What’s your big idea for Birmingham?

On Thursday evening last week, Creative Republic brought together council leader Mike Whitby and head of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, Jerry Blackett to discuss the role of Birmingham’s creative industries in the Big City Plan.  Mark Ball (at the lecturn in the pic) hosted.

Rhubarb Radio were there to record the proceedings and have a link to an audio file of the speeches.  There are some photos in the gallery on the Creative Republic site and here are Pete Aston’s notes in mindmap form.

What I took away from the evening was that nothing’s yet set in stone and there’s still a lot of work to be done on developing the plan.

The thing is, things are currently at the talking stage.  It’s hard to get a sense of what direction things are taking as there doesn’t seem to be anything we can really get our teeth into, dissect and inspect.  I think I remember Mike Whitby saying that there might be something more tangible to look at in October.  A follow-up event is in the offing.

The other thing that was impressed upon us all is that, in terms of employees and Gross Value Added, the creative sector is comparable in size to the city’s lauded financial sector.  There’s a lot of latent power there that could influence the way the city develops.

We were told that if anyone wants to get involved in shaping the plan then there’s no need to wait for an invite.  Unfortunately the mechanism for getting involved isn’t that clear, although according to the Big City Plan site, Richard Healy is the initial point of contact for anyone wanting to get in touch.  You can call him on 0121 303 3075 or email richard.healy@birmingham.gov.uk.

Helga Henry from Creative Republic said that they would be asking everyone who was there to submit one big idea for Birmingham.  They’ll be collected together and presented to the Big City Plan peeps.

To feed into that, and perhaps addressing anyone who hasn’t signed up to the Creative Republic charter:

What’s your big idea for Birmingham?

Whack it in the comments and it’ll be thrown into the mix.  I’ll start things off…

10 Comments

  1. Soweto Kinch (in the interview he did with Frankie) said that a big obstacle to putting on the Flyover Show was finding a person at the Council he could deal with – each department had to be dealt with one by one and no-one could adopt it as ‘their project’.

    How about creating a role/set of procedures at the council to tie things together and make for a more cohesive whole to help with staging large creative projects?

    That interview is here in case you missed it – http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/2008/05/30/interview-with-soweto-kinch/

  2. Patrick Willcocks

    I really feel that we are lacking a space for photography. We have over 3 million photographs in our Museum and Art Gallery. We have some great photographers and yet we have no space for exhibitions or for supporting and discussing photgraphy. My idea is to convert an old industrial space into such a centre so we can host and grow world class photography. My money would be on the Jewellery Quarter or Digbeth.

  4. I’m really keen on the notion of a Creative Director for Birmingham, someone who’s remit would be to ensure Birmingham’s output as a city is up to scratch. An obvious example is design but it would also apply to events and festivals that come under the council’s remit.

    Currently, unless I’m mistaken, the approval system for these goes through councilors and while they may or may not be great at running a city their artistic nouse is somewhat lacking. And understandably so – it’s not what they’re elected for. It would be nice if it was recognised that the current system, while the hearts might be in the right place, is not conducive to doing this properly so appointing someone and giving them the freedom to be a bit daring would be great.

    I don’t like to cite Manchester too much but the council there’s appointment of Peter Saville as creative director was inspired and something we should seriously think about.

    That said, when I asked a question about this the garbled response from Mr Whitby told me quite clearly that he’s not interested in anything that takes any decision-making power away from him and his close team. Which is a crying shame as spreading the load is exactly what this city needs at the moment. Ah well.

  6. regengirl

    Pete wrote:

    “I’m really keen on the notion of a Creative Director for Birmingham, someone who’s remit would be to ensure Birmingham’s output as a city is up to scratch.”

    It’s v much needed but Mike Whitby’s response doesn’t surprise me given my own experience of entrenched council interests around what should be pretty basic stuff.

    For example, noone wants to see clone town B’ham, yet B’ham CC Highways recently agreed revenue-neutral funding policy means that anything capital that isn’t issue-standard local signage/street furniture etc is automatically vetoed unless someone else agrees to pay for maintenance. At constituency/local level there is no someone else (given tiny discretionary constituency level budgets) . So this means seeing EXACTLY the same benches/lights/planters etc. right across the city despite everything in planning/urban design policy citing the importance of coherent but distinctive local visual identities. So much for ‘vibrant urban villages’…

    I definitely support Patrick on the photography space. I’ve heard MANY people from the city’s cultural organisations say the same thing on the need for it.

    My own big idea is an adult learning centre for all creative arts/crafts from absolute beginner level (to learn to draw/sew/play a musical instrument/do carpentry or whatever) in the same way that Brasshouse is *the* adult learning centre for languages across the city. Mac pre-closure covered bits of it as do some FE/Adult Ed courses but none of the bits are coherent or especially easy to access as a beginner. They suffer from ancient equipment, large classes and tutors not paid for prep time.

    If Birmingham is serious about lifelong learning and truly being a creative city then create a few opportunities for individuals who have missed out for whatever reason at school whether as a route to further learning/improving mental health or god forbid just for fun.

  7. Dave

    Hey Pete, if I’m not mistaken your idea of an adult learning centre already exists at the MAC. Which itself is undergoing re-development, most crafts can be explored for fairly reasonable prices. There is also Birmingham Print Makers where traditional printing facilities are available.

    I would also suggest that if the plan is to be successful these things should be put in place for the benefit of the wider community and not just the creative community.

    I kind of get the sense from a lot of the articles i’ve read that the council in Birmingham have no real vision amongst themselves. All other cities i’ve lived in or researched who have successfully re-developed have a council with vision. I worry Birmingham will never achieve anything of real significant without the vision coming from the top!

  9. regengirl

    Dave wrote

    “Hey Pete, if I’m not mistaken your idea of an adult learning centre already exists at the MAC.”

    Hi Dave, it was me, regengirl, who suggested it not Pete. Thanks for your take on my idea but MAC only covered bits of what I have in mind as I mentioned in my original post. It wasn’t really targeted at beginners either – beginners and intermediate students were often lumped in together with minimal tutor support for those struggling. I speak as someone who’s done a couple of jewellery courses there which were fun but didn’t really teach the basic skills needed and the equipment was shoddy most of the time. My post wasn’t about criticising MAC though – it was about fragmented adult learning provision for creative arts/crafts in the city.

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