A shopping centre owned by Birmingham City Council has gradually emptied and is looking in a sorry state, but a regeneration officer has confirmed new owners could be about to take over and revive itInside abandoned Red Rose Centre in Sutton Coldfield where 4 shops remain
Bricks and mortar shops have taken a battering in recent years and in one Birmingham shopping centre just four remain.
With a shift to online shopping, accelerated by the Covid pandemic, and a long-standing drift towards out-of-town shopping parks, offering free parking, town centre retailers have come under real pressure.
That has never been more apparent than in Sutton Coldfield, where this week its indoor market shut suddenly, leaving 15 traders high and dry with no place to work from.
Read more: Traders forced to shut up shop as indoor market owner goes into liquidation
But across the road from the indoor market is another sorry sight.
The slowly decaying Red Rose Centre, for the past 10 years or so owned by Birmingham City Council.
Slowly but surely, businesses have left. Signs for the Rumour nightclub remain but faded, like a distant memory of a good night out.
Beside Rumour is the former Cooltrader, a unit frozen out for years with no takers.
The Red Rose Centre sits in a corner of Sutton Coldfileld town centre next to where a lot of the buses drop off and pick up
Walk a few footsteps from the old frozen food emporium and you will reach the former Sainsbury’s ‘anchor store’ site at the centre, turned Wilko’s. But Wilko’s went more than three years ago.
You may also trigger a dystopian, automated message ‘attention please, the area is under surveillance’, as a CCTV camera flashes to let you know it is watching you.
You are being watched – wherever you go these days.
The former Sutton News sits near the bus stops and is one of the first units you come to but is now boarded up and has attracted vandals with one of its windows smashed
Sutton News, which fronted onto the bus stops, went a couple of years ago – the owner is understood to have not been paying rent for months or years before finally going.
And a Scope charity shop and former Poundworld also lay dormant. Nine empty units in total.
A security guard said he had issues mainly with school children ‘from 3pm to 5pm’. He pointed to boarded up glass he said had been broken by one.
But he added he has a body worn camera which he switches on when there is trouble and reports children to their schools, which helps to quell the trouble.
Read more: Desperate messages of market traders given just hours to clear out
Three big-name shops also left the front of the Red Rose Centre in 2025 – Greggs, then Hays Travel and Specsavers. All have crossed the road into the Gracechurch Centre.
Beside those retailers, two other hammer blows to the centre have come at the hands of the city council.
The closure of the Victoria Road multi-storey car park, killed off a lot of passing trade.
As has last summer’s closure of Sutton Coldfield Library, which campaigners had fought to keep open, and supplemented by payments from Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council.
Inside Corefit – a ‘thriving’ martial arts centre at Red Rose – one of four businsesses still operating there
So now there are just four businesses left now – but one of them is thriving.
Corefit, a marshal arts centre and gym, specialising in Muay Thai boxing and functional training, has some 220 members.
Its like a rabbit warren, the more you go into it the more you find with three big rooms, with weights, a boxing ring, mats and bags sprinkled throughout the site.
It gets busy in the afternoons and evenings. And has been at the Red Rose Centre for more than 10 years.
Read more: New restaurant to open in city with thousands of pizzas to give away
A staff member said: “The centre has just changed a lot over the years.
“We still have a community here. The gym is thriving and doing well.
“We do MMA (mixed marshal arts) and Muay Thai. Lots of fitness classes, including for kids and ladies.
“We have a lot of fighters here in the UK’s top 10.”
She said it was ‘one of the best Muay Thai gyms in Birmingham and was belying its location managing to attract people, despite the rest of the centre slowly dying.
The empty shops and blocked-off Victoria Road multi-storey car park are symptomatic of the slowly decaying Red Rose Centre in Sutton Coldfield which is desperate for a change in ownership
Asked about the state of the Red Rose Centre, the staff member continued: “it’s obviously been on our mind.
“But because we haven’t had any dates [to leave] we are hoping we can stay.
