Big City Plan Talk A Place To Talk About Birmingham’s Big City Plan

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Birmingham’s ambition is to be a ‘global city with a local heart.’ Birmingham aims to develop a global role in addition to its position as a regional capital. Growth is a key element of this plan. The city will grow considerably during the next 20 years to at least 1.1 million. Economic, social, cultural and educational facilities will need to grow even more to establish the city’s global role. Birmingham also aspires to be among the top 20 most liveable cities in the world within 20 years. This means developing a global economic and cultural role for Birmingham whilst nurturing the potential of everyone in the city and promoting a productive, innovative and welcoming environment for residents, visitors and investment.

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Birmingham – City of the Future

The City Council and its partners have made a number of steps towards turning this ambition into reality. The ‘Birmingham – City of the Future’ Conference was held in 2005. During this conference Professor Michael Parkinson of Liverpool John Moores University described Birmingham as having a brilliant first act, but suggested that it now needed to open its second act.

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Professor Parkinson was subsequently commissioned to ‘Vision the Masterplan’ to set the framework for the Big City Plan. His report recommended that careful thought be given to the best way to fund and deliver change in the city centre. He recommended that the Big City Plan should address five drivers of competitiveness, as follows:

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Innovation and skills – There needs to be better working between the universities, the local government and the private sector.

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Economic and cultural diversity – Birmingham’s city centre should become more diverse for residents or visitor in its architecture, public realm, cultural facilities, heritage, retail offer, services, especially for young and minority ethnic groups.

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Connectivity – Birmingham must address critical issues, including accessibility, internal mobility, digital connectivity and connections and its relationships with London and other major centres of population and business.

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Strategic capacity – Birmingham needs strong leadership, vision and a long term integrated and partnership approach to development.

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Quality of place – Birmingham city centre should become more diverse, more authentic and gritty, more multicultural, more friendly to young people.

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The contents of these recommendations have been at the heart of the subsequent work on the Big City Plan. The concepts contained in Professor Parkinson’s report were further developed in a Big Ideas Event held in November 2007 and in the development of a charter for the Big City Plan.

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The Council held a first stakeholder event (the Big Ideas Event) in November 2007. Ideas for the future of the city centre were discussed and shaped by a stakeholder group consisting of a team of international experts together with the newly-formed Big City Team, a group of young people from Birmingham interested in shaping its future. Following this event, the Council published its Big Ideas Charter. The Charter is a statement of intent for the city centre, which will help to define strategic objectives for the Big City Plan.

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The ten global themes within the Charter suggest how Birmingham can pursue its ambitions to operate and compete successfully within the global competitive market.

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The Charter also sets out ten local ideas which will appeal to the everyday concerns and the future aspirations of the million or so people who live, work and use Birmingham’s city centre. The ideas cover the broadest cross section of interests.

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Birmingham city centre should grow in population, economic strength and cultural diversity. The core and wider central area should house more major businesses and world class retail and cultural and recreational facilities. These central area activities will expand out of the core into neighbouring parts of the city centre.

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Birmingham should be an imaginative and ambitious city and a natural choice for major events. The city should aim to host at least one additional major international event within the plan period, such as an international Expo, successful Year of Culture/Architecture bid, or world sporting championship to galvanise action in the city.

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Birmingham should seek to raise the quality of life for individuals living within the city centre, in order to attract visitors, inward investors, new businesses and new citizens.

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Birmingham should actively seek to reflect the diversity of its population, through its enterprises, businesses and housing, and through the built environment, food, music, theatres and art.

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Birmingham needs to find expressions of the future that reflect its roots and history and concentrate on achieving excellent design quality and a sense of unique place right across the city centre.

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Birmingham must value its strong academic base and turn it into city-based enterprise if it is going to compete better on the world stage. Technological enterprise should be encouraged by new forms of workspace, flexible learning and living space and business support.

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Birmingham should seek to increase radically the number of families living in the city centre, to balance out the recent growth in small apartments and to support a wider range of city centre activities.

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Birmingham’s agencies should work together to deliver the essentials for city centre family living – new parks, schools, health centres, meeting places, local workplaces – all delivered in tandem with new homes.

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Birmingham must lead the field on achieving smart growth. This means finding new ways to reduce transport carbon; to manage energy in buildings; to make good use of water; and to minimise waste.

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Birmingham should actively promote the development of the high-speed rail network to the city centre.

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Birmingham should accommodate a great new family neighbourhood within the city centre. Birmingham should also provide for a range of housing types and tenures.

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Options for the running of the Metro, bus routes and walking routes need to be considered, so that the city centre is both accessible by public transport and space is freed up for pedestrians.

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Birmingham needs a strategy that deals with all types of routes from the biggest to the smallest. This will make the most of the good access that the outer ring road and other strategic routes provides, whilst ensuring that at a local scale high quality connections are provided to link new and existing spaces.

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Birmingham should master the art of fostering new enterprise. The potential for working close to home should also be explored and the widest range of employment space should be provided.

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Birmingham should become the focus for creative industries to rival those in other cities.

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Birmingham needs a comprehensive network of green spaces and canals. A range of smaller local pocket parks or gardens squares and great parks should be provided.

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If Birmingham is to accommodate a new urban neighbourhood then the best schools must be located close by. These should be multi-purpose buildings, which offer a range of activities for all sectors of the community; adult education at nights, sports facilities on the weekend, community meeting spaces, and library facilities.

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Birmingham should have a new Food Quarter. Birmingham could also embrace the Slow Food Movement and should actively market its cultural diversity in its eating places and events.

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Birmingham could create its own multi-utility services company (MUSCO) to supply its new smart neighbourhoods on highly efficient basis with water, electricity, heating and broadband.

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Birmingham could create a new way of building smart neighbourhoods.  The 'Birmingham House' idea should reflect the needs of modern living but builds on the authenticity of the place.