News - Midlands
Long-term vision
Pause, stall, slowdown, trough, hiccup - whichever word you choose, the last 12 months has seen a growing impression that the wheels have fallen off central Birmingham's regeneration effort.
The long and unhappy history of the city's new library and the slow pace of progress on an unhelpfully-placed toxic chemicals factory have both cast a shadow over progress in the vast Eastside regeneration area. A series of other minor headaches around the city centre fringe, at sites like Great Charles Street, have not helped improve confidence.
Insiders whisper that the ruling Conservative / Lib Dem coalition in control of Birmingham City Council have decided "at the highest political level" that they'd like to see things tightened up. Officials privately confess that things haven't been quite as co-ordinated as they might.
Now the council has decided to fight back. They want to prove that far from being freewheeling, the central Birmingham regeneration strategy is preparing for rapid acceleration. Recently-installed regeneration bosses like Clive Dutton, the city council's planning and regeneration supremo; and Stuart Kirkwood, new director of development at Advantage West Midlands (AWM), have the task of removing problems and convincing doubters.
The doubts they have to resolve are widespread and amount to a general sense of disappointment that, after the completion of the celebrated new Bullring scheme, regeneration in key city fringe sites hasn't made much visible progress since. In short, the city stands accused of letting things go slightly off the boil.
However, closer inspection of what is really going on on the ground presents a different picture. A ring of regeneration activity surrounds Birmingham city centre, with the council targeting specific sites in Eastside, Bristol Road, Great Charles Street and Park Central while other major landowners such as the Calthorpe Estate are bringing forward major developments such as Edgbaston Shopping Centre, Pebble Mill and a host of smaller sites across Edgbaston.
The public sector also has substantial developments underway - or in the pipeline - such as Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the redevelopment of New Street Station, while private developers are busy with major schemes at Martineau Galleries, the Post & Mail Site, Snow Hill, The Hub, Arena Central, Eastside and Digbeth.
The Jewellery Quarter and the Gun Quarter are also still alive with development activity - and many eyes are on plans to link the area better with the city core via a new bridge. The proposed link over Great Charles Street Queensway would also tie in nicely with developer Ballymore's plans for the site beside Snow Hill station.
So does it all come down to perception? Gary Cardin, partner in charge at property and planning consultant Drivers Jonas, makes the point that regeneration simply takes an incredibly long-time to deliver.
"There is an element of truth in the suggestion that regeneration has stalled," he says, conceding that often the city council simply hasn't the powers or resources to push development as fast as some might like, and he's far from dismissive of the progress that has already been made. But indecision over the library and delays elsewhere leave him concerned.
Cardin says: "Birmingham is a large city and a complex city, but there does need to be a clearer focus, a clearer vision and a clearer statement of what needs to be done. That will help the city to engage with investors so that they can see Birmingham as a credible choice. I'm pretty sure the city council could get sharper, even if there are also external reasons why the regeneration effort might have slowed," says Cardin, before adding the dreaded words: "I fear we're in danger of lagging behind slightly, compared to Manchester."
There is some sympathy for this point of view in the regeneration hierarchy. AWM's new development director Kirkwood, who joined the agency from developer Mentmore earlier in 2006, resists the idea that there has been a slowdown, but thinks it might be useful for regeneration leaders to speak more often and more clearly about how major projects fit together.
"Clarity in life is important for people in the city and people attracted to the city," says Kirkwood. "There might well be an argument that we should seek to do more to involve people in the process - to use their skills and experience.
"Often I know that a lot of private firms are guilty of sitting on the sidelines and not wanting to get terribly engaged with the big issues," he continues, mentioning no names.
A second area of concern focuses on timetables. Despite massive progress in Eastside - a new magistrates court on its way; first residential developments completing; a new college and planning permissions for Martineau Place agreed - the sense remains that the timetable is unrealistic and projects are oversold.
