However, the city can change and as it develops, we will need a larger central area. In fact, this has already been happening. Changes to the Queensway have made it for the central area to expand and in the last 10 years, it has spread out to the west around Brindleyplace. If we look at the large office area at Fiveways, we could say that changes to the central area have been happening for almost 50 years. Recently, the central area has started spreading out to the east.

Brindleyplace has been very successful and is an easy walk from New Street. The Mailbox, Baskerville House and the leisure uses along Broad Street have also expanded the central area to the west. The Bullring to the south has helped improve people’s knowledge and opinion of Birmingham. It fits in well with the shops on New Street.

The central area will expand further while the Big City Plan is happening. The Plan will help make the central area bigger and better quality. The next place that the central area will spread out into is Eastside. The Masshouse development and Millenium Point have already started this process.

We have a great chance to improve the area to the south of the Historic Core, starting with the re-building of New Street Station. The new station will be very important in improving people’s knowledge and opinion of Birmingham and will make the experience of visitors arriving in the city much better.

Also, the Wholesale Markets are a very large site near the central area. These two areas will make up a large part of changes to the south of the traditional Historic Core. They can be used to improve the quality of the streets, spaces and transport links in the whole of the southern part of the city centre. We should think about the areas of New Street Station and the Wholesale Markets together.

So, even though the way the Big City Plan is organised is based on the existing central area, it will expand into nearby areas particularly Eastside, Westside and Southside. We want these areas to have lively and different features: for example the Gay Village and Chinese Quarter in Southside, leisure uses in Westside, the learning district in Eastside and food and specialist services and markets in Southside.

So, when you are reading the following sections, please remember that although the policy areas are set up by lines on a map, the activities in the city are changing and the central area activities will not really be limited by these boundaries.