Steve Gibbons of the Steve Gibbons Band recalls his memories of the Royalty. Read Here
2016 to 2025
Harborne Royalty Trust
LETS HELP OUR HIGH STREET. SUPPORT BRINGING BACK THE ROYALTY.
Public Consultation Results Available.
The Consultation results on the Harborne Royalty are available to download and view. As we suspected from the discussion with the public on the High Street its a massive YES to cinema and provision of community facilities and NO to more appartments. To download the consultation results click here. To see the summary of the results please visit our survey page to find out more about the consultation results and what respondents had to say.
Welcome to the Harborne Royalty Trust website.
This listed Art Deco building has for many years been forgotten. Yet it has so much history, architectural value and opportunity to serve the people of Harborne and much wider afield.
The Trust have been working since 2016 on trying to find solutions to bring this building back to life. We have funded 2 pre application planning discussions with the planners at Birmingham City Council. The first was in partnership with a cinema chain when the building was still complete and would have seen a major investment retaining the buildings listed features. Then just after our consultation was completed there was the 'fire'.
Undeterred we continued to look at what the significant remaining parts of this building could deliver and we are now on our fourth proposal. Since the fire we have always recognised there needs to be a mixed development because too much was paid by the owner for the site in the first place. The Trust are the solution to bring in the additional funds that would make the site viable. We just need to be engaged with.
As part of our latest pre app and without prompting the planners made it clear they expected an element of community to come forward in any proposal and took the unusual step of putting on the table an indicative design of how much they expected. This is great news and gives clarity to all parties.
BCC Proposal
Areas shown in red are commercial/residential.
Areas shown in yellow are 'community'.
Note: Harborne Royalty Trust envisage 'Community' as including commercial aspects such as a cafe and restaurant which would provide income to support community activities and management costs.
Whilst this was great in demonstrating the planners were committed to inclusion of community space, having worked with experts on costing scenarios we actually didn't feel it provided sufficient space for the necessary commercial aspects whether residential units, office space or even a hotel. Indeed we believed a viable community space could still be delivered with less than proposed by the planners. A sticking point too was the car park, the planners stating they would not entertain development on the car park. There seemed no logic to this, provided a sensitive proposal could be brought forward. We went to the effort of delving back into the history of the Royalty to the time when it was built. We identified that in the early years a terraced development stood on the car park at the same time as the Royalty and submitted a proposal showing a contemporary design. Terraces like these still exist nearby. We have included this in our updated professional Heritage Statement.
Now that we have been informed a planning application is being developed we look forward to seeing how our proposals which include less for community and more for residential along with the requirements of the planning officers will be incorporated. We are there to help the developer to understand how a viable development can be achieved.
Remember too for those pushing for a planning approval, that grant of planning permission does not guarantee any development will take place, merely the site becomes worth more. See more on planning approval.
Rob Sutton. Chair Harborne Royalty Trust.
There are many more fascinating websites providing information on cinema and theatre as well as those working hard to preserve them. Go to our links page to find out more.
We would like to thank those who took many of the pictures used in this website to publicise the marvellous interior of the Royalty. We do not have their identities so we cannot name them but we will remove any of those images if they contact us and request us to do so. If we are to save this building their images will have played an important part.
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