EXCLUSIVE - ENGLISH HERITAGE HAPPY TO BULLDOZE BRUMMIE HERITAGE IN THE JEWELLERY QUARTER

15-08-2006

Here's a rum one - a controversial scheme to replace a traditional Brummie engineering firm with yet more yuppie flats in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter has won the backing of the conservation quango English Heritage.

A.E. Harris and Co want to relocate from Northwood Street to another area altogether, and hope to cash in on their current site by selling it developers.

They shouldn't stand a chance because their works is in the Industrial Middle of the quarter, which is protected from inappropriate development.

But their task will be made so much easier now that the organisation set up to preserve the best of our history is now conspiring to destroy it.

The Stirrer's revelation that English Heritage is backing these proposals will send shockwaves through one of the city's last bastions of traditional manufacturing.

More than 400 jewellers are still active in the Jewellery Quarter, and two zones (The Industrial Middle and the Golden Triangle) have been given conservation status.

The whole idea was to ensure that many of thewelcome improvements in the area over the last few years (new restaurants, residential blocks etc) should not overwhelm what made it special in the first place.

Now businesses fear that if this plan gets the go ahead at a Birmingham Council planning meeting next week, no part of the Jewellery Quarter will be safe.

New developers will feel encouraged to pile in with plans; while those who've previously had applications rejected inside the conservation area will claim that a precedent has been set, and look to re-submit their old ideas.

English Heritage, showing blissful ignorance of what makes this region unique, claim that the Harris site “currently blights the approach to the Jewellery Quarter Conservation Area from Birmingham City Centre.”

Really? We can understand thatthe buildingsmight be a blight if they wereairlifted and dropped in the middle of the Home Counties, but round here we're used to thingsthat look like that.

They are called factories, and are part of the heritage of England that English Heritage is paid to protect.

One 19th century red-brick building will be saved for posterity, they tell us, because it's“in keeping with the special character” of the area.

But, says English Heritage, the industry contained within the Harris works can go because as a heavy engineering firm it's “not typical of the Jewellery Quarter”.

What is typical though?

Despiteit's name, jewellery is by no means the only product madein this part of Birmingham; and it was grantedspecial statusprecisely to ensure that a widerange of activities would continue.

It was never about just bricks and mortar.

Take out this one substantial industrial site though, and the balance of the whole area will dramatically change.

The most worrying aspect of this whole baffling affair is that if a major part of a conservation area can so readily re-designated, what price the rest of it?

At this rate, even making jewellery won't be typical of the Jewellery Quarter, and all we'll be left with just a poxy heritage centre making trinkets for tourists surrounded by yet more bars, apartments and restaurants (yawn!)

The Stirrer can't believe that the traders in the Jewllery Quarter or the councillors who represent them will back this plan - even if English heritage reckon it's a good idea.

But if any of them are thinking of supporting it, let me invite them to a Saturday night out around St Paul's Square.

For an area at the heart of Brum's city living revolution it's astonishingly quiet.

That's because so many of the properties around there are rented by workers on temporary placements and short-term contracts who head back to their real homes at the weekend.

In any case, Birmingham currently has no shortage of city centre one and two bedroom flats, so its nonsense to create yet another opening for the ravenous band of buy-to-let speculators.

They'll get plenty of opportunities elsewhere; but surely not here.

This is one the true jewels of the West Midlands - a thriving industrial quarter close to the the heart of town, yet quite distinct from it.

Let's build on that unique character, not knock it down.

Help the Jewellery Quarter to maintain it's diversity so that it can grow and flourish.

In short, stuff English Heritage.

This is Birmingham Heritage and they must know that we mean to preserve it.