Stirchley Co-op Development has been community-led from the start and represents the interests of people who have been living and working in Stirchley for over a decade, as well of tens of thousands of hours of unpaid work that has gone into getting the project to this point. The scale and ambition of this project has been a massive inspiration to many people from Birmingham and beyond, because it shows the power of co-operation to meet people’s needs by providing affordable housing and affordable rents for co-operatively owned businesses.
We recognise that factors outside the control of Green Square Accord undoubtedly contributed to construction delays and the project going over budget, but passing these costs onto SCD is not the solution. We fail to see how GSA owning and managing the development will keep the co-operative nature of the project alive. Cooperatively managed communal spaces are part of the project, including a community garden accessible to the public, managed by SCD members. It is unclear what GSA’s plans are for this community garden and it seems likely that this community asset would be lost. As Birmingham Friends of the Earth we have supported the SCD project not simply because they are a co-op, but because they share our aims of making ecologically sustainable housing and car-minimal living available to ordinary people in our city. It would be a real blow to Stirchley to lose these aspects of the project.
In addition, losing this community-owned development will make it less likely for other such projects to succeed in future or to gain the support they need from elected officials to go ahead. There is a huge need for affordable housing in Birmingham and the council (WMCA?) have recognised this and to making 5% of new-build housing community-owned. Co-operatively owned housing represents more than just housing – giving residents democratic control over how housing is managed leads to stronger, more inclusive communities.
