Description:The Tower Blocks of Castle Vale
Photograph courtesy of CVCHA
The original Castle Vale was the design of Birmingham architect JR Sheridan-Shedden, though there had been earlier plans which had not been approved by Birmingham City Council. Castle Vale was arranged in a “‘Radburn Layout’, which placed ‘superblocks’ of housing, shops, offices and schools around communal green spaces”*, in order to separate vehicles and pedestrians and ensure that all day-to-day activities and facilities were within walking distance.
In its original form, the estate comprised of nearly 5,000 homes, including 2,000 high rise flats, two shopping centres, five schools, two churches, a swimming pool, as well as other social and community facilities. There were 34 tower blocks in total. The largest groups of these tower blocks were the 14 along the Farnborough Road, and a central group of eight, which became known as ‘Centre 8’.
Initially, the flats were largely popular with new residents, many of whom had moved to the area from Nechells and Aston, being much more modern and a huge improvement on the older housing, with indoor toilets and heating. However, some people missed the sense of community they had experienced in the old back-to-backs and residents on each floor of the tower blocks tended to keep to themselves. The close living quarters meant that any issues or problems tended to be highlighted and could escalate.
Problems, however, seemed to accelerate when people were moved to Castle Vale who didn’t want to live there but were relocated by Birmingham City Council. The 60s baby boom meant that there were a lot of single mums around and generally there was a lot of deprivation on the estate. By the late 70s there were drug dealers present and this caused an increase in violence. Also, from the mid-80s, the arrival of large numbers of single men led to increase in levels of anti-social behaviour.
For years, the words ‘Castle Vale’ were associated with crime and the breakdown of law and order. Local newspapers referred to it as ‘a trouble estate’, a place where ‘crime is committed as a way of life’*. When the Housing Action Trust was established (see the next page for further details), it came as no surprise to find that crime and the fear of crime were among the community’s greatest concerns.
The situation began to improve in 1997 with the creation of ValeWatch – a collaborative operation between the police, the schools and the Housing Action Trust. This led to the development of the Community Safety Strategy – a two-pronged approach to crime reduction: law enforcement to tackle short-term problems; and crime prevention, to ensure improvements would last.
*Information taken from Adam Mornement’s ‘No Longer Notorious’.