John Griffiths, director at GBR Property Consultants in Birmingham, is effusive in his praise for Eastside regeneration so far, but he's equally certain the original timetable was always undeliverable.
"The timescale originally announced for the delivery of Eastside from idea to fully-developed concept was unrealistic," says Griffiths. "Three or four years ago it was described as a ten-year project - and my feeling then was that would be nice, but there wasn't a cat-in-hell's chance of it being met, given the size and complexity and the number of bodies involved. To me it's more like a 20 or 25-year programme."
Griffiths points to experience at Brindleyplace, which at 1 million sq ft was vastly smaller than Eastside, but took 15 years to deliver.
Much of the difficulty in Eastside can be laid at the door of the planning blight created by the MacDermid chemicals plant at Palmer Street (see panel p53). A solution to the MacDermid problem seems close, which will open the way to a new wave of Eastside development.
Others suggest the council has been tempted into handling too many regeneration projects at once. "Regeneration projects necessarily take time yet there is an impatience to achieve and a willingness for the projects to happen sooner," says Barry Allen, head of property consultant Savills' Birmingham office.
"The perception of timescales for achievement tends to get foreshortened against reality. Nevertheless, there are lessons - and one is that there is a need to deliver on projects before leaping to the next and there is an element of the grasshopper approach within Birmingham currently."
Geoffrey Barrett, director of Edgbaston-based architect Crouch Butler Savage, agrees and worries that too many schemes in too many places could lead to overload.
"There is some debate as to whether all of Birmingham's potential schemes will be given the proper care and attention required at each stage of their procurement from inception to completion," says Barrett. "With all the competing elements involved, resources could become seriously stretched. Only time will tell whether they will offer beacons of excellence to light the way to the future."
Birmingham City Council's Clive Dutton says it is "nonsense" to suggest there's been a slackening in the pace of regeneration on key sites around the city fringe. "The ambition to create a new urban quarter on the scale of Eastside is time-consuming, but decisions we're taking today will push progress into overdrive," he declares.
"Its easy for people to suggest that complex urban regeneration in a city centre is easy. It isn't. It's complicated, and problems like the library and the MacDermid have had to be tackled. But you've got to look forward rather than backwards. The first phase of the Masshouse developments is now on site, Countryside / Quintain are bringing forward another site, and we've moved ahead with Martineau Galleries. The future is incredibly rosy."
But Dutton nonetheless acknowledges that there's no harm in the council thinking more strategically about the city fringe sites. "Since I arrived in this job the one thing I've been convinced is missing is providing the long-term vision and context for the future of the city centre for many decades - economic, social and cultural," he says. "Now we've broken the concrete collar around the city centre we need to look at the bridgeheads between new areas and the city centre."
"What's required is an overall context for the city centre area that looks at how we join up all the things that have been undertaken and the next phases of regeneration - which must be seamless - as well as how it responds to other factors in the city such as its youthfulness, multiculturalism, economic future and housing need."
Professor Michael Parkinson will lead the first phase of the review into the 2000-acre central Birmingham area regeneration. Dutton hopes the new comprehensive plan will lay to rest concerns about the regeneration process. "It will deal systematically with issues that people might, rightly or wrongly, have been concerned about," he says.
But behind every regeneration issue lie two imponderables. The first is the extent of public sector funding. Nobody but Whitehall is in a position to give guarantees on this issue. More widely, market-led urban regeneration of the kind Birmingham has seen - and hopes to see in Eastside - depends on sufficiently favourable market conditions.
Some fear that the city's office market is not robust enough to justify bold new regeneration schemes in untried areas; others think the market could be deterred from risking the Eastside and other city fringe locations unless investment in infrastructure is stepped up.
Ashley Hancox, head of agency at surveyor GSD, is encouraged to see new development at sites like Greater Charles Street, but has his doubts about the wider strategy.
"Development at Great Charles Street has been stalled for years thanks to doubts about the future of the coach station," he says. "The city council now seems to have resolved those issues and developers like HBG are moving in to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that creates. But it is vitally important that the city gets things like transport right. I'm not sure we've had the guidance from the city to achieve that."
