I’m happy to share this article which has been compiled by John Newson from Balsall Heath is Our Planet….
BHIOP is an alliance of organisations and individuals in Balsall Heath, whose aim is to cut the neighbourhood’s carbon dioxide emissions. Our Action Plan identifies Moseley Road Baths as a site of importance for achieving carbon reductions.
Moseley [...]
You can now sign an online petition to request that Birmingham City Council increase women only provision at Swimming Pools across the city.
Many women across the city come to Moseley Road Baths for the Women Only swimming sessions. The reasons for attending these sessions are as varied as the women who attend – modesty, cultural reasons, self-consciousness, a space to socialise with other women – to name but a few reasons. It is apparent that these sessions are needed, and for many women and girls, it can mean the difference between regularly swimming or not doing any exercise at all. As such, these sessions need to be encouraged throughout the city.
Moseley Road Baths are popular as the pool doors can be closed to the general public, and the cubicles around the side of the pool make the walk from changing to swimming so short. However, the current timetable cannot meet the demand and many sessions are too busy. The sessions are also held in the evening, excluding many women and girls who would prefer to use the pool earlier in the day – particularly important for women with children. Some swimmers also prefer female lifeguards, which cannot always be guaranteed.
As a much needed kick up the **** to Birmingham City Council, Editorial Girl has penned an excellent blogpost highlighting the dire state of Moseley Road Baths and the Council’s inaction on even doing the most rudimentary of repairs. Great stuff.
Further to last week’s consultation events, there is now an online survey on facilities at Sparkhill Pool and Fitness Centre. You can take the online survey here.
It’s very disappointing that the public seem to have no say in who should manage the facility, especially as this will have an impact on one of the most important assets that local leisure services have: the staff. I spoke with a local council leisure employee only yesterday who doesn’t know whether or not they’ll be in a job in two months time. If the Council are serious about providing high quality health and fitness facilities they need to put such concerns at the heart of the plans. This narrow-minded approach certainly doesn’t bode well for developing other leisure sites around the city…
The Guardian put out a request for readers’ photos on the theme ‘derelict’ last week. The result was a collection of some of the most heartbreaking pictures of buildings which are a shadow of their former glory.
Amongst the pictures was a photo from Emma Jones of the Gala Pool at Moseley Road Baths which you can view on the Guardian’s site. I’m not sure how I feel about it: the pool is absolutely gorgeous, even in its present state, and I think that the more publicity the building has the better, but it’s absolutely shameful that such a building remains in the ownership of Birmingham City Council in such a state. I feel embarrassed that my local pool should so frequently be on ‘most endangered’ and ‘most neglected’ lists, but it seems that our local politicians share no such concern.
As part of the Council’s ongoing plans for replacing Sparkhill Pool and Fitness Centre they have called a series of consultations for this week. So far it appears that consultations have not had any mention of how the building should be financed and managed, something which campaigners over in Sparkhill believe is absolutely fundamental to [...]
We’re getting more and more interest in Moseley Road Baths from people who have been inspired by the building to do interesting and creative stuff. Alex Gamela came along to our Memories and Memorabilia Day last year and gathered a fair bit of footage and photography. He’s used it to create a Flash [...]
We now have quite a number of people signed up for the Oral History Training session tomorrow. I’ve been sending messages back and forth to our trainer, Cynthia, and it’s looking really exciting! I believe that there may be a bit of space left, so if you do want to get involved then let us know ASAP.
I’ve just come from a stall in Balsall Heath Library where we spent about half an hour talking with a group of young girls (amongst others) about Moseley Road Baths. To me, that chat really illustrated the importance of our Pool of Memories project.
Almost all of the girls attend Heath Mount Primary School, one [...]
