SAVE calls for urgent action to protect Birmingham's 'Forgotten Arcadia'

STOP PRESS: Work is being done to Nos 42 and 44 to restore them to individual private homes.

SAVE has called for action to prevent the destruction of two villas, Numbers 42 and 44 Flint Green Road, located within one of Birmingham’s most attractive Victorian suburbs.

The two houses have been sold privately, ahead of auction, raising fears that they are earmarked for redevelopment. Despite forming part of a coherent and elegant group, they are not part of a conservation area so are particularly vulnerable. SAVE is calling for the council to close this loophole and move quickly to designate a conservation area to protect these fine villas as well as those in neighbouring roads.

The Flint Green Road properties are charming and attractive Victorian houses with a wealth of lively detail – arch headed windows, gabled porches, bracketed cornices built in warm, soft, brick. They have good interior features too – Victorian patterned floor tiles and ceiling roses. They are well preserved and stand in a delightful leafy setting. Redevelopment and replacement with larger buildings would devalue and alter the character of the whole area.

Acocks Green is a leafy residential suburb, 4 miles south-east of Birmingham City Centre. It went through a major phase of construction in the 1850s following the opening of a railway station on the Birmingham to Oxford line in 1852. City workers escaped the grime of the city to well-built family homes in spacious, green surrounds.

See the Acocks Green Focus Group for further details. Also sign their petition to save Birmingham City Council’s Conservation Department which is facing cuts.