Traffic is being pushed out to make way for pedestrianisation. Charlie Jacoby looks at the latest attempts to make Birmingham a faster-moving city.
The most important of the new roads proposed for Birmingham are the two peripheral motorways. The Birmingham northern relief road (BNRR) and the western orbital route (WOR) are long overdue, as anyone who uses the M6 at peak times will confirm. “Birmingham is at the hub of the English road network, and the M6, especially around junction 10, is under pressure,” says DTZ Debenham Thorpe’s Neeraj Dixit.
The BNRR gained a high profile after the DOT announced that it was to be a toll road funded by the private sector, whereas the WOR’s future remained doubtful. But the DOT’s recent revised roads programme announces that both will continue under private-sector financing.
The BNRR will be the final link in the orbital road around Birmingham. It will be built by a joint venture between Trafalgar House and Italