Councillors serving on Birmingham City Council’s planning committee visited our innovative Stirchley Cooperative development following a recent change in the authority’s housing policy to offer more support to community-led initiatives.
Elected members attending the visit included Cllrs Mary Locke, David Barker, David Barrie, Gareth Moore, Lee Marsham and Colin Green alongside Birmingham City Council worker Sarah Scannell who gained further insight into community-led housing schemes by hearing from members of the Stirchley Co-operative Development (SCD).
The £10.4 million SCD development, located in the heart of Stirchley, which will be owned and managed by SCD will provide:
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39 affordable rental homes with laundries and common garden spaces.
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Fit-for-purpose premises for three existing co-operative businesses that are currently renting privately in Stirchley.
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A new community space including a pedestrian walkway, seating, a shared garden and cycle parking.
The community-owned SCD scheme on Pershore Road is being delivered by GreenSquareAccord’s in-house construction team, who took over the contract in April 2024, and is being built using our timber frame panels, designed with fabric-first principles and high-quality factory-fitted insulation to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and heating bills compared to traditionally built properties.
The project plans were unanimously approved by Birmingham City Council in 2021, and SCD purchased the site from Seven Capital in August 2022 after securing significant funding from Homes England and the European Interreg NWE.
Dorit Kaempfer-Krull of Loaf, one of the cooperative businesses which will be moving into the SCD building, said: “I think for Loaf it will be a big improvement to have a much brighter and purpose-built place to work.
“It will not only help us to present who we are and what we stand for as a workers’ co-op, but it will also help us to secure our own jobs with the economy making it harder and harder to run a bakery and cookery school which still wants to offer affordable healthy bread and teach people how to cook good food.”
Mike Doolan, our Sales and Partnership Manager said: “We are excited to be part of this innovative development which will help to meet local housing need.
“Our off-site manufactured timber frames are helping speed up construction times and reduce the environmental impact of this development.
Commenting on the visit, our Project Manager Mary Doria said: “It was a real pleasure to welcome the delegation from Birmingham City Council to the SCD building which is being built by our in-house construction team.
“We are delighted to hear that the City Council will be seeking to support similar community-led initiatives and we are proud that our innovative Stirchley development is setting an example for others to follow in the provision of affordable and energy-efficient homes and workspaces.”
Construction of the SCD development is expected to be complete this Summer.