Birmingham Unlimited

By Business Birmingham

Welcome to a city powered by technology and innovation. Birmingham and its city region have unlimited business potential – investing billions into transport and infrastructure. It is a leading European destination with the resources to help energise your business and power your ambitions. Home to over 42,000 companies, including 900 international firms, it is in the centre of a £94 billion regional economy.

The largest regional financial centre in the UK, Birmingham and its surrounding area is home to 24,000 financial and business service providers including HSBC, the Islamic Bank of Britain and Deutsche Bank. It is also the base for the recently launched Business Growth Fund, a government-backed initiative that has £2.5 billion to invest in growing businesses.

The first BT Wireless City, Birmingham is also the UK’s hotspot for e-commerce start-ups.

Transport across the region is equally fast moving with £200 million being invested at Birmingham Airport, recently voted Best UK Airport, the £17 billion High Speed rail link and the iconic £600 million New Street Station Gateway scheme. Birmingham is also the most connected UK city, with access to over 90% of the UK market within a four hour travel time and 126 direct connections from Birmingham Airport every day. Yet, office rental costs are half those in the capital and the cost of living is significantly lower.

It is a city of real creativity that delivers the ideas, entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic needed for business success, supported by its status as the highest ranking English city for university quality (Cushman & Wakefield, 2011). This results in an existing and emerging talent pool, which provides access to a working age population of 4.3 million and 97,000 highly skilled graduates within one-hour’s drive each year.

Voted the UK’s most attractive regional city for quality of life by Mercer’s 2011 Quality of Living Survey, you won’t just do business in Birmingham. You’ll thrive. So if you’re looking for a modern, international location with excellent communication links and a bright, young and highly talented workforce, get in touch to find out more.

Insider Midlands Property Breakfast 2011

Midland property leaders have told Insider that some development must take place on Green Belt land, and have called on politicians to revise their views on building on the "sacred spaces".

At Insider’s property breakfast Mark Barrow, strategic director of development at Birmingham City Council, said that some construction in the city would have to take place on Green Belt land. "Let’s be clear about this - these were borders set in 1947, and we need to think about what the city of 100 years from now needs, not the one of 60 years ago," he said.

"Sometimes we’re talking about developing scrubby bits of land that lie between A roads and the M42 but are technically Green Belt. It’s bizarre.”

Barrow told the breakfast, held at 35 Newhall Street, Birmingham, that if all the developments needed up to 2060 went ahead the amount of Britain that was built on would rise by just two percent to 12 percent.

His views were echoed by Miller Birch chairman Peter Gadsby about development in the East Midlands.

Gadsby said that, although the three cities of Nottingham, Derby and Leicester did not like the idea of growing closer, "these bits of green belt are no longer sacred or make sense".

He added: "There has to be an emphasis that moves away from brownfield: if you want a better infrastructure, with new roads and access, it must, by its nature, be on Green Belt. These are challenging times and we need another look at the issue."

A full report of Insider’s property breakfast is available in the January 2011 issue of Midlands Business Insider.