Letter to our new councillors

Sent 13 June 2026

Dear Councillors Humphreys and Harper-Nunes,

We are looking forward to working with you to address the ongoing challenges related to the Ladywood Regeneration, Demolition and Displacement Project, and we are grateful for your engagement with our group.

Beyond the major and substantive issues of demolition, displacement, and affordable house building, there are many residents who have contacted us with governance and process concerns about the way the project has unfolded. We share these with you to provide context for your work going forward and hope that some of them may be able to be resolved by working with you.

We think it is important that you are aware that residents have also been in contact with the local and national press, and other councillors and political parties, since we had no prior engagement with our own local councillors. It is our strong preference to instead route these to you, and work with you to resolve these issues rather than via the press or other political councillors and parties.  

We would very much appreciate a meeting with you to provide a briefing on the regeneration and the key issues arising at your earliest convenience and before the next full council meeting.

Kind regards, Ladywood Unite

Summary of unaddressed governance and process issues related to the Ladywood Regeneration, Demolition and Displacement Project

1. Affordable and Social Housing Provision

Challenge: The current proposal does not provide sufficient guarantees that social and affordable housing provision will meet existing housing need.

Solution: Provide binding guarantees for social and affordable housing provision that address housing needs for the city.

2. Right to Remain in Ladywood

Challenge: Residents’ ability to remain within the area to be framed in terms of intentions and aspirations (“wherever possible”) rather than firm commitments.

Solution: Adopt an unconditional right-to-remain principle as a core commitment of the regeneration programme.

3. Resident Charter

Challenge: The process for finalising the Charter has largely involved eliciting feedback on pre-formatted questions rather than co-production, creating the risk of selective use of residents’ input.

Solution: Reopen the drafting process to allow residents to co-produce the Charter and ensure it reflects community priorities, consistent with Birmingham City Council’s “Powered by People” principles of sharing power with communities.

4. Participation in Planning and Design

Challenge: Planning workshops have alienated residents and mostly only focused on design aspirations about public spaces and green areas, without involving residents’ concerns with their right to remain in the area.

Solution: Secure residents’ direct and binding involvement in spatial and design decisions, for example through Planning for Real–type exercises, co-production and similar participatory tools.

5. Transparency of Regeneration Documents

Challenge: The Development Agreement, signed in April 2025, contained extensive references to development plans and phasing provisions and, notably what appears to be a phasing map or plan – all being redacted out (and contradicting with the residents being told the phases have not been agreed upon).

Solution: All regeneration documents, including unredacted phasing provisions in the Development Agreement, should be published. Transparency is essential for accountability.

6. Governance of the Resident and Community Steering Group

Challenge: Steering Group members have expressed concern that the group lacks meaningful influence over decision-making and risks becoming a consultation exercise rather than a mechanism for shared governance.

Solution: Reconstitute the Steering Group through democratic election and block-level representation. Elected representatives should sit with decision-making powers on the project board, expanding the Partnership to involve the community.

7. Meanwhile Offer

Challenge: The Meanwhile Offer focuses on the temporary use of land during redevelopment — such as public art, community gardens, pop-up events, and food festivals. These initiatives are insufficient given the scale of disruption and distress the regeneration will cause, and the lack of clear guarantees for residents’ right to remain in the area.

Solution: Expand the Meanwhile Offer to include a programme of housing repairs, maintenance, and improvements to the public realm.

8. Safeguarding

Challenge: Children report being spoken to about the demolition of their homes without parental notification or consent.

Solution: Speak to the parents of these children to find out if they are okay and identify a constructive resolution, ensuring governance processes updated as needed.

9. Support for Residents Requiring Early Moves

Challenge: There are residents who need to move due to health or personal circumstances report difficulties doing so because of uncertainty surrounding the regeneration process.

Solution: Set up a proactive monitoring and check-in system for these residents and provide new housing options and adaptations where possible.

10. Implementation of Upheld Complaints Outcome

Challenge: Complaint about ARK (resident and tenant advisor) was upheld by the council but none of agreed actions were implemented.

Solution: Implement the agreed actions (ARK apology, training on trauma-informed resident communication, speak to resident steering group about resident-only group).

11. Inclusion and Representation

Challenge: Exclusion of residents from resident and community steering group due to lost applications and protected characteristics (ethnicity, age).

Solution: Re-formulate the resident and community steering group ensuring no applications are lost and protected characteristics are not used as selection criteria.

12. Timelines

Challenge: There is no timeline for the regeneration and stated deadlines are not adhered to, including about which homes will be demolished

Solution: Explain why this is the case to residents and update them on when a new timeline will be provided, particularly about demolition.

13. Standards of Communication

Challenge: Poor communication and lies from council officers – examples include being told ‘do we really need so many churches in the area’ and ‘take the emotion out of it, you will never get market value for your home’

Solution: Comprehensive council housing officer training and education programme, for example, led by Public Health officers who have substantial experience with positive community engagement.

14. Owner-Occupiers

Challenge: Current proposals do not adequately guarantee that owner-occupiers will be able to remain within the area. Shared-equity arrangements will leave residents financially worse off and limit inheritance and sale options in the future.

Solution: Make a like-for-like replacement offer, without additional cost to residents, a binding commitment.