Category archive for: Development

Last week, in an effort to contribute something constructive to the Big City Plan consultation that’s about to begin, I put forward the idea that Digbeth should have 20 buildings painted from top to bottom by artists to put it on the map, nationally and internationally, as a place where art and creativity happens. I cited the old DEP studios and neighbour on Fazeley St and the Custard Factory as great examples of this already in existence. I’d be interested in your opinions (and, if you have any ideas of your own for how Birmingham might develop them, start putting them on your blogs - they will, I’m told, be read and taken on board.)

In the comments on that post local historian and all round good bloke Richard Trengrouse sounded an alarm bell:

The draft conservation strategy for Digbeth is very much against murals or the painting of buildings. In fact it seems to imply that all murals including the one on the FOE gable end and the painted elevations of the Custard Factory should be scrubbed back to the brickwork. This not yet City Council policy but if it is not amended at this stage it could put paid to a lot of interesting developments in the area.

So I went a digging through the council’s websites and after a while came across the page for the Digbeth/Deritend Conservation Area which contains a PDF draft document for which the public consultation lasted from October 6th to November 14th. Oops. Must have missed the memo on that one. But it still makes for interesting reading. You can download it here (2.8mb) or read it in this handy embedded box:

Now I’m not expert at reading government documents but a quick search didn’t lead me to anything specific about the Custard Factory needing to be scrubbed down to the original brickwork other than this section under Loss, Attrition and Intrusion on page 34:

9. The bright painted brickwork of the Custard Factory on Heath Mill Lane and Gibb Street dominates views of the Old Crown public house as seen from beyond the conservation area boundary on Deritend High Street.

It’s worth remembering that this document has at its heart the conservation of historic Digbeth which “contains the most significant remnants of mediaeval settlement in Birmingham including the fifteenth century Guildhall of St John (now the Old Crown public house). These early townscape elements are of considerable significance in the history of Birmingham’s development and were of particular importance in the designation of the area.” So this is not so much about the future development of the area as making sure that development doesn’t destroy what is currently there. A similar conflict occurs in the City of London where the Museum of London Archaeology Service works to prevent the destruction of historically significant sites by commercial development. This is valuable and essential work but a balance does need to be struck between the preservation of the past and the move into the future. Devonshire House, a listed building, should rightly not be painted bright purple but does that mean the other buildings shouldn’t be resplendent in yellow, pink, blue and green?

This document is, don’t forget, a draft and not council policy. While the initial consultation has passed you can still contact the Planning Department with any ideas or opinions you may have. And if you decide to blog them leave a link in the comments after this post.

It’s worth pointing out that while I’ve tried to keep this post neutral any opinions you might pick up are my own and don’t represent the Custard Factory management who, for all I know, have been involved with the document from the outset. I provide this information as a service to residents and workers in the area.

The Birmingham Central blog is currently going through the council’s Big City Plan and producing some very useful summaries of the notions contained therein. Part 3 is particularly of interest to us as it deals with the connectivity issues across the city centre and the various options for the quarters under development including Digbeth / Eastside where the Custard Factory resides.

it also has some nice diagrams. If you like diagrams.

via D’log

Something of a spate of website redesigns at the moment. Must be the time of year. Here’s Substrakt’s new site:

Bennie Gray, owner of the Custard Factory and Big Peg in the Jewellery Quarter, had his manifesto for saving Birmingham’s economy published in the Birmingham Post yesterday. Here’s the text in full:

Birmingham’s big chance to show what it can do

In exactly the same way that first-time buyers are the foundation of the housing market, start-up businesses are the foundation and – these days – the possible salvation of the economy.

Especially of Birmingham’s local economy.

It’s easy to forget that most great enterprises have been sparked by the vision and the energy of one person. But for Henry there would be no Ford. But for Larry there would be no Google. But for Bill there would be no Microsoft. But for Richard there would be no Virgin.

The list of entrepreneurs who have started a small business and proceeded to change the way we live is a long one.

So as we face the onslaught of the worst economic storm of modern times, the extraordinary and transformatory potential of the entrepreneur is something that we in Birmingham dare not ignore.

If we are to insure against the nightmare scenario of massive unemployment and – even worse – of “Detroitification” we must urgently unleash our most important and least recognised economic resource – the entrepreneurial energy and talent of our young people.

Birmingham is one of the youngest cities in Europe and after 15 years running the Custard Factory I know for sure that our wonderfully diverse population abounds with aspiring young Henrys, Larrys, Bills and Richards. Of course much of what the future holds depends upon global events outside our control.

But that doesn’t mean we should sit back, blame the bankers, accept our plight and resign ourselves to economic misery.

