Stage 2 Submission
On Tuesday 22nd November the Stage 2 Submission documents were delivered to the Birmingham Office of Heritage Lottery Fund.
(see photo of Canon Rob Morris right - photo Gerry Moorcroft).
The January 2006 statement from the Project Director is divided up into the following sections:
Introduction
Eighteen months of highs, lows and very hard work by over a hundred people, supported by thousands of others, ended up with four boxes of detailed plans, reports and supporting documents being successfully delivered to the Heritage Lottery Fund at the end of November. Stage 1 is done! We are now waiting for HLF approval, and for planning permission before we go ahead, we hope, in July or August 2006. In the meantime, we are working on refining plans and details, getting the rest of our funding in place and most of all, developing the lively inclusive programme of uses, activities and events for the restored buildings. We intend that they are ready for use early in 2008.
And of course, before we close for construction there will be a full spring and summer of tours, events and welcome for all.
The submission to Heritage Lottery Fund included our main application form, a full Conservation Management Plan, a detailed Business Plan (to take us to 2012!) and our architect’s designs for both buildings – along with plans for Access, Education, Training and Audience Development and plans for resourcing, supporting and developing them all. These are all to be used. We haven’t done them simply to comply with grant-makers’ requirements but to ensure that the whole Project works for the benefit of the buildings and our communities for years to come. Do ask at the Restoration Office (0121 458 1223) or the Parish Office (0121 458 3289) if you want to see them – and share in taking them further.
As part of the work we have agreed Audience Development targets. We are now setting up a full programme of consultation with specific groups to inform new activities and services.
Our priority groups in this work are:
1. Local residents and specifically people from the estate areas of Kings Norton
2. Primary school groups at Key Stage 2
3. Visitors from across Birmingham and the West Midlands
4. Families with babies or small children
5. School age children in their leisure time
6. Young Adults
7. Adult learners
8. Teachers
9. Overarching group: all people with mobility or sensory impairments
The Heritage Lottery fund has 12 priority groups. They are all in Group 1 above!
Why these specific Project Target Audiences?
A number of factors, often held at arms length from each other, have a large influence on Project development, including the selection of target audiences. The Project is committed to growing in the capacity and expertise to draw these diverse factors, interests and influences together.1. Heritage assets of intrinsic worth and significance
The North and East Ranges of the Saracen’s Head, the Old Grammar School and St Nicolas Church each form significant heritage assets in themselves and wholly justify restoration and the development of full access. Together they form a fascinating and unusual group for an urban area. Although not as full of detail as other West Midlands heritage destinations – and therefore unlikely to provide more than a half-day visit – they are well worth the time and expense incurred by “conventional” heritage audiences.
The Restoration Project has already deepened confident understanding of its buildings – and is committed to continuing and disseminating this work.
2. Wholly inter-related to their community context, past and future.
The Restoration buildings, with St Nicolas Church, have been intimately linked with the life of their immediate local communities for five hundred years – and much more. This has three features which mark all that we do now:
Places of gathering open to all: Inbuilt to St Nicolas as the ancient parish church, but true also of the Saracen’s Head, as inn, tearoom, work-place and home both to a rich woolstapler and to labourers, landlords and their families, both poor and more comfortable. The Old Grammar School, as a 19th century National School and earlier, was also in essence open to all, following the example of Humfrey Toye, chantry priest of St Nicolas (d.1514 and buried within the church) who established bursaries for poor boys to study.
Places of commitment to all: Although the Rotsey family, likely builders of the North and East Ranges, were proudly self-aggrandising – and have had subsequent imitators, there is a rich vein of wider commitment to all and of commitment to the poor, typified by Thomas Hall, by the open ministry of church and churchyard and by the renewed sense of inclusion engendered by the Project in an area of marked social and economic difference.
Places which embrace and inform local and regional story: In past confidence and innovation, in recent decline and deprivation and in the hope of regeneration, the three buildings have had significant part, as they do now.
3. Buildings at risk without a robust business plan:
Although valuable heritage assets, it is impossible to see them as sustainable and accessible within the public domain without community and function use. Their endowment is in fact a series of annual deficits borne by KNPCC and they cannot call on continuing support from the local authority or national heritage body. With mixed use – and the rationalisation of KNPCC buildings and use enabled by the proposed Design Scheme and Business Plan, the Restoration Project will be able to develop a secure future income base.
4. Places of work, learning – and of potential for affirmation:
The Project will provide inspiring places in which to learn, e.g. visits by Special School pupils have had the unexpected and inspiring outcome of a large change in sense of self-worth as they take in the specialness of the buildings and their own place within them. The Hawkesley School/CBSO partnership use of the buildings also greatly enriched their performance of Tudor music as they grasped that it was written as the North Range was erected - and possibly used here within a Tudor household. We want to extend these experiences.
Project targets have been identified in the light of all these. The Project believes that success depends on recognising and working with them all.
Benefits of mixed use and the integration of all these influences
The understanding of these buildings cannot be separated from their continuing story, which does not end here. They are living heritage. The Community use of the whole site provides:
• A base for outreach and service located in the middle of areas used by target audiences, with their access and use of buildings and Project already opened.
