Balsall Heath is an inner city neighbourhood between Highgate and Moseley centred around the A435, two miles south of Birmingham City Centre. It was once infamous as a red light neighbourhood with an estimated £10m a year sex industry – where pimps and dealers traded openly and kerbcrawlers pestered local women. Now Balsall Heath is a place politicians on all sides point to as a model of the kind of neighbourhood revival they want to see elsewhere; aGuide Neighbourhood; and one of Birmingham’s best performing neighbourhoods in terms of LAA indicators for strong communities (see Chamberlain Forum article and NI4/5 graph).

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