The long and unhappy history of the city's new library and the slow pace of progress on an unhelpfully-placed toxic chemicals factory have both cast a shadow over progress in the vast Eastside regeneration area. A series of other minor headaches around the city centre fringe, at sites like Great Charles Street, have not helped improve confidence.
Insiders whisper that the ruling Conservative / Lib Dem coalition in control of Birmingham City Council have decided "at the highest political level" that they'd like to see things tightened up. Officials privately confess that things haven't been quite as co-ordinated as they might.
Now the council has decided to fight back. They want to prove that far from being freewheeling, the central Birmingham regeneration strategy is preparing for rapid acceleration. Recently-installed regeneration bosses like Clive Dutton, the city council's planning and regeneration supremo; and Stuart Kirkwood, new director of development at Advantage West Midlands (AWM), have the task of removing problems and convincing doubters.
The doubts they have to resolve are widespread and amount to a general sense of disappointment that, after the completion of the celebrated new Bullring scheme, regeneration in key city fringe sites hasn't made much visible progress since. In short, the city stands accused of letting things go slightly off the boil.
However, closer inspection of what is really going on on the ground presents a different picture. A ring of regeneration activity surrounds Birmingham city centre, with the council targeting specific sites in Eastside, Bristol Road, Great Charles Street and Park Central while other major landowners such as the Calthorpe Estate are bringing forward major developments such as Edgbaston Shopping Centre, Pebble Mill and a host of smaller sites across Edgbaston.
The public sector also has substantial developments underway - or in the pipeline - such as Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the redevelopment of New Street Station, while private developers are busy with major schemes at Martineau Galleries, the Post & Mail Site, Snow Hill, The Hub, Arena Central, Eastside and Digbeth.
The Jewellery Quarter and the Gun Quarter are also still alive with development activity - and many eyes are on plans to link the area better with the city core via a new bridge. The proposed link over Great Charles Street Queensway would also tie in nicely with developer Ballymore's plans for the site beside Snow Hill station.
So does it all come down to perception? Gary Cardin, partner in charge at property and planning consultant Drivers Jonas, makes the point that regeneration simply takes an incredibly long-time to deliver.
"There is an element of truth in the suggestion that regeneration has stalled," he says, conceding that often the city council simply hasn't the powers or resources to push development as fast as some might like, and he's far from dismissive of the progress that has already been made. But indecision over the library and delays elsewhere leave him concerned.
Cardin says: "Birmingham is a large city and a complex city, but there does need to be a clearer focus, a clearer vision and a clearer statement of what needs to be done. That will help the city to engage with investors so that they can see Birmingham as a credible choice. I'm pretty sure the city council could get sharper, even if there are also external reasons why the regeneration effort might have slowed," says Cardin, before adding the dreaded words: "I fear we're in danger of lagging behind slightly, compared to Manchester."
There is some sympathy for this point of view in the regeneration hierarchy. AWM's new development director Kirkwood, who joined the agency from developer Mentmore earlier in 2006, resists the idea that there has been a slowdown, but thinks it might be useful for regeneration leaders to speak more often and more clearly about how major projects fit together.
"Clarity in life is important for people in the city and people attracted to the city," says Kirkwood. "There might well be an argument that we should seek to do more to involve people in the process - to use their skills and experience.
"Often I know that a lot of private firms are guilty of sitting on the sidelines and not wanting to get terribly engaged with the big issues," he continues, mentioning no names.
A second area of concern focuses on timetables. Despite massive progress in Eastside - a new magistrates court on its way; first residential developments completing; a new college and planning permissions for Martineau Place agreed - the sense remains that the timetable is unrealistic and projects are oversold.
John Griffiths, director at GBR Property Consultants in Birmingham, is effusive in his praise for Eastside regeneration so far, but he's equally certain the original timetable was always undeliverable.
