidate who ran to be Sutton Coldfield’s Liberal Democrat MP. He lost that race but has returned to Birmingham to help launch the Lib Dem’s local election campaign with a story about almost puking on Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, the Peaky Blinders movie has been slated by a Birmingham-born journalist in UnHerd, and we interview local author Taylor Burns on why his debut novel is "not as wanky as it sounds".
Photo of the week
Local photographer Mac McCreery recently captured this rain-soaked shot of “a two umbrella household pootling down Needless Alley”.
Brum in Brief
Stirchley’s landlord-less dream under threat — A ground breaking housing scheme in one of Birmingham’s most sought-after suburbs has been thrown into doubt at the 11th hour. Members of Stirchley Co-operative Development (SCD) — a community-led initiative to build 39 homes and three spaces for worker-owned businesses — say their housing association partner has hiked the cost by £2m making it no longer affordable for the group to buy.
SCD was established by locals to provide low-cost homes in Stirchley where house prices and rents have rocketed over the past decade. Unlike many other affordable housing schemes, SCD was going to be owned by the people who lived and worked there, i.e. there would be no landlords whatsoever. The co-op was formed by residents in 2016, with construction work on the three-storey building, on the corner of Pershore Road and Hunts Road, starting in 2023. They partnered with the housing association Green Square Accord (GSA) who purchased the land, with the plan to sell it to the residents when the building was done. When the building firm that was originally working on the project, Tricas Construction, went bust in 2024, GSA brought in its construction team to finish the job. It was scheduled for completion by June 2025 — at an expected cost of £10.68m, according to SCD.
That deadline has flown by and costs have spiralled by £2m, a spokesperson for SCD told The Dispatch. While the group has raised their offer considerably to try to bridge the gap, a shortfall of £1.2m remains. Last Thursday, GSA informed SCD that they would not be handing over ownership of the building after all. A statement published on the GSA website the same day reads “it is now clear SCD can’t meet the cost of the project, and the most responsible option is for us to retain and manage the development”. GSA’s CEO, Ruth Cooke, said “as a not-for-profit social housing provider it would be irresponsible for us to absorb the £1.16m shortfall between the cost of the development and SCD’s offer” and GSA will “ensure the 39 much-needed homes at the site are let at social rents”.
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