We may not be able to solve the problems of the world but if we do it right we can certainly make things a whole lot better for ourselves and our neighbours than would otherwise be the case.

In the past Birmingham was known as “The City of a Thousand Trades”.

Now, as we face the threat of economic meltdown, Birmingham must become the city of a thousand new opportunities – and that means unleashing our aspiring young entrepreneurs.

At the best of times starting a small business can be a challenging task, but the way things are now it’s nothing less than scary.

Our would-be entrepreneurs need all the help they can get. They need seed money. They need a place to do business. They need shrewd advice. They need a sense of ownership and a sense of community. But above all they need the inspiration which will give them the confidence to get going.

Over the last 15 years – spurred by the slogan “if you can’t get a job get a customer” – the Custard Factory in Digbeth has made a small contribution to this process.

All too slowly – with progress strictly limited by hard-to-get funding – we have helped to build a dynamic, commercially fertile, working community of more than a thousand people in hundreds of small creative enterprises.

But that is just 1,000 people in a population of more than a million.

What Birmingham needs right now is dozens of informal Custard Factory-type organisations helping to unleash the multitude of small enterprises which, given the right backing, are ready to spring forth from the garages, spare bedrooms, colleges and sheds where they have been honing their nascent skills and ideas and waiting for the right opportunity for too long.

Only Birmingham’s politicians – in Whitehall and in City Hall – can provoke that backing and those opportunities in the manner and on the scale that is needed.

It won’t be easy. In practice it will demand a whole layer of fresh and unfamiliar thinking within a bureaucratic culture that is risk averse by definition. Last week Gordon Brown said “extraordinary times call for bold solutions …”.

Will Birmingham rise to the challenge?

There’s also an interview with Bennie and accompanying article, both by the Post’s Creative Industries editor Anna Blackaby.

News reaches me today that the Custard Factory theatre is going to be renamed The VAAD Theatre, taking the same name as the gallery on the other side of the lake, as part of a move to get some proper co-ordinated programming of events in there. Which is good, but what the hell does VAAD mean anyway?

Wikipedia tells us that a vaad is “a Hebrew term for a council of rabbis” but a little bird tells me the name is taken from 60’s gay slang. Strangely it didn’t come up in any searches but Hugh Young’s Lexicon of Polari has “varda” which other Polari guides also spell “vada” and which means to see or look. That makes sense for a gallery and theatre. Except we’re spelling it “vaad”. I guess the rest of the world is wrong then.

Thanks to Tom at Substrakt for spotting this while playing with Google’s 2001 archive.

I was sorry to see Go Go Plastic had shut up shop on Gibb Street the other week. Theirs was an interesting establishment selling cool stuff and putting on loads of neat events. They also had a good web presence, cropping up in my searches all the time. Checking their website produced some good news, though. They have a stall at the Sunday Flea and will be back next year taking a spot in the new Devonshire House development. Here’s what they said:

We initially thought about moving to a smaller space to reduce costs. Though we realised with our wonderful landlord that no matter how cheap our costs were, the problem is passing trade. The Custard Factory has a massive plan for the next year for the whole factory, with the plan being complete next summer. We saw the blueprints last night for the completed Devonshire House. The completed Devonshire house will include a number of new courtyards, and 14 new retail spaces. 14 shiny new retail spaces for a handpicked select few, chosen from the current residents of The Custard Factory, current independent businesses in the City, and new businesses that may arrive/be created in the coming year.

We will be one of them! We will start discussing our contract and space we want in December/January for a plan to launch all the new spaces in the summer. Along with the new spaces, there are many changes happening to the current space, and some old faces (the good ones!) will be returning to The Custard Factory for the summer too. The Custard Factory will be a completely new complex, like we’ve never seen it before. We’re so pleased to even be considered a part of this grand master plan!

So you may say, well what’s happens in the short-term? The short-term is not so bleak! We will continue to be attached to The Custard Factory. We don’t want to be seen anywhere else in the City! We will have a wonderful stall at the Sunday Flea every week, where you can still come and have a feel of lovely new vinyl, and maybe some Saturdays too. (All info will be posted here when set in stone). Not to mention we will have events at the Gallery at The Custard Factory. It’s an amazing space; we hope to use it well. We have some ideas in the pipeline for future events, and potentially a collaboration coming up with another store based at TCF. You can still buy online. We are currently going through a complete overhaul, new logo, new website etc – all designed and created by the oh-so-amazing Gavin Strange of Jam Factory!

Generally, we have just under a year to fine-tune all aspects of Go Go Plastic! ready for a brand spanking new space, in a shiny new Custard Factory! We’re excited, and we hope you are too!

If you want to talk about the opportunities for the launch of Devonshire House next year then call Jonathan on 0121 244 7775.