Birmingham residents are calling on Sir Keir Starmer, Euro 2024 stars such as Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins, and former England footballer and TV pundit Karen Carney to help save their local playing fields from development.
Having successfully seen off plans by Persimmon Homes earlier this year for a new housing estate at Barrows Lane sports ground, the residents of Yardley have said they feel ‘betrayed’ by the failure of the Co-op as the landowners to meet a promise to allow them to bid for the ownership and maintenance of the land.
Former West Midlands Conservative Mayor Andy Street, Yardley Labour MP and now Government Minister Jess Phillips and Liberal Democrat Yardley East Ward Councillor Deborah Harries have continued to provide cross-party backing to protect the only grass playing fields in the area for the benefit of the community and the environment, and to support the sporting dreams and aspirations of young people.
Persimmon Homes is now appealing to the Planning Inspectorate to overturn the rejection by Birmingham City Council to build 87 homes on the land, having failed to provide a suitable replacement site for the pitches that have been out of use since the start of the community’s ten-year campaign.
Residents have cited the new Prime Minister’s promise to break down “barriers of opportunity” that stop people from playing football and build on the legacy of the men’s and women’s national teams following England’s narrow Euro final defeat.
That includes improving support for grassroots football clubs, with an expansion of the pilot allowing the transfer of ownership and maintenance of grassroots football pitches to clubs and community organisations.
The residents have also pointed to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy’s support in which she stated: “We are absolutely committed to making sure every child has access to the sport they love not just to help uncover the next generation of stars but to help create a healthier nation and change lives for the better.”
The then Birmingham Co-operative Society put the land at Barrows Lane up for sale in 2013, having been gifted it originally by the local Barrows family in 1920 under a covenant that it would always be used for the benefit of the local community.
Fay Goodman, Chair of the Yardley Community Protection Society, who has been leading the Barrows Lane campaign, said she felt ‘betrayed’ by the owners: “After some positive acceptance about the possibility of transferring the playing fields to the community, the Co-op has consistently failed to provide the letter of intent that we require to put us in a position to be a serious contender to bid for them.
“We can only conclude that the Co-op has turned its back on us and that its new tagline ‘Owned by You. Right by You’ is a sham, as is its so-called commitment to ‘Bringing communities together to support positive futures for young people’.”
The Co-op, of which most of our residents are members, has betrayed us.”
Top Midland footballers Gary Gardner and Darren Carter honed their skills at Barrows Lane and now the local community is appealing to current players: “We hope that local stars such as Ollie Watkins, whose wonderful late goal against The Netherlands took the Three Lions to the Euro final, will lend their support to our campaign”.
Fay said: “Boys and girls inspired by the successes of our national men’s and women’s teams are frustrated because they lack spaces in which to play – and Barrows Lane is the last public space left in Yardley with all the rights, facilities and space for organised games. Sport England fully support us as we seek to make Barrows Lane part of the legacy of our national teams’ success.”
Residents have also long campaigned against the damage that new housing would do to indigenous wildlife and to air quality with increased traffic, and the pressure it would place on existing doctors’ surgeries and schools that are already full.
Fay said: “We have more than enough brownfield sites, empty properties and planning permission sites which builders are sitting on to accommodate the housing need without building on this virgin land, bequeathed for the wellbeing of the community.”