º£½ÇÊÓÆµ

Oops.

Our website is temporarily unavailable in your location.

We are working hard to get it back online.

PRIVACY
Economic Development

Arts and Crafts home 'must be saved' before it is lost to city

The University of Birmingham has been urged to restore and renovate one of its historic listed buildings before it is lost to the city

The Close in Selly Oak, Birmingham.

The has been urged to restore and renovate one of its historic listed buildings before it is lost to the city.

Planning committee members, historians and conservationists are worried that The Close, at Westhill College, in Bristol Road, Selly Oak, is being left to rot after lying empty for ten years.

They fear a repeat of the arson attack which claimed the university-owned Northfield Manor House and led to its demolition.

But the university insists a rescue plan is now being developed and repairs are routinely carried out.

The Close, a row of houses built in 1911, .

It describes them as “an effective group of three buildings on the south side of a green. Arts & Crafts cottage style with a particularly mellow red brickwork”.

The Close in Selly Oak, Birmingham.

Planning committee member Peter Douglas Osborn (Con Weoley) said: “These buildings have been boarded up and are in quite a frightful condition.

“It is coming up to ten years they have been boarded up, we are losing part of our heritage.”