Fred Grove's daughters asks "Why now?"

29-07-2006

Regular readers will know that The Stirrer is campaigning on behalf of pensioner Fred Grove, who faces eviction from his home of 41 years because his local council in Birmingham want to redevelop the area he lives in. The house though won't be demolished - it's just Fred they want to remove. This is his daughter's story...

"My name is Marilyn and I am one of Fred Grove's daughters. I have three brothers and three sisters and we all have families of our own. We obviously are all alarmed at the prospect of our father losing his home because of the new Eastside development and we totally support him in his fight to keep it.

My father's house has been our family home for 41 years and prior to that, the house next door was the family home. In fact, it was also my Mother's family home before that and her family's business was operated from there. Our family history here is immense and it is full of happy memories.

The house itself is ‘Locally Listed', which means it is of historic interest to the City of Birmingham, although this listing does not fully protect the house from redevelopment. The property itself is overlooking the canal and it is very unusual, being of triangular shape. It seems that the Council may retain the property, they are uncertain at this time as to the exact plans for it. We believe that this makes the case for removing my father totally preposterous, it seems he will be ‘in the way' of the redevelopment of the area. The Council also believes that my father could be in the middle of a building site. I suggest that these people that make these decisions come and look at the location of the property. As I have said, it is triangular, one wall of the property completely overlooks the canal, a second wall overlooks the road, canal bridge and canal wall, how can he possibly be surrounded by construction works? Also, the buildings near the house have been demolished and rebuilt before and no-one ever suggested moving him out of his property on those occasions. So I ask, ‘why now?'

We have known for a couple of years that a Compulsory Purchase Order may be placed on the property, but we hoped that the Council/Advantage West Midlands would be compassionate. This is clearly not the case, so we will continue our fight. The next stage is a Public Enquiry, which should take place before the end of the year.

My father has gained tremendous support and has received help and advice from some wonderful people. This support network is growing rapidly, may I ask that if you know of my father or our family and have a story to tell, please post it to the message board."