Kingstanding

This summary reflects the Atlas' current understanding of the ward based on the evidence analysed so far.

Overview

Sources:ONSAI-assistedCivic Atlas

Summary

Kingstanding appears to have a small but unusually interconnected set of local venues supporting family life, youth activity, older residents and recovery. The strongest pattern is not simply the number of organisations associated with the ward, but the repeated use of a few community settings—especially Kingstanding Leisure Centre, St John’s Community Centre and Maryvale Community Centre—as practical civic infrastructure.

Context

Based on the organisations currently reviewed by the Civic Atlas, Kingstanding has evidence of current activity from neighbourhood organisations as well as services delivered by wider Birmingham bodies. The available employment-deprivation measure is an IMD 2019 employment score of 20.5%; without a comparator in the supplied evidence, this should be treated as context rather than a conclusion about relative need. Several records also represent historic, duplicate or grant-funded relationships rather than separate current local services, so the headline count of 28 organisations should not be read as 28 distinct active providers in the ward.

See observations

Profile

Political power: Reform UK

IMD: 20.5%

Civic organisations (28)

The Atlas has evidence of 28 organisations operating here.

Show results • 28 of 28 organisations

Discoveries involving organisations in this ward

The Atlas has not published any Discoveries involving organisations in this ward yet.

Observations

Sources:Civic AtlasAI-assisted

  • Kingstanding Leisure Centre appears to be a shared civic platform, not just a sports venue

    The available evidence shows several otherwise different organisations using Kingstanding Leisure Centre for recurring activity: Home-Start Birmingham North West runs family and parenting sessions there; DATUS runs weekly recovery mutual-aid meetings and fortnightly family-and-friends meetings; and Beacon and Lighthouse Ministries lists weekly judo sessions. This suggests that the venue may function as a practical point of contact between family support, recovery support and physical activity. The evidence does not show that these organisations coordinate with one another, but their co-location creates an opportunity for connections that may not yet be visible.

    Why it matters

    Shared venues can reduce the effort required for residents to encounter support, build trust and move between services. A parent attending a family session, for example, may be closer to other sources of help than service maps alone would suggest. It would be worth exploring whether the organisations see the centre as a common community gateway, or simply as separate hired space.

    Show evidence

    • Home-Start Birmingham North-West — What's On, September–December 2025:
      Lists recurring Play and Learn, SEND Play and Learn, Baby Sensory, Freedom Programme and Solihull Approach sessions at Kingstanding Leisure Centre.

    • DATUS — LIFE Mutual Aid Groups and LIFE Family & Friends Groups, updated June 2026:
      Lists weekly LIFE meetings and a fortnightly Family and Friends meeting at Kingstanding Leisure Centre.

    • Beacon and Lighthouse Ministries UK — Timetable & Activities:
      Lists Monday Beacon Judokwai sessions for tots, juniors and adults at Kingstanding Leisure Centre.

  • The ward has locally rooted support across generations, concentrated in a few community anchors

    Kingstanding’s strongest directly evidenced local organisations cover different stages of life: Friends of Kings Rise links school families with a community hub; Home-Start supports parents with young children; New Heights works with young people, parents, older people and people with disabilities; Maryvale provides lunch clubs, activities and befriending for older people and adults with disabilities; and Tame Valley Scouts offers youth provision. This looks less like a collection of single-purpose charities and more like a locally anchored support ecology, with organisations responding to overlapping family, social-isolation, aspiration and wellbeing needs.

    Why it matters

    The combination may be a local strength: young people, parents, older residents and people with disabilities are not wholly served through separate systems. However, the evidence mainly establishes parallel activity, not coordinated pathways. A useful next question is whether families and older residents can move easily between these organisations when needs change—for example from school support to parenting support, or from social activity to advice and befriending.

    Show evidence

    • New Heights — About Us and New Heights Community Café:
      Identifies Kingstanding-based community-centre, café, counselling, welfare-advice, advocacy and community activity provision, including work with young people, parents and older residents.

    • Maryvale Community Project website and trustees' report for year ended 31 October 2024:
      States that the project supports older people and adults with learning disabilities in Kingstanding, Great Barr and the Pheasey Estate, including lunch clubs, activities and befriending.

    • Friends of Kings Rise — supplied organisation record and Volunteer Brum profile:
      Describes support for children at Kings Rise Academy and community-building activity through the Roots to Rise Community Hub in Kingstanding.

    • Tame Valley Scouts — 213th Birmingham Kingstanding group page:
      States that sections from Squirrels through to Explorers meet at Maryvale Community Centre in Kingstanding.