• Robust facilities and services to support heritage access e.g. robust area for young people’s activities, secure access to the heritage parts of the buildings, toilets, catering
• A reliable Income stream to ensure the sustainability of these buildings within the public domain where should belong.
Mixed use, managed by an inclusive Project Board, ensures that the buildings do not become the preserve of any one group or interest. It also actively expresses the ancient commitment of the church to be for all who live in the local area, including those who feel most marginalized. Past uses inspire new ones, particularly in learning, training and work.
By restoring and sustaining the buildings and removing barriers to access, our Project will be able to engage many more in heritage programmes, action and decision, initially building on:
• Existing audiences of site users and visitors
• Significant numbers of passers-by and users of church and churchyard -
• Established potential in relationship with all 30 local schools and education providers
• Established networks with local authority, New Deal for Communities. local traders and community groups, Birmingham Heritage Forum, Marketing Birmingham and others
Through parallel development of outreach, publicity and marketing, we shall engage a much wider audience, already evidenced from response to the media exposure of the Project.
The Project Design proposals will also enable us to know more accurately who is using the buildings – and who isn’t. Safe and welcoming access for all will make it much easier to count site user numbers and purpose of their visit. At present we only know who comes here for special events, for guided tours, for church services and for membership groups. But these are only a part of the thousands who visit the Restoration buildings, St Nicolas Church and the churchyard every year.
Through Restoration, through realistic, measured and responsive audience development and through its operational Business Plan, the Project will be able to develop the secure and sustainable income required to ensure that these precious heritage assets are kept healthily in the public domain for future generations.
Through the range of programmes, activities and outreach addressed in all Plans and through partnership with the complementary development of St Nicolas Church, other local heritage assets and with renewed community life, on-site and elsewhere, the Project will provide:
• A significant destination for visitors from far and wide;
• Increased patronage for local shops and services;
• Stimulation for the economic and community health of the wider local area;
• A focus and resource for wider local heritage study and action;
• A significant resource for local studies, citizenship and arts curricula for local schools and other education providers and as a base for outreach work among older young people who gather on the Green, in the Churchyard and at the Skate Park;
• An accessible and attractive venue for local functions, public and private, to complement others.
The Project also enables the church to develop our whole site as an integrated heritage and community asset - an ancient village made new in a stressed and lively urban area.
Measurable Targets for Specified Audiences
1. Local residents and specifically people from the outlying estates
Increase weekly use, usage targets vary by age group.
Continued monthly use by a further 150 adults.
Monitor to ensure that 80 % of regular weekly and monthly use is by local residents and that of these at least 50% are residents of the estate areas.
2. Primary School groups at Key Stage 2
16 schools in first year to make half-day visits, increasing by five each year.
3. Visitors from across Birmingham and the West Midlands
Increase visits of non-booked visitors, backed by research and action on encouraging return visits.
Develop programme of special events aimed at wider heritage audience.
4. Families with babies and small children –as above
5. School age children in their leisure time - as above
6. Young adults – as above
7. Adult learners – as above
8. Teachers in research and heritage-related activities – to be set in consultation with teacher colleagues
9. People with mobility or sensory impairment – to be set in consultation with target group and support groups for mobility or sensory impairment.
We will achieve these through:
1) Continuing development of current guided tour programme - at least 2 days per week. We have been conservative in our working estimates of numbers but with barriers to access and circulation removed, with growing partnership with BCC and other heritage sites and with focus on marketing, we expect the visits programme to grow significantly.
2) "Experience Days" designed to draw in local residents and others who may perceive that they are excluded both from the Project and from wider heritage, educational and social opportunities and who are marginalised or disadvantaged in the grasp and use of their heritage. Grant support is expected. It is intended that “Experience Days” will develop and sustain a local heritage volunteering network, with accredited training, drawn from the target group.
3) Themed Heritage Events for a variety of audiences, from young people to academics
4) Educational Programme: Focused initially on the young people who use our buildings, the many more who gather in the churchyard, the nearby Skate Park and on The Green, on the 30 local educational institutions with whom we are already in contact and on our growing local partnerships, we intend that this programme will grow as a major Project feature for all ages.
5) The housing of accessible resources, support and archiving for local heritage studies
6) Craft, Conservation, Interpretation, Tourism and Administration Skills Training.
Those to be involved in audience development consultation and activity include:
1. KNPCC's own networks
- Of 375 active members,
- A large number of other friends, supporters and visitors to church and churchyard,
- A very wide range of pastoral contacts,
- Church members' active involvement across a whole range of local community life.
2. The growing involvement and contacts of non-church members in all aspects of the Project, including Restoration office volunteers, guides, event organisers and as Friends (currently standing at 234, all joined since re-launch in March 2005)
3. Current site users and the large number of visitors to The Green, St Nicolas Church and Churchyard, both casual and event-specific.
4. Target audiences, especially schools, other local education and community providers, and local residents of all social and income groups.
For the Project Director's August 2005 report click here.
The Parish of Kings Norton
A Church of England Team Parish
