‘Future Making: Druids Heath’ – A Cultural Placemaking Plan announced to provide a 20 year plan for cultural investment into Druids Heath to celebrate the area’s unique heritage, characteristics and values and retain a sense of place.
A new cultural placemaking plan for Druids Heath (Birmingham, UK) ‘Future Making: Druids Heath’ is was launched on the 11th of April 2025. The plan defined by the community’s heritage and characteristics of place is an ambitious cultural project focussing on four elements:
The Trig Point and Community Power – Commemorating Druids Heath’s Trig Point with a new park and harnessing local wind conditions by creating a community benefit wind turbine/solar farm. The introduction of community power through wind or solar would mean the community can self-fund community projects according to their wants and needs. Other communities, like Lawrence Weston in Bristol, have done this and have even built their own housing with the income they have generated.
Reconnecting the Chinn Brook Paleochannel on The Dell – Restoring the character to a piece of land known locally as ‘The Dell’ and commemorating the efforts of the community to save and care for the land. The Dell was saved by the community for the community through a ten-year legal battle and is preserved forever as common land. This reconnection will increase biodiversity and have a positive impact on the land and wider Cole Valley.
Space to Make – Creating a cultural hub that celebrates and enables the creative community in Druids Heath. This explores how local heritage assets, such as the former Gladiator pub, could be repurposed to their original use as a community hub, creating an attractive cultural hub, with space for dance, theatre, cinema, visual arts and socialising to meet local need.
Over Time – Documenting Druids Heath over time to create a cultural archive to record the stories of working-class communities.
More detail for all these elements, accompanying programmes and acknowledgment of the remarkable Baverstock School, can be found in the full ‘Future Making: Druids Heath’ document.
Community and heritage will be celebrated to generate pride of place and the community power will provide a potential income source to spend on community projects creating a sustainable way to develop and maintain the cultural programme. ‘Future Making’ begins immediately with a timeline focussed on delivering the plan across the next 20 years in line with regeneration proposals for the area.
Birmingham City Council’s Cultural Development Service is supporting cultural placemaking programmes across Birmingham through schemes such as Enterprise Zone funded ‘Cultural Action Areas’, and West Midlands Combined Authority Commonwealth Games Legacy Enhancement Funded ‘Cultural Placemaking Plans 2024/25’. Arts organisation Place Prospectors CIC was commissioned by Birmingham City Council, as part of the Cultural Placemaking Strategic Plans 2024/25 to lead on the creation of this localised, co-designed and sustainable cultural placemaking plan for Druids Heath ‘Future Making: Druids Heath’. The Cultural Development Service will be working with BCC colleagues to reimagine the future of Druids Heath guided by this strategy.
Place Prospectors have been delivering projects in Druids Heath since 2017. They were commissioned due to their deeply immersive work over the last eight years in Druids Heath of consultation, hyper-local engagement and delivery of place-based cultural activities, and have worked closely with the community, cultural partners and local stakeholders to produce this plan. Consideration was given to the proposed regeneration plan and the changes that this will bring. ‘Future Making‘ is structured with space for residents past, present and future to engage on an ongoing basis to ensure what is made is for existing and future communities.
Jayne Murray, artist and founder of Place Prospectors said: “This cultural vision is 8 years in the making. After working on the estate for so long we are delighted to have been given the opportunity to create a plan with the community, taking into account its heritage, topography, taste and values. The plan is unique to Druids Heath and maximises its characteristics for the benefit of the people and their place. The plan will enrich any future development, creating something genuine, relevant and positive. It looks back to tell many wonderful stories and looks forward to preserve a sense of place, in a place that has often been overlooked. It has strong environmental considerations that look towards making a better future.”
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