"The timescale originally announced for the delivery of Eastside from idea to fully-developed concept was unrealistic," says Griffiths. "Three or four years ago it was described as a ten-year project - and my feeling then was that would be nice, but there wasn't a cat-in-hell's chance of it being met, given the size and complexity and the number of bodies involved. To me it's more like a 20 or 25-year programme."
Griffiths points to experience at Brindleyplace, which at 1 million sq ft was vastly smaller than Eastside, but took 15 years to deliver.
Much of the difficulty in Eastside can be laid at the door of the planning blight created by the MacDermid chemicals plant at Palmer Street (see panel p53). A solution to the MacDermid problem seems close, which will open the way to a new wave of Eastside development.
Others suggest the council has been tempted into handling too many regeneration projects at once. "Regeneration projects necessarily take time yet there is an impatience to achieve and a willingness for the projects to happen sooner," says Barry Allen, head of property consultant Savills' Birmingham office.
"The perception of timescales for achievement tends to get foreshortened against reality. Nevertheless, there are lessons - and one is that there is a need to deliver on projects before leaping to the next and there is an element of the grasshopper approach within Birmingham currently."
Geoffrey Barrett, director of Edgbaston-based architect Crouch Butler Savage, agrees and worries that too many schemes in too many places could lead to overload.
"There is some debate as to whether all of Birmingham's potential schemes will be given the proper care and attention required at each stage of their procurement from inception to completion," says Barrett. "With all the competing elements involved, resources could become seriously stretched. Only time will tell whether they will offer beacons of excellence to light the way to the future."
Birmingham City Council's Clive Dutton says it is "nonsense" to suggest there's been a slackening in the pace of regeneration on key sites around the city fringe. "The ambition to create a new urban quarter on the scale of Eastside is time-consuming, but decisions we're taking today will push progress into overdrive," he declares.
"Its easy for people to suggest that complex urban regeneration in a city centre is easy. It isn't. It's complicated, and problems like the library and the MacDermid have had to be tackled. But you've got to look forward rather than backwards. The first phase of the Masshouse developments is now on site, Countryside / Quintain are bringing forward another site, and we've moved ahead with Martineau Galleries. The future is incredibly rosy."
But Dutton nonetheless acknowledges that there's no harm in the council thinking more strategically about the city fringe sites. "Since I arrived in this job the one thing I've been convinced is missing is providing the long-term vision and context for the future of the city centre for many decades - economic, social and cultural," he says. "Now we've broken the concrete collar around the city centre we need to look at the bridgeheads between new areas and the city centre."
"What's required is an overall context for the city centre area that looks at how we join up all the things that have been undertaken and the next phases of regeneration - which must be seamless - as well as how it responds to other factors in the city such as its youthfulness, multiculturalism, economic future and housing need."
Professor Michael Parkinson will lead the first phase of the review into the 2000-acre central Birmingham area regeneration. Dutton hopes the new comprehensive plan will lay to rest concerns about the regeneration process. "It will deal systematically with issues that people might, rightly or wrongly, have been concerned about," he says.
But behind every regeneration issue lie two imponderables. The first is the extent of public sector funding. Nobody but Whitehall is in a position to give guarantees on this issue. More widely, market-led urban regeneration of the kind Birmingham has seen - and hopes to see in Eastside - depends on sufficiently favourable market conditions.
Some fear that the city's office market is not robust enough to justify bold new regeneration schemes in untried areas; others think the market could be deterred from risking the Eastside and other city fringe locations unless investment in infrastructure is stepped up.
Ashley Hancox, head of agency at surveyor GSD, is encouraged to see new development at sites like Greater Charles Street, but has his doubts about the wider strategy.
"Development at Great Charles Street has been stalled for years thanks to doubts about the future of the coach station," he says. "The city council now seems to have resolved those issues and developers like HBG are moving in to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that creates. But it is vitally important that the city gets things like transport right. I'm not sure we've had the guidance from the city to achieve that."