The vision for a Police Museum at the old Lock Up has moved one step closer to reality with the appointment of a design team.

Heritage Interpretation Consultants, Campbell and Co, have been appointed to design how a police museum in the Victorian Lock Up space will look with heritage architects Lathams producing the new plans for the building.       

Thanks to Heritage Lottery players, a successful first-round Heritage Lottery Fund bid has funded the consultants, who are now drafting up an interpretation plan to include which items will be housed in the museum initially and how they will be displayed. The displays will tell stories of prisoners and staff, including the real ‘peaky blinders’ who were incarcerated in the building and how the original ‘Lock-Up matrons’ from 1895 formed some of the very first ‘women in policing.’

The plan will form a crucial part of the second round Heritage Lottery Fund bid, which if successful, will then make the plans a reality. Commenting on the force’s plans to create a self-sustaining museum in the unique atmospheric cell block, the Heritage Lottery Fund have said that the project is one of a kind in the West Midlands.

Further work by the Museum team will plan how and where exhibits will be housed, how the museum will be run, what events it will offer and how it will survive in the long term by becoming self-funding. Corinne Brazier, who works on the WMP Heritage Project said:

“It’s really exciting to have the design team on board to help us bring our vision for a unique museum of policing in the West Midlands to life.

"There are so many great stories to be told, from the time the Peaky Blinders were housed in the building to the evolution of the role of women in policing. The design team will help us to share those stories with visitors,’

West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, David Jamieson added: “The museum at Steelhouse Lane will help West Midlands Police reach out to communities and show how the force has developed and changed over the years.

“After success with the first round of lottery funding I am pleased that we now have a design team in place to begin piecing it all together. I look forward to seeing the project develop. A self-sustaining police museum will be a really worthwhile addition to the whole region.”

The Lock Up is currently ranked fifth by Trip Advisor out of the 265 things visitors can do in Birmingham. The second round Heritage Lottery Funding bid will be submitted next March

To follow the progress of the bid follow @WMPHistory on Twitter or ‘The Lock Up’ on Facebook