“We are always adding more classes. All our coaches here have 15 to 20 years experience.
“We are looking at other places. Either way we will stay open.”
It currently opens Mondays to Saturdays, from 12 til 9pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3pm to 9pm Mondays and Wednesdays, 3pm to 8pm Fridays and 9am to 3pm on Saturdays.
The staff member added: “Other shops leaving has harmed us a little bit because of the footfall.”
Read more: Neighbouring restaurants apply to expand as one says they ‘need it to pay bills’
Another tenant is the British Heart Foundation Shop which has been labelled Sutton Coldfield’s ‘best charity shop’.
Last year fears were raised for its future, on the back of the library closure in the summer.
Asked this week if they had heard anything on what was happening to the Red Rose Centre, a volunteer staff member was none the wiser.
He did though say he enjoyed working there and despite the shopping centre’s issues there was a steady stream of customers.
Across the road from the BHF is Ahead barbers – and Lottie Lea Photograhy.
Those businesses are owned by a dad and his daughter.
The owner of Ahead barbers, Peter Morris, has been at the Red Rose Centre for 14 years but his lease expires at the end of 2026 and he is looking for a new shop
Peter Morris moved into the Red Rose Centre 14 years ago, from the now closed indoor market. He moved as the then In Shops was not doing well.
Back then the Red Rose Centre was thriving and he says his business ‘turned around overnight’.
But now he has a lease until the end of the year and will then move on, if he’s not asked to leave before.
Read more: I visited new café and it was like stepping into another world
The 51-year-old said: “I have got until the end of 2026.
“Fortunately, we have got our regular customers.
“We have gone from a profitable business, to a business that’s surviving. We are going to have to relocate at the end of the year.
“I moved from the market 14 years ago. I left because I was surrounded by empty units – like I am now. I was there 16-and-a-half years.
“But I have been in Sutton 30 years.
“Even Colliers the managing agents don’t know what is going on. I mentioned Greggs last February they didn’t know they were leaving. Then Hays Travel and Specsavers, who did not want to go.”
Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp
Peter lives in Lichfield but said opening there would be like starting again, as his customers are all in Sutton – where he is is handy by the buses.
But he added: “Lichfield is what Sutton Coldfield should be.” Asked why he said: “I think its because the units should be smaller.
“They should turn Marks and Spencers into smaller units, like they have in other cities like Leeds.”
Read more: Store in shopping centre ‘closing down’ as chain goes into administration
But what of that hope for the centre?
Sainsbury’s still has a lease – rumoured to be in the region of £300,000-a-year. And a dispute with city council, with both wanting the other to buy their way out of the agreement, meant an impasse on any sale and redevelopment.
Cooltrader is long gone from the Red Rose Centre and one of a number of empty units a the back
But that appears to have changed now, as a comment at last week’s Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council meeting has sparked hope of a revival to one of Sutton’s biggest retail sites.
An update was given on the regeneration of Sutton’s town centre from the town council’s head of regeneration and sustainability, Jon Lord, and he said: “The Red Rose Centre is in the process of being sold.”
That has now been confirmed by Birmingham City Council with a spokesman saying: “We can confirm that Birmingham City Council are in discussions with a potential purchaser who would seek to redevelop the centre.”
Get the latest Sutton Coldfield news delivered direct to your inbox
So could we finally be getting a new owner and bigger still a redevelopment?
Cllr David Pears (Sutton Trinity, Cons.) is the city and town councillor for the area and he was tight-lipped on who the new buyer could be, but confirmed something is in the offing.
The Red Rose Centre in Sutton Coldfield
He said: “I do not like to see any empty units in the town centrte at all.
“For some years I have been beating the drum with council officers it.
“But anything with Birmingham [city council] is slow.
“But I think we are making some progress here. If we can get this sale done this year it will give us some certainty.”
But certainty with any development or change in Sutton Coldfield town centre is the one thing in short supply….