High Speed 2 sends Birmingham back to drawing board

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High Speed 2 sends Birmingham back to drawing board

30/04/10 10:26 am By Mark Shepherd

Birmingham City Council starts work next week on a new masterplan for Eastside, following the decision of the government in March to site a station there for the High Speed 2 rail line.

The line cuts through three proposed large-scale schemes: Quintain’s 340,000 sq ft City Park Gate, the 1.4m sq ft Curzon Park scheme by Development Securities and Grainger Trust and Birmingham University’s proposed £123m Eastside campus.

The council is expected to appoint consultants to draw up an alternative masterplan and publish a revised proposal for the area in the summer.

“We view the arrival of High Speed 2 as a positive development for Birmingham, but we do realise this has implications for landowners who have been affected by the lines coming through the site,” says Waheed Nazir, director of regeneration at Birmingham City Council.

“We are working with the university to find them an alternative site. They are a big player in the city and it is important we do that. We will also be talking with the other landowners to see how they want to take things forward from here.”

Quintain says it is too early to say how the high-speed rail link would impact on its plans and that it would keep an open mind.

It’s clear that if the High Speed 2 proposals are implemented there will be an extensive impact on our proposed development of the City Park Gate site,” says Ben Giddens, development director of City Park Gate. “If the rail scheme goes ahead, we’ll look at opportunities to develop above and around the new station, which is anticipated to attract millions of users a year.”

He adds: “In the meantime, we will continue to focus on generating income from the site, which is currently in the region of half a million pounds a year.” The site of the proposed scheme is used as a car park at present.