Save Kingstanding’s Odeon – Turn the former Mecca into a Community Hub

If you grew up in Kingstanding, the old Odeon on the Circle is part of your story. It’s where your grandparents courted, where couples had their first dates and later married, where children queued with their pocket money for the pictures. Ask almost any family in Kingstanding and there’s a memory that starts under that roof.

Built in 1935, it is one of Birmingham’s finest surviving Art Deco cinemas — a Grade II listed landmark that has watched over the Circle for nearly 90 years, first as a picture palace, then as the bingo hall where neighbours met week in, week out. For many older residents it wasn’t just a night out. It was the place you were never lonely.

Today it stands dark. The bingo closed in June 2026 and the building was simply left empty. Within weeks — on 11 August — fire took hold: scorched floors, burnt debris, a hole through the ceiling. Every day it stands unprotected, Kingstanding risks waking up to the news nobody wants: ninety years of memories gone in a single night. A building like this, once lost, is lost forever.

We call on Birmingham City Council to:

1. Immediately secure and protect the building, working with Historic England.
2. Carry out a formal assessment of the fire damage and the building’s condition without delay.
3. Confirm ownership, maintenance responsibilities and the Council’s powers to act.
4. Work with local councillors and residents on a feasibility study to bring the building back to life as a community hub — a young people’s centre, a public library, a contact centre, a community café, performing arts and workspace for council officers and councillors, following the successful Lighthouse model in Aston.
5. Set a clear timetable for action, so the building is not left to rot through delay.

Imagine the doors open again: teenagers with somewhere to go on a Friday night, mums with a library on their doorstep, pensioners with a warm café where everybody knows them. That is what this building could be — for the same families whose memories it already holds.

Kingstanding has lost too much already. The Odeon does not have to be next — but only if the council acts before neglect makes the decision for us. Sign the petition, share it with your street, and write to your councillors. Don’t let them tell us in a year’s time that it’s too late.