£9.27m Lottery grant means Moseley Road Baths' Gala Pool will reopen

The restoration of Moseley Road Baths in Balsall Heath is fully funded, after a £9.27 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund completed a £16 million package for the second phase of work.

The grant, announced on 22 May, means the baths' Edwardian Gala Pool will be restored and the building brought back into full public use. It is one of only a handful of Grade II* listed swimming baths in the UK.

Who is paying

Alongside the Heritage Fund's £9,272,950, the package includes £5.1 million from Birmingham City Council towards this phase, part of a £10 million total commitment to the project; £970,455 from the regional combined authority's Public Sector Decarbonisation Fund for air source heat pumps; £350,000 from the Garfield Weston Foundation; £250,000 from the Architectural Heritage Fund; and smaller grants from the Edward Cadbury Trust and the Saintbury Trust.

What phase 2 will deliver

• Full restoration of the Gala Pool, including its mezzanine gallery and a new accessible viewing area.
• Pool 2 converted into a flexible events space.
• The Women's Slipper Baths transformed into a community health and wellbeing hub.
• The Men's Second Class Slipper Baths turned into a community gym.
• The old boiler room developed into a studio.

Phase 1, under way since September 2025, is repairing the roofs and basement, making the building watertight and fully restoring the neighbouring Balsall Heath Library, which is getting a new mezzanine floor. The baths are currently expected to reopen in late 2028.

For the first time in the building's history it will be accessible to all, with Changing Places facilities, a pool hoist, lift and ramp access, and wheelchair-accessible changing and viewing areas. Hard hat tours and community events will run during construction, with training and job opportunities for local people.

A building on the at-risk list

Moseley Road Baths is on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register, and was placed on the World Monuments Watch in 2016.

"For more than two decades, our community has fought to keep Moseley Road Baths open and to secure its future. Today's news is a moment of immense pride. We will swim in the Gala Pool again," said Joe Holyoak, Chair of the Friends of Moseley Road Baths.

Liz Bates of the National Lottery Heritage Fund called the baths "one of the most outstanding historic swimming pools in the UK", and said the project was "heritage that lives, breathes and serves its communities".

Mayor Richard Parker said the baths were "closer than ever to reopening to the public because local people never gave up on it", and that his funding would help keep energy bills down so the pools stay warm for generations of Brummies.