The Sons of Rest building, off Mill Street, and Hindcliffe,in Bracebridge Road, – designed by the architect Owen Parsons – are to be put forward to become legally recognised listed buildings.
Both have been nominated to Birmingham City Council as A- grade buildings. If the suggestion is backed by councillors, they can be as such, can be put for official listed status and would be afforded protection from development.
Sutton Coldfield’s Civic Society has also recommended that the former Town School in Mill Street, the former Town Boys School in Victoria Road, The Gate public house in Mill Street and the council house and war memorial in King Edward’s Square, are placed on the local list of protected buildings and artifacts of interest, giving them a B grade.
Lewis Jones of the Civic Society, who represents the organisation on the Council’s conservation panel, said: “This hopefully means quite a few Sutton buildings should be protected from development in the future.
“The Gate public house in particular is a lovely little building.
“A lot of people say it has been changed too much inside, but the appearance of the exterior alone should be enough to get it listed.”
The grading comes as part of the character assessments of all buildings in the town centre.
However, the Civic Society fears that local authority cutbacks mean buildings that should be listed will go unrecorded in the future.
Mr Jones said: “It is going to be difficult in the future with the cutbacks because it means fewer of these character assessments will be done.
“We’ve not got a character assessment for Four Oaks for example, which is an unfortunate omission in my opinion, but because of all the budget cuts I don’t think one will be carried out for a long time.
“When doing the character assessment they will naturally look for places that should be put forward for listing, and that step will probably be overlooked.”