Weeds as tall as the teenagers who used to play here are sticking up through the cracked concrete of the abandoned basketball court at Malcolm Locker Youth Centre in Erdington.
Out front there's an upturned sofa, and broken glass litters the floor.
Murals painted on the walls by local kids - one a vision of 'Malcolm Man', a superhero sharing the centre's name - are fading fast.
It's been five years since a campaign to save the centre from imminent closure was lost. Attempts to take it over by a local charity came to nothing. In that time it's succumbed to the visible signs of neglect - rusting pipes, broken wooden panels, damaged windows, those weeds.
A young lad passing by takes out his headphones to stop and chat. He used to come here "when I was younger... it was good, yeah, we used to do sports and ping pong and just have somewhere to go."
Now 17, he says there's nowhere nearby any more that is free, safe and welcoming.
"It's the same for all my friends, unless you're really into sport there isn't much you can do for free, so we just meet at each other's houses or at the park, chill together, mostly just stay close to home."
Just over a mile away, dying flowers mark the spot where 20-year-old James Teer was suddenly gunned down while playing football in the street with his mates.
The circumstances of his killing earlier this month will play out in court in good time, but this was a devastating act of unexpected violence that has rocked the local community.
Any direct link between the closure of a youth centre and a catastrophic murder not very far away would be superficial at best.
"Fear stalks communities...the city has paid a terrible price for austerity."
But an 'inextricable link' between the demise of city youth services and escalating youth crime is part of the story of austerity, says Erdington MP Jack Dromey.
"The toxic combination of 2,100 police officers gone from our streets in Birmingham and the West Midlands, together with the wholesale closure of youth centres, has seen youth crime soar.
"Young men are dying on the streets and fear stalks communities all over Birmingham. The city has paid a terrible price for a decade of austerity," says the MP.
The facts are indeed stark, as revealed in our investigation.
Since 2011, 43 youth centres and projects run by Birmingham City Council have closed down. In some cases, charities or private enterprises have stepped in - but many have been lost for good.
Only 16 are still operated by the council - and the future of some of those can't be guaranteed, dependent as the city council is on the outcome of the Government's imminent spending review for local government.
Our interactive map, below, illustrates the gaps in provision that have left whole swathes of some of the city's deprived areas without any council-funded youth provision. The orange dots signify the venues that have been lost; the blue dots the places still run by the council. (A few closed services were citywide so are not included).
Spending on youth services in the city has plummeted - from £6.3 million in 2010-11 to £1.9 million in the last year.
The bare facts that tell a story of a service on its knees keep coming: there are now just 39 full time youth workers serving the whole city - that's one youth worker for every 3,800 young people aged 10 to 19. In a report from back in 2006, the recommended ratio was one worker to 400 kids.
Total staffing for youth services is now just 53 - including admin staff and managers. There were 135 staff in 2010.
At the same time the city has seen an inexorable rise in youth crime, with young people most likely to be both perpetrators and victims. There's been an 85% rise in knife crime alone.
Research published in May suggested cuts to youth services in England could be linked to the rise in knife violence.
Knife crime reached a record level last year in England and Wales, with 40,829 offences involving knives or sharp objects recorded by police in 2018.
Analysis by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Knife Crime found areas suffering the largest cuts in youth services have seen bigger increases in knife crime. Wolverhampton fares particularly badly in their analysis.
It’s a disastrous example of austerity cause-and-effect, say city MPs and youth experts.
The fewer safe places there are for young people to congregate, the more likely they are to feel disconnected from their community and end up in trouble or distress.
There are now calls for a drastic rethink about how youth services are provided, amid fears the cuts are linked to rising crime and the criminal exploitation of children.
Eddie O’Hara, a former social worker turned consultant, founder of charity All Birmingham's Children (ABC) and former lead of the British Association of Social Workers’ Birmingham branch, said the city was facing a ‘perfect storm’.
“Youth services have been completely hit over the head. You have teenagers with no access to services, and there aren’t any preventative services, there are very few police out, so by definition kids are going to get up to things. It’s a perfect storm.”
The only way out of the current crisis is for the city to "put all children first" when drawing up policies and spending plans, he said.
"We need to re-energise the way we think about children and young people in our city. They are our future, our crown jewels, but we are letting them down."
The city council's youth champion, Cllr Kerry Jenkins, said the council had fought hard to protect services from austerity cuts, with a dramatic slowdown of closures in recent years.
"Under the circumstances of austerity we have protected a lot of what we have. We are one of very few local authorities that have retained their own youth service. We are proud of that - but we need a hell of a lot more investment so we can open new community youth centres and increase the number of youth workers.
"The environment some of our young people are growing up in, and the challenges they face, and the level of poverty being experienced, it is no surprise at all that when services are taken away things are going wrong.
"We warned ten years ago that youth services could not take this level of cuts, and warned that it would have an impact further down the line - and that is exactly what we are now seeing."
But she added that the city council was working hard to halt further impact - only five services have been lost since 2014 after an onslaught of closures in 2011-2013; and the council had committed to making the smallest possible budget cut this year.
