Sparkbrook
Encyclopedia
Sparkbrook is an inner-city area in south-east Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is one of the four wards forming the Hall Green
Hall Green
Not to be confused with Hall Green, Wolverhampton or Hall Green, SandwellHall Green is an area and ward in south Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee...

 formal district within Birmingham City Council.

Etymology

The area receives its name from Spark Brook, a small stream which flowed south of the city centre. It was later channelled and partially used for a canal.

Politics

Sparkbrook ward is presently represented by one Respect councillor on Birmingham City Council
Government of Birmingham
Birminghamshown within West MidlandsThis page is about the Government of Birmingham, England.-Civic history:Most of Birmingham was historically a part of Warwickshire, though the modern city also includes villages and towns historically in Staffordshire or Worcestershire.Until the 1760s, Birmingham...

, Shokat Ali and two Labour councillors, Tony Kennedy and Victoria Quinn.

Its former Independent councillor, the late Talib Hussain, was elected as a Liberal Democrat but resigned from the party after being sacked from the council's cabinet.

Sparkbrook Ward has adopted a Ward Support Officer with the current holder of the title being Becky Jones.

Project Champion

Project Champion is a project to install a £3m network of 169 Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras
Police-enforced ANPR in the UK
The UK has an extensive automatic number plate recognition CCTV network. Police and security services use it to track UK vehicle movements in real time...

 to monitor vehicles entering and leaving Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath
Washwood Heath
Washwood Heath is a ward in Birmingham, within the formal district of Hodge Hill, roughly two miles north-east of Birmingham city centre, England...

. Its implementation was frozen in June 2010 amid allegations that the police deliberately misled councillors about its purpose, after it was revealed that it was being funded as an anti-terrorism
Counter-terrorism
Counter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...

 initiative, rather than for 'reassurance and crime prevention'. The campaign was spearheaded by a local activist called Steve Jolly, who 'wrote an article for a local magazine, started a petition and lobbied MPs and councillors to denounce the spy-cam scheme', he was proactive in contacting the media, it was Steve Jolly who made Paul Lewis of The Guardian aware of this issue. When Paul Lewis wrote his article, it sparked national and international debate on Project Champion, this then led to massive public resistance to Project Champion, which eventually led to it being stopped. West Midlands Police were forced into making a humiliating apology. Chief Constable Simms said:
"I am sorry that we got such an important issue so wrong and deeply sorry that it has had such a negative impact on our communities."

Places of interest

Many of the churches within Sparkbrook were constructed in the late 19th century and early 20th century. One of the most prominent churches in the area is St Agatha's Church
St Agatha's Church, Sparkbrook
The Church of St Agatha is a parish church in the Church of England in Sparkbrook in Birmingham, England.-Background:It was designed by W. H. Bidlake. It is now a Grade I listed building....

 on the Stratford Road, consecrated in 1901. It is a Grade I listed building.

Christ Church, on the corner of Grantham Road and Dolobran Road, was one of the oldest churches in the area, being consecrated in 1867. The spire belonging to the tower was removed in 1918, and following a bomb blast in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the entire tower was demolished. In 1927, The Diocesan Home for Girls received a license permitting public worship within the building. Following damage caused by the Birmingham Tornado 28 July 2005
Birmingham Tornado (UK)
The Birmingham Tornado was one of the strongest tornadoes recorded in the United Kingdom in nearly 30 years, occurring on 28 July 2005 in the suburbs of Birmingham. It formed on a day when strong tornadoes were expected to develop across the Midlands and eastern England...

 the whole church was demolished.

Consecrated in the same year as St Agatha's Church, Emmanuel, was a chapel of ease to Christ Church until it received its own parish in 1928. Located within the church is an ancient blank bell from Ullenhall
Ullenhall
Ullenhall is a village and civil parish in the Stratford district of Warwickshire, England, situated about West of Henley in Arden and West of the county town of Warwick...

.

Ladypool Road mission hall was opened in 1894 by the Sparkbrook Gospel Mission (founded 1886).

In 1849, a group called the Methodist New Connexion, opened a chapel in the area, their first for 11 years along with a similar chapel on Bridge Street in the city centre.

