A Birmingham community has become the inspiration behind David Cameron’s vision of a Big Society. Edward Chadwick discovers how Balsall Heath residents have transformed their suburb.

Baskets bursting with colour hang from rows of inner-city terraced houses.

Volunteers sip cold drinks delivered by neighbours while they help to clear a rubbish-strewn garden. Residents on every street have a say how money should be spent locally.

It sounds like urban utopia but in fact it’s an everyday scene played out at the heart of Birmingham’s blueprint for the Government’s Big Society initiative.

And what makes the example set by Balsall Heath all the more remarkable is the fact that it was once crawling with prostitutes, crack dealers and pimps, an area where residents were too terrified to walk their own streets.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that Prime Minister David Cameron should use the neighbourhood to paint a picture of his vision to cure the country’s ailments.

His flagship policy will, he promises, hand power to every man and woman as communities take over the role of the state. They will get the right to run local recycling services and amenities free from the shackles of town hall bureaucracy.

Funded by a Big Society Bank, communities will be able to flourish in a move which Mr Cameron has vowed will stop them becoming “soulless clones of one another”.

And the reality in Balsall Heath isn’t far removed from the picture painted by Tory leader in his announcement last month.

Dick Atkinson, the chief executive of Balsall Heath Forum and architect of this unique social enterprise, is happy the success has been recognised, but tempers that with a warning.

Victory has taken nearly two decades since a group of residents who grew sick of the sight of vice girls took to street corners with placards and shamed them in to taking the sex trade elsewhere.

Campaigners worked eight-hour night shifts patrolling the streets on top of their full-time jobs and some were attacked as they fought tooth and nail to wrestle their neighbourhood out of the clutches of the criminals.

But, hard-fought as it was, the triumph came slowly but surely. The forum now employs 15 people and can rely on an army of 120 volunteers at any time.

One of the biggest battles remains the struggle to raise the £400,000 annual budget and projects have been slowed by council suspicion.

But Dr Atkinson hopes the Government’s new commitment will help to make funding more accessible and clear some of the red tape the forum finds itself having to negotiate.

He has also dashed suggestions that many neighbourhoods lack the will or ability to make changes.