Buildings closed and reopened

It has been some time– actually back in October 2010 - that I wrote a blog about four monumental buildings in Aston that had been closed or were about to be closed and I wondered what would happen to them. Would they just be boarded up and pose a challenge to local boy groups to break into them? Or would alternative uses be found transforming the buildings once more into something alive and not just derelict?

Well, I can report now that three of the four buildings have reopened or are presently being refurbished for re-use.  The first to do so was the former City Academy, a building only constructed in 2004 and in good condition.  It is now being used by the Birmingham City Council. The offices of the Birmingham Adult Education Service are there, as is the Aston Community Learning Centre and the Aston Library. There were fears that the Aston Library would be closed altogether or be replaced by a mobile library going around not just in Aston but in the adjacent neighbourhoods as well. Fortunately , this did not happen and the Library just moved to its new location, even though it has  less opening hours than before. Somehow cuts needed to be made.

The second building that has reopened is the old Aston Library and Aston Council House. It is being transformed by the Mohiuddin Trust, located nearby at Victoria Road, into an international college for girls, the second all girls school in Aston, both owned by sections of the Muslim community. The Trust acquired the building at a public auction and reportedly paid the amount of £450,000 for it.  Parts of the building are in good condtion but other parts need a lot of investment to make it into a functional  school.

The building that has been left boarded up longest is the M&B Guild Arms, the former pub at the corner of Witton Road and Ettington Road. It was already closed before we arrived in Aston over four years ago and our house has in fact been erected, as one of six, on the former parking and play ground of the pub. At present, construction work is going on both inside and outside and according to the new owner the pub will be remodelled into apartments.

That leaves the old Broadway School Annexe at Whitehead Road. The Area Action Plan of Aston, Newtown and Lozells, September 2009, lists the building together with the Firestation which, the report says, is programmed for closure and relocation.  Two options are given for the whole complex: the one is community use, for instance an education centre, and the second is conversion of the buildings into residential housing. Nothing has happened so far. Perhaps the reason is that the School Annexe is in a bad condition and this may deter potential developers.

Even so, I must admit that the reopening of three out of four closed buildings is much better than I expected two years ago.

Ton  

Cigarette

Yesterday when I walked the streets near Broadway School, the biggest secondary school in Aston with about 1,300 pupils, I was asked for a cigarette by one of the students. He just stepped out of the group he was in and put his question to me: do you have a cigarette? I had never seen him before and the other way around is likely true as well. So, I assume that he made his request to a complete stranger.

I wondered a lot about this happening. Was there some intimidation going on? After all, he was not alone and meeting groups of boys in the street can be threatening. On the other hand, it did not seem to be a group decision to ask for a cigarette, just this one boy who wanted something from me. He did not glance around to see whether the others were listening and when he found them attentive put his question to me.

I happen not to smoke and that was my immediate answer trying to say it in a friendly way accompanied by a smile. I don’t think the others even heard my reply, they just walked on. It was only he who got my answer and he accepted it with a nod and that was all.

What was his real purpose? Was he truly after a cigarette or was it something else that he wanted? Was the phrase about the cigarette a kind of code for weed or other drugs? To be honest I have no idea and no way of finding out either. Whatever the purpose behind the little incident, I feel that friendliness should be the answer to any question, even to those that seem strange and out of place.

Ton