Andy Foster was born in Birmingham and brought up in Sutton Coldfield, but when he was young often stayed with an aunt in the Halesowen part of Blackheath. He read History of Art at Cambridge and was a Birmingham city councillor between 1980 and 1992. He is a member of the Lichfield Diocesan Advisory Commitee and the Birmingham Archdiocesan Historic Churches Commission. As well as the recently published Pevsner volume on Birmingham and the Black Country, he wrote a city guide to Birmingham (2005).
