Martin Mullaney, Councillor for Moseley & Kings Heath, Birmingham

Update on Moseley Road baths restoration project - 1st December 2005

The next stage in the long term restoration of Moseley Road baths, Balsall Heath has been signed off.

The Cabinet member of Leisure and Culture, Cllr John Alden yesterday signed off £250,000 to be used for a Conservation Survey of both the swimming pools and library.

This Conservation Survey is a pre-requisite of any Heritage Lottery Fund bid.

The Conservation Survey will go step by step through what is required to restore these buildings to their former Edwardian glory and carefully cost each piece of work. The survey will also put in a national context the historic importance of both the pools and library.

The Council spent just over £1million during October 2004 to October 2005 on works to make the building structurally safe. This included dismantling the main boiler house chimney and rebuilding it. Terracotta window frames were also dismantled and rebuilt with new sections of terracotta blocks specially made where previous blocks had crumpled.

One of the two pools is now re-opened to public use.

The £1million already spent can be used as match funding, as long as a Heritage Lottery Fund bid is applied for before October 2006 - in short the clock is ticking.

The Conservation Survey will take several months to complete.

It was originally estimated that the cost of restoring Moseley Road Baths would cost between £10 - £15million. However, Councillor Mullaney, Chair of the Working Party overseeing the restoration of the baths has recently claimed that the cost of the remaining restoration may be as low as £2million. He has based these figures on the cost to restore Pool 2 - now re-opened - and the closer inspection of potential problems on the building during the recent restoration work.

The proposal is to re-open Pool 1 to public use, re-open the wash tub section to public use and introduce new activities into the building such as a sauna and gym.