Community groups and charities are helping to plug the gap - but they too are relying on smaller and smaller pots of money and grant funding to keep going.
Birmingham's lost centres include:
The Base in Ward End Park – closed 2011, it was once part of the city’s alternative education provision but also used as a centre for youth activities.
It sits abandoned and unloved at a gateway to the park. It's long been stripped of its innards - thieves took the plumbing and anything of value left inside - and was a haven for drug addicts until extra security was put in place.
Ali, 22, lives a few doors from the park entrance.
"This used to be like a second home, it was a really cool place. Now look at it," he says.
Ali, now an engineer after recently completing a four year qualification, is all grown up now but his face softens as he remembers the 'hours and hours' he spent inside the now rundown venue.
"It used to cater for all the young kids round here. It worked with kids with special educational needs and those who'd been kicked out of school as well as running youth groups. It took kids on fancy trips, there were computers, ping pong tables, playstation, everything.
"Without even realising it we were being mentored, and getting guidance and good advice. That's why places like this are so important.
"We got taken on trips we could never have gone on, to Drayton Manor, Alton towers, the sea.
"It opens up a child's mind.
"But when it shut it quickly went down the drain. It got taken over by drug addicts. The area has changed a lot since then."
Subhaan Hussain, who also lives nearby, said he remembers the centre being open and going as a primary school kid.
He said: "I go to the Naseby Centre (located nearby, next to the Rockwood Academy school) a bit now, it's good, but this place was great."
The Square Club in Weoley Castle – closed 2015, then sold in 2017, is still lying empty and neglected and was the target of arsonists last year.
The club is located at the back of a row of retail shops off Somerford Road.
It includes two buildings - both were extensively damaged in the blaze in December.
The club was sold at auction by the council in 2017 for £282,000 to the Assembly of the Brethren in Christ Church, a Christian church attended primarily by Eritrean families living in Birmingham.
The church, based in Newtown, bought The Square Club with the intention of making it their permanent Birmingham base.
However, they have been plagued with problems, including a series of targeted and malicious vandal attacks.
Nechells Green Community Centre – youth services ended in 2013 and the centre closed for good last year. It is on a prime development site in the heart of Nechells and sold earlier this year for £1.2m to a housing developer. The centre sits at a road junction opposite family homes, but is increasingly neglected and crumbling.
Earlier this year we reported how it was one of several community centres across the city being sold off to developers as a quick cash fix by the impoverished council to meet the costs of redundancy payouts and other cuts.
Newtown Community Centre, where Ozzy Osborne’s Black Sabbath first rehearsed and The Drum arts centre in Aston were among the venues that have been sacrificed.
Khalid Mahmood, MP for Perry Barr, was among those furious about the sell-offs: “We should never have been selling the land that we have inherited from our forefathers...it just takes the future away from our children and grandchildren to come and that is really devastating.
"What Birmingham has done by and large is devastating cuts on the workers at the coal face, whether it’s advisory workers, whether it’s people that clean our streets, whether it’s people that deliver social services. All those people at the coalface have been drastically cut for a long time whilst the top has still been heavy," he said.
He called for an immediate halt to the powers that allow councils to sell property, instead arguing that assets should be leased to raise money now while protecting the buildings for future generations.
Newtown Youth Centre closed down in September 2012. The community venue where it was housed has since been sold off and the neighbouring wellbeing centre and swimming pool is closing later this year.
Sutton YMCA youth project – the council run sessions ended in 2013. The YMCA building still hosts some activities for young people.
Kings Heath Detached Youth Worker Project and Club – located at Kings Heath Community Centre, this youth provision shut down in 2013. The centre has since hosted a range of short term activities aimed at young people but currently has no activities aimed at teenagers. A member of staff at the centre said youngsters did use two benches located outside to meet up and hang around ‘but there is nothing inside for them.’ Other local providers, including churches, had set up alternative services including nearby All Saints Centre, which hosts a youth project and parents’ project.
