An estate built by the people 30 years on

Thirty years ago, a masterplan to regenerate one of Birmingham’s most deprived neighbourhoods was put on the table.

Castle Vale was previously an airfield, widely used during both world wars.

An estate sprung up shortly after the wars but by the 1970s and 80s many tenants were living in squalor and felt their complaints were being ignored.

Its mid-90s multi-million pound regeneration is now widely seen as one of the UK’s most successful housing projects.

Resident Sue Spicer, who moved there in the 60s, said if she won the lottery she would not move.

“I’d spend the money on everyone else. I just love the people,” she said.

Ms Spicer became one of a handful of tenants on the board of the newly formed Castle Vale Housing Action Trust, during the 90s redevelopment.

Together, they helped decide how to spend more than £300m of public and private funding.

She remembers the conditions before regeneration vividly.

“It wasn’t good for families – we had tower blocks that were neglected. It got to one point where I would go out in the morning with newspaper because someone had urinated in the lift – it was that bad… the tenant didn’t have a voice but we do now.”

By 1995, a masterplan was unveiled for the estate, then home to around 11,000 people. It proposed demolishing nearly 1,500 maisonettes and later recommended removing 32 of 34 tower blocks.

In their place came modern, energy-efficient homes, a rebuilt school, new sports facilities and a revitalised shopping centre — all designed to create a connected neighbourhood.

Residents say the transformation was long overdue. During the 1970s and 1980s, Castle Vale had become notorious for crime, poverty and poor housing.

“Anyone wanting to see a hell-hole should have seen Castle Vale 12 or 15 years ago. It embodied what I felt merited the description ‘civic pigsty’,” former Erdington MP Robin Corbett said in 1988.

The Housing Action Trust broke new ground by involving tenants directly in decision-making.

Board members recall attending training sessions to learn about town planning and finance management.

Most felt Birmingham City Council had good intentions in involving tenants in frontline decision-making, though it was uncharted territory.

Thirty years later, Ms Spicer is proud of what has been achieved, though she remains watchful.

“We’ve seen it build up again and I don’t want it to fail. So, if I see something wrong, I’ll be on the phone straight away. We need to do this together, we don’t want it to go back to how it was.”

That determination is shared by Simon Wilson, chief executive of the Pioneer Group, which manages more than 2,500 homes in Castle Vale.

“Nobody wants to go back to the days where this was not a great place to live in Birmingham, whereas as it is now, it’s a fantastically popular community. So we just have to continuously move forwards and go with the times.”

The association is currently replacing windows and doors in around 2,000 properties. But Mr Wilson insists bricks and mortar are only part of the story.

“Faith groups, schools, every part of the community comes together and look at the issues we’re facing. We ask how can we pull together, how can we lean on each other to create and sustain a fantastic neighbourhood?”

Regeneration also meant winning hearts and minds. Families were encouraged to express their hopes through art, working with Black Country metal sculptor Tim Tolkien.

His most famous contribution, Sentinel – better known as Spitfire Island – was unveiled in 2000.

The 16m (52ft) high steel sculpture of three soaring aircraft honours the Spitfires built at the Castle Bromwich aerodrome, tying the estate’s modern identity to its wartime past.

Mr Tolkien says Sentinel may be his most well-known public art: “We felt we were working for the people of Castle Vale.

“There was a strong draw to become corporate and wear a suit and have a desk in the office and go out from there, which was what the officers did.

“But we straight away realised we had to completely go away from that. And I had much more renegade approach really.

“I’ve always had rather wacky and tatty cars and at that time I had an old Triumph saloon with a sunroof on top and a growling engine. People knew my car and I used to chat to all sorts of people on the street and get ideas from them.”

Long before tower blocks and regeneration, Castle Vale’s land had a very different story.

By the late 19th Century, parts of the site were used for industry and even a sewage farm.

In the 20th Century, it became the Castle Bromwich Aerodrome, a vital airfield during both World Wars.

It was where about11,000 Spitfires were built, employing thousands of people.

When the airfield closed in the 1950s, Birmingham City Council earmarked the land for housing.

By the mid-1960s, Castle Vale was officially established as a modern estate, designed to ease overcrowding elsewhere in the city.

Its flat, open landscape and distinct boundaries gave it the feel of a self contained “island” community.

Castle Vale is not immune to wider social pressures – unemployment remains a concern, with almost one in ten residents claiming out-of-work benefits.

Crime levels fluctuate, though they are generally lower than the Birmingham average.

Yet the estate continues to attract attention from architects and planners, who tour its high street as a model of successful regeneration.

Castle Vale’s transformation has not gone unnoticed. Over the decades, many journalists, myself included, have walked its streets, spoken with residents and witnessed its evolution first-hand.

Those visits have enabled us to document the estate’s journey from decline to renewal, ensuring its story is told far beyond Birmingham.

As Castle Vale marks 30 years since its masterplan, the consensus is clear – while challenges remain, the estate is safer, stronger and more sustainable than it was.

For Sue Spicer and thousands of others, that is reason enough to celebrate.