  • Recovery support is clearly visible; the wider local mental-health picture is much less certain

    DATUS provides the clearest current evidence of structured recovery support in Kingstanding, with several regular peer-led meetings at the leisure centre. New Heights also identifies counselling among its Kingstanding services. By contrast, Oasis Social Centre is registered with a mental-health purpose, but its latest financial information is from 2019, reporting is overdue and its listed website is unavailable. Bethel Health and Healing Network includes Kingstanding in a wider Health Champions geography, but no named Kingstanding venue or caseload is published. This may indicate that there are more mental-health-related assets than are currently visible, rather than demonstrating a lack of provision.

    Why it matters

    The distinction matters because residents, referrers and local organisations may be able to identify reliable recovery support more easily than they can identify current broader mental-health support. Clarifying what is active, where it is delivered and how people access it could reveal either an overlooked local strength or an important navigation gap.

    Show evidence

    • DATUS — LIFE Mutual Aid Groups and LIFE Family & Friends Groups, updated June 2026:
      Lists weekly peer mutual-aid meetings and fortnightly support for family and friends at Kingstanding Leisure Centre.

    • New Heights — About Us:
      States that counselling services, including outreach, are based in Kingstanding.

    • Charity Commission Register of Charities — Oasis Social Centre:
      Records a mental-health purpose but shows the latest financial year as ending 31 December 2019 and substantially overdue reporting.

    • Bethel Health & Healing Network — West Birmingham Health Champions programme:
      Includes Kingstanding in its stated programme geography, while not identifying a fixed local delivery venue.

  • The apparent number of organisations may overstate the ward’s independent local capacity

    The organisation list includes bodies with very different relationships to Kingstanding: some have direct recurring local activity, some provide grants to eligible residents, some have one-off or time-bounded activity, and some are represented by legacy or duplicate records. In particular, the older Birmingham City Mission charity record explicitly says it is redundant and was replaced in 1995, while two New Heights records share the same address, financial figures and substantially the same activities. This means that organisation counts alone may obscure the more important question: which organisations are currently active, locally accessible and able to respond to residents’ needs.

    Why it matters

    A ward can appear well-resourced on a list while relying on a much smaller number of active sites, staff teams and trusted local relationships. Treating every record as an equivalent local provider could lead to overestimating capacity, overlooking pressure on the most active organisations, or missing opportunities to strengthen the venues that carry much of the local civic load.

    Show evidence

    • Supplied organisation record — Birmingham City Mission of the Midlands Evangelistic Fellowship, charity 258209:
      States that the charity is redundant and was replaced by Birmingham City Mission, charity 1051023, when incorporated in 1995.

    • Supplied organisation records — New Heights Warren Farm Community Project, charities 1120869 and 1196648:
      Both records identify the same Warren Farm Road/St John's Centre location, report the same 2024 income and expenditure figures, and describe substantially the same Kingstanding-focused activities.

    • Operational-geography records for The Albion Foundation, The Eveson Trust and The Birmingham Children's Community Venture:
      These records identify Kingstanding connections through a 2024 school workshop, grant-funded partner activity, or a member-school relationship, rather than evidence of a continuously operated local service base.

    Remaining uncertainties

  • The available evidence identifies several active local venues, but it does not show whether the organisations using them have referral agreements, shared outreach, coordinated casework or joint planning.
  • Current activity is much clearer for some organisations than others. Historical, one-off, grant-funded or indirect links to Kingstanding should not be treated as evidence of a continuing local service.
  • The supplied coverage indicator states that zero organisations have been reviewed, despite detailed operational-geography assessments being present for many organisations. The evidence should therefore be read as a developing, incomplete picture rather than a complete account of the ward’s civic life.
  • There is insufficient evidence to assess which communities are least reached by the current local support network, including people who do not use schools, faith settings, community centres or the leisure centre.

    Additional evidence needed

  • A current shared venue map and timetable for Kingstanding Leisure Centre, St John's Community Centre, Maryvale Community Centre, Roots to Rise and other regularly used local spaces, including which organisations deliver there and how residents access them.
  • Evidence of current referral and partnership relationships between New Heights, Home-Start, Maryvale Community Project, Friends of Kings Rise, DATUS, schools, faith organisations and leisure-centre users.
  • A current, safeguarding-appropriate directory of mental-health, counselling, recovery and family-support provision in the ward, including eligibility, waiting routes and whether services remain active.
  • Updated annual reports or direct confirmation for organisations with old, duplicate, indirect or unclear records, so that current local capacity can be distinguished from historic associations and grant-funded activity.