Birmingham's home of rock is now a hard place to visit...
I’ll focus my comments on Councillor Saima Suleman’s area of responsibility for arts and culture, museums and heritage, and tourism.
It would be impossible to speak on this today without recognising the huge international impact that the boys from Aston had on all three of these areas with their farewell gig in the city at the weekend.
Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning gig rocked out Villa Park on Saturday, with frontman Ozzy Osbourne taking to the stage on a throne.
Comedian Joe Lycett cried through Ozzy’s set, Metallica lead singer James Hetfield said they wouldn’t have existed without Sabbath, and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Slash from Guns N’ Roses joined the set.
Thousands of devoted fans, from America, Canada and Scandinavia, flocked to the home of Heavy Metal, having their ‘sign of the horns’ photos taken on the Black Sabbath Bench on Broad Street, outside Ozzy’s childhood home in Aston and The Crown pub where the band played their first gig.
What fantastic publicity and tourism for the city, and with the brilliantly complementary civic support of the Working Class Hero exhibition at the museum and art gallery and Freedom of the City for the band.
I am however, disappointed that this moment has not galvanised the city to make progress to protect the cultural heritage of Station Street, despite Historic England’s Grade II listing of The Crown as a cultural landmark last year, but which has been closed for a decade,
As a reminder, the street also contains The Old Rep, the oldest repertory theatre in the country, and the much-loved Art Deco Electric Cinema, which was the oldest working cinema in the country until it closed its doors last year.
It was this closure that sparked the campaign to Designate Birmingham’s Station Street an Historic, Cultural and Civic Asset and, now with 26,000 signatures, is one of the top ten most signed petitions in Birmingham.
Yet the city council remains tin-eared to this campaign to protect the significant cultural heritage of Station Street.
However, Birmingham’s Cultural Compact, the cross-city partnership which has developed the cultural strategy for the city for the next decade, identifies the following, in three of its six pillars:
Expand and protect cultural spaces and places across the city by integrating culture into urban planning and regeneration;
Understanding the role our culture plays in the image of our city at home and abroad;
Showcase Birmingham as a global destination by growing our key areas of existing cultural activity.
Well, if 40,000 fans from all over the world, paying homage to the birthplace and creators of an entire genre of music, in Heavy Metal, doesn’t tick all of those boxes then I don’t know what does.
And that doesn’t even touch on the other son of Birmingham and British music icon, Jeff Lynne, who also brought thousands of fans into his home city last weekend to play his ‘final goodbye’ with the Electric Light Orchestra.
The boy from Shard End, whose dad worked on the roads for the council, is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra are rock royalty – ordinary lads, from ordinary streets in Birmingham - and they have given this city a gift of musical heritage, and we should celebrate and honour it more permanently.
So, I am going to end my speech with a clear request to Cllr Suleman to listen to those 26,000 campaigners and consider what might be possible to ‘Save Station Street’ and the birthplace of Heavy Metal.
Thank you, Lord Mayor.
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