The former head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in the Midlands has been appointed chairman of Highbury Hall - taking responsibility for the development of one of Birmingham’s most prized historic assets.
Architect Les Sparks OBE will chair the newly formed independent and charged with ensuring the city does more to promote and support the famous home of the Chamberlain family.
While a successful wedding and conference venue, the hall has, under City Council stewardship been neglected in recent years and is in need of restoration work.
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But the new Trust already has £1 million in the bank from the lease of Chamberlain House to Uffculme School and will receive income from the council’s Civic Catering company.
As well as the Trust will be asked to ensure more is done to highlight the history of the Hall and tell the story of the Joseph Chamberlain and the Chamberlain dynasty.
Mr Sparks, who lives in Selly Park, said: “We have a unique opportunity to assemble a group of experienced trustees from different backgrounds to work with the local community to determine the future of Highbury.
"There will be difficult decisions ahead, but I am confident that this famous estate can become one of the region’s most important centres of culture and learning, and truly worthy of Chamberlain’s generous bequest to the city of Birmingham.”
He was director for planning for Birmingham City Council during the 1990s and has worked with English Heritage and CABE and more recently has been chairman of the West Midlands Committee of the Heritage Lottery Fund - overseeing the award of grants to historic projects in the region. He is due to step down from this in March 2016.
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said: “We’re delighted to have someone of Les’s calibre as the chair of the proposed body to care for Highbury Hall and estate and to give new focus to the important legacy of Joseph Chamberlain.
“The Hall is a valued local venue for weddings and other events, but it’s much more than that. The City needs to do more to tell the wider Chamberlain story - a Birmingham story that also shaped modern Britain.”
He added that the Trust will better fulfil the duty to safeguard the Hall in a way which the council cannot.
Trust vice-chairman is Paul Richards, the former chief executive of the West Midlands Development Agency, and former deputy vice chancellor of Staffordshire University. Further trustees will be announced.
The Hall was built by industrialist and Birmingham mayor Joseph Chamberlain in 1878. Grade II* listed, the building, in the Gothic Venetian style, is nationally recognised architecturally but also embodies a significant period of Birmingham and British history, from the 1870s to 1940, in which the Chamberlain family played a substantial role.