Lloyd House is a Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

 building situated on Sampson Road. It was built between 1742 and 1752 by Sampson Lloyd
Sampson Lloyd
There are three generations of Sampson Lloyd in the Lloyd family of Birmingham, England. The second co-founded Lloyds Bank.Sampson Lloyd I and Mary , Quakers of Welsh origin, moved from their Leominster, Herefordshire farm in 1698 to Edgbaston Street in Birmingham.After the death of Sampson I in...

, the founder of Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank Plc was a British retail bank which operated in England and Wales from 1765 until its merger into Lloyds TSB in 1995; it remains a registered company but is currently dormant. It expanded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and took over a number of smaller banking companies...

. The building is currently used as offices by the Bromford Corinthia Housing Association.

In 1780, Sparkbrook was the home of Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

, one of the founding fathers of modern chemistry. In 1791, his mansion was partially destroyed in what became known as the Priestley Riots
Priestley Riots
The Priestley Riots took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious Dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley...

. It stood on what is now Priestley Road.

In the 1970s, a statue of King Kong
King Kong statue
A statue of King Kong by Nicholas Monro was commissioned in 1972 for display in Manzoni Gardens in The Bull Ring, in the centre of Birmingham, England. It was later displayed elsewhere in Birmingham, then in Edinburgh, and is now in Penrith....

 stood on the yard of a second hand car dealership on Stratford Road, roughly opposite St. Agatha's.

Unemployment

The Late 2000s recession
Late 2000s recession
The late-2000s recession, sometimes referred to as the Great Recession or Lesser Depression or Long Recession, is a severe ongoing global economic problem that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The Great Recession has affected the entire world...

 has resulted in Sparkbrook and neighbouring Small Heath
Small Heath, Birmingham
Small Heath is an inner-city area within the city of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It is situated on and around the A45 ....

 having the eighth highest level of unemployment in Britain in 2009, with 12.9% (more than one in eight) of its residents being registered unemployed. Only Ladywood
Ladywood
Ladywood is an inner-city area in Birmingham, England. It is a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Ladywood ward and the wards of Aston, Nechells and Soho. In June 2004, Birmingham City Council conducted a city-wide "Ward Boundary...

 (which has one of the highest rate in all of Britain) has a higher rate of unemployment in the West Midlands
West Midlands (region)
The West Midlands is an official region of England, covering the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It contains the second most populous British city, Birmingham, and the larger West Midlands conurbation, which includes the city of Wolverhampton and large towns of Dudley,...

. http://www.virginmedia.com/jobs/features/uk-unemployment-blackspots.php?ssid=3

Demographics

The 2001 Census recorded that 31,485 people were living in the ward. Sparkbrook has the second highest non-white population in Birmingham, with a total of 78% minority ethnic residents living in the mainly terraced area. Sparkbrook is home to Birmingham's "Balti Triangle
Balti Triangle
The Balti Triangle is an area of Balti houses clustered along Ladypool Road, Stoney Lane and Stratford Road, to the south of Birmingham city centre. It covers parts of Sparkbrook, Sparkhill and Balsall Heath....

", and many of the residents have their own balti
Balti (food)
A Balti is a British-style type of curry cooked and served up in a thin, pressed steel wok-like pan. It is served in many restaurants in the United Kingdom...

 businesses.

See also

  • Roy Hattersley
    Roy Hattersley
    Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.-Early life:...

    , Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook in the County of West Midlands.
  • UB40
    UB40
    UB40 are a British reggae/pop band formed in 1978 in Birmingham. The band has placed more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart, and has also achieved considerable international success. One of the world's best-selling music artists, UB40 have sold over 70 million records.Their hit singles...

  • Moazzam Begg
    Moazzam Begg
    Moazzam Begg , is a British Pakistani Muslim who was held in extrajudicial detention in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, by the U.S...

    , a former detainee in Guantanamo Bay
    Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
    The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment and interrogation facility of the United States located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees from the war in Afghanistan and later Iraq...

     who came from the area.
  • Ladypool Junior & Infant School
    Ladypool Junior & Infant School
    Ladypool Primary School is a Grade II* listed primary school on Stratford Road in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, England. It stands next to St Agatha's Church....

  • Sparkbrook and Small Heath
    Sparkbrook and Small Heath
    Sparkbrook and Small Heath is a defunct administrative district, formerly managed by its own district committee, in Birmingham, England.Its boundaries were those of the Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath parliamentary constituency.- External links :*...


External links

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