Jim Shead

Property will be cheaper outside of the city centre but attracting visitors will be much more difficult. If property in Gas Street is so valuable why is so much of it neglected and unused? The Round House has been suggested as a venue, this is much closer to the city centre but I believe there may be other plans for it.

Thanks John. There seem to be a whole row of unused buildings in Gas Street. I am trying to find out if there are any plans to redevelop the area or to reuse any of these buildings. If anyone has any information it would be appreciated.

Ray, Yes you are right and I hope you will include yourself in the group of people to get the project started. I have had someone else contact me this morning volunteering to use his business contacts to promote the idea. Do you know anything about the unused 46 Gas Street and the adjacent unused night club? Could they be a possible site? Do you have any other suggestions as to who should be included in the group? I think we should have an inaugural meeting fairly soon. Regards, Jim.

Funding is always a problem until unexpectedly it is discovered that funding is no longer a problem. At that point the people who have well considered plans with public support get the funding. The people who wait to find there is funding before progressing their ideas will probably lose out. I am not expecting a Birmingham Canal Museum to open next year or even the year after but I do expect it to have a shorter delivery time than the decades spent on canal restorations, which I think are very worthwhile projects, although the people working on them were usually told they were wasting their time and that it would never happen.

Professor Carl Chinn MBE, Chair of Birmingham Community History at the University of Birmingham wrote "I will happily give you my support as I agree with you wholeheartedly. Sadly, I feel that there has been a lack of vision amongst decision makers in Birmingham to fully understand the potential of our city’s history to unlock growth in the modern Birmingham and to develop opportunities for the future."

I am in favour of museums that cover canal history throughout the country but the point is that Birmingham, at the centre of the waterways system has nothing. I went to the recent History of Birmingham exhibition at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery but I saw nothing on canals. When I took this up with the curators they said there was a canal share certificate on display. When I suggested they should have some canal exhibits they said they did not have space for them. I do not accept that the Birmingham Canal Museum would be impossible to fund. If CRT can raise funds from outside bodies to produce "poetical lock gates" and the "floating forest" I am sure that funding could be found from multiple sources if the project had the necessary backing from the community. One thing that is certain is that if we start by concluding it is impossible then it will never happen.

Birmingham has many museums scattered throughout the city that it thinks worthwhile maintaining so why not one that is so relevant to the history of Birmingham? On the question of the cost of a site I would point out that not all the banks are filled with high prestige buldings, a walk from Gas Street Basin to the Mailbox will take you past several buildings that look neglected and ripe for development. CRT also have canal side properties and they are in business to promote the canals.

The Black country Museum is neither in Birmingham nor is it a Canal Museum. It is an excellent museum but it does not set out to explain the growth of the waterways system or the history of Birmingham in relation to the canals.

Birmingham is the centre of the canal system has more miles of canal than any other city and owes its masive expansion in the Industrial Revolution to its water bourne trade - so why dosn't it have a canal museum? I think there should be a Birmingham Canal Museum and I have set up the following web page to make the argument for it, to collect views from a survey and to suggest ways that we could campaign for it. http://www.jim-shead.com/waterways/gwpf.php?wpage=Birmingham%20Canal%20Museum I think both Birmingham and the waterways would benefit from such a museum - do you agree or am I barking up the wrong tree?

It is true that I took Great Haywood Marina to court on 29 December and that I am now appealing the decision. This may make me a poor loser but whatever the decision it will not clarify the legal position as County Court judgements do not provide case law. The OFT have declined to make a ruling on this subject so that is why I am trying to put some pressure on the OFT by the petition asking that - "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to refer the question of marina terms and conditions that restrict the sale of boats to the Director General of Fair Trading." All I am asking for is a clarification of the law, surely no one can disagree with this. It is also true that I have sold my boat and do not intend to buy another so whatever the OFT rule will not benefit me personally. No doubt this is another sign of me being a poor loser.