PROJECTS AXED BY BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL:
• The Astral Centre, Tyburn – last youth session held July 2013
• The Green Door Project, Kingstanding – last youth session held March 2013
• Crossroads project, Balsall Heath – ended March 2012
• Fox Hollies Forum, Acocks Green – ended August 2012
• Calthorpe Park detached project, Balsall Heath – ended July 2013
• St Martins Youth Centre, B5 – ended Feb 2011
• St Paul’s Venture, B12 – ended Sept 2011
• Stanhope Hall Youth Project, Highgate - ended March 2013
• Tyseley Youth Project, Springfield - ended June 2013
• Frankley Youth Centre - closed March 2016
• Milebrook Hall, Bartley Green - ended Jan 2013
• Shenley Green Youth Project - ended June 2011
• Youth Bus, Edgbaston - ended March 2013
• Victoria Youth Club, Northfield - ended October 2010
• Aston Detached Project - ended July 2013
• Base Youth Information Shop, Ward End - closed May 2014
• Ladywood Detached Project, Ladywood - closed April 2013
• Norton Hall Youth Club, Washwood Heath - ended January 2013
• Sparkhill Youth Projects - ended March 2013
• Hutton Hall Youth Project, Washwood Heath - ended June 2013
• Radleys Youth Project, Sheldon - ended August 2013
• Sheldon Youth Project - ended December 2011
• Silvermere Youth Project, Yardley - ended December 2010
• Bordesley Green Detached youth worker - ended July 2013
• Young People's Health Project - citywide - ended September 2013
• Youth House & Selly Oak Youth Club, Selly Oak - ended September 2014
• The Den Youth Project, Brandwood - ended May 2013
• Annexe Youth Centre, Moseley - ended May 2011
• Kings Heath & Moseley Youth Project- ended July 2013
• Masefield & Chaddesley Detached project, Northfield - ended March 2013
• St Francis Youth Centre, Bournville - ended Feb 2013
• Warstock Youth Club, Kings Heath - ended May 2013
• Youthwise, Moseley- ended Aug 2011
• Youth Information Shop, Central Library - ended September 2010
• Moseley School ARC Project, Moseley - ended June 2013
• Farm Road Detached - ended September 2011
STILL OPERATED BY THE CITY COUNCIL:
Clifton Road Youth Centre, Sutton Coldfield
Falcon Lodge Community Centre, Sutton Coldfield
Small Heath Youth Centre, Small Heath
610 Community Centre, Kingstanding
The Lighthouse, Aston
E.R. Mason Youth Centre, city centre
Lozells Recreation Group, Lozells
Oaklands Sports & Social Centre, Handsworth
The Vibe, South Yardley
Naseby Youth & Community Centre, Alum Rock
The Pump - the city council runs a youth information shop within the charity-run project in Kitt's Green, East Birmingham
Shard End Youth Centre, Shard End
Maypole Centre, Druid's Heath
The Factory, Longbridge
Part time/occasional provision is also provided at:
Soho Youth Projects, Soho
Three Estates Youth Work & Youth Information Shop, Kings Norton
Speaking earlier this week (Monday August 19), Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pledged that his party would make it 'compulsory' for councils to provide youth services.
"What the Tories won't address is the much wider impact of austerity; the closed youth centres, under resourced mental health care, and the lack of funding for community mentoring.
"We take youth services so seriously that we will make it compulsory for local government to deliver them."
What crime chiefs say
West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson has spoken out frequently about the role of a strong youth service in the fight against youth crime.
He has previously described cuts to youth services in the city as "catastrophic" - but has also called for a dramatic rethink about how best to reach and influence young people.
"We have to accept we will not get back to having youth centres in every neighbourhood so we have to think more strategically and come up with new ideas, including working in partnership with voluntary agencies. I think schools hold the key," said Mr Jamieson, a former teacher.
This year he has invested £600,000 in summer holiday projects designed to reduce the risk of young people becoming victims of violence.
The money is paying for activities and mentoring classes for eight to 25 year olds living in high crime areas.
He said: “Crime has been rising across the country and here in the West Midlands we are not immune. We’ve been hit by a rise in knife crime of 85% since 2012."
The PCC's strategic lead Tom McNeil said the loss of youth centres, while a major blow, did not alone account for rising crime.
"We need to reconsider what young people want and need. I think that includes high quality arts and music opportunities, often neglected at school because of budget reductions there; and regular, long term access to workers and facilities rather than short term fixes.
"Pressure on children's services, drugs treatment and mental health are the biggest drivers of household hardship and a causal link to crime."
A landmark 2017 report on gangs and violence in the West Midlands(pdf) concluded it was difficult to explain the increase in both gun and knife crimes in recent years, but listed a mosaic of reasons cited by police, community groups, former gang members and others.
They included the emergence of a “new generation of gangsters” known for spontaneous acts of violence, the role of social media and music, mental health issues and what some referred to as the “father deficit”. Above all was the impact of government austerity measures that resulted in the West Midlands experiencing some the steepest cuts in funding for youth work.
What Birmingham City Council says
Cllr Jayne Francis, city council cabinet member for education, skills and culture, said: "Our youth service does some really excellent work with young people across the city. However, Birmingham City Council, like other local authorities, is dealing with severe budget cuts and the youth service is unfortunately no exception.
"Although in recent years we have worked hard to keep funding reductions to a minimum, finances remain stretched.
"This means that, while it remains an open access service, we must focus our resources on provision for the most vulnerable young people and communities, particularly those people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs).
"We have 16 youth centres around the city that are either council-run or where we provide services and have around 180,000 attendances per year. We also run summer schemes for young people which provide diversionary activities for youngsters who may be in danger of getting drawn into anti–social or criminal behaviour."
What the Government says
“We believe councils, not central government, are best placed to know what their communities, including young people, need.
“That’s why we’re providing local authorities with access to £46.4 billion this year and working with them to develop a funding system for the future based on the requirements of different areas.”
