Planning permission granted for Stirchley Baths community hub

Great news today – the plans for Stirchley Baths have been approved by Birmingham City Council’s planning committee!

There’s still some way to go (a successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid) before work can start on transforming the building into a community hub, but planning permission is a huge step in the journey.

Here are the remaining key milestones in the project:

Until April 2013: development of the Stage 2 Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) bid

June 2013: Our HLF bid for £1.3 million will be submitted

September 2013: HLF decision

And if successful…

October 2013: A three-year programme of heritage and history-related activities gets under way

October/November 2013: Building work starts on site

October/November 2014: Stirchley Baths community hub opens

Now we have planning permission we really need to show the Heritage Lottery Fund that the community is behind the project.

We have a great event on Saturday 6th April where you can physically back the bid by taking part in a community art challenge at Stirchley library…

More information about that event HERE

And please get in touch to share your memories of the Baths, and if you have ideas or want to get involved in shaping the heritage and history-related activity plan, which aims to celebrate the building’s past while looking to its future.

Get in touch by emailing stirchleybaths@gmail.com or using Facebook or Twitter

Here are the plans for the community hub:

Stirchley Baths Proposed Site Plan
Stirchley Baths Proposed Ground Plan

Download PDF versions here:

Proposed Ground Floor Plan (PDF)
Proposed Site Plan (PDF) 

And you can have a look at the full planning applications on the Birmingham City Council website by clicking HERE and HERE

Ken Seeney: Memories of Stirchley Baths

Ken Seeney

We met so many people at the Splash Back In Time event at Stirchley Community Centre yesterday and we have so many stories to share.

Thanks to everyone who came along to talk about Stirchley Baths and their experiences of using it – for swimming, having a bath, dancing, having a massage and more.

We’ll share all of the interviews on the site over the next week or so, starting with Ken Seeney (pictured above) who used to go dancing at Stirchley Baths with his girlfriend. He also caught the bus from his workplace in his lunchtimes to have a dip and cool off!

listen to ‘Ken Seeney talks about cooling off at Stirchley Baths’ on audioBoom

Was the Palais Glide a popular dance at Stirchley Baths?

Palais GlideYou may remember last week I blogged about the ideas generating sessions we have been doing with young Stirchley-ites around the history and heritage-related activities that might be possible at the Baths.

One of the ideas they came up with is for an intergenerational dance-themed project where older Stirchley residents could teach them dances of the 1940s, as illustrated in the wonderful pictures we have of Den Jones at Stirchley Baths, and the teenagers pass on these skills to school children – sounds like the making of a great community showcase event somewhere down the line! The members of the Tea Dance at Stirchley Community Centre I spoke with today are certainly up for the challenge!

I was a bit cheeky earlier and asked if I could film a dance that would have probably graced the floorboards of the covered pool back in the 1940s. John was more than happy to volunteer the services of the Tea Dance members who gave us a wonderful demonstration of the Palais Glide. Watch them in action:

(Apologies for another low budget movie)! We had a great afternoon at Stirchley Community Centre, where we were running our second Splash Back in Time reminiscence event.

Coming up in the next week or so you’ll hear a few stories of people dancing at the Baths. Massive thank you to John and the members of the Tea Dance for being such good sports today!

More photos of Stirchley Baths – thanks to Brenda Thomas

You can see the stained glass diamond windows
You can see the stained glass diamond windows

Thanks to Brenda Thomas for these great pictures of Stirchley Baths. Brenda is in charge of the photographic archive of Stirchley Community Group and is uncovering some wonderful snapshots of the building’s history. We hope to share more with you soon.

If any of these pictures trigger stories or memories, please get in touch! Email stirchleybaths@gmail.com – use our Facebook page here or tell us about them on Twitter using @stirchleybaths or #stirchleybaths

The deep end and the palm tree mural
The deep end and the palm tree mural

boiler Co. Stirchley Baths groupDen Jones Band Co. Stirchley Community Group

During the winter months in the 1940s, the swimming pool at Stirchley Baths was boarded over to create a dance floor and bands used to play. More photographs HERE.

Do you know what this building was used for? Brenda believes it was to store the wooden dance floor boards
Do you know what this building was used for? Brenda believes it was to store the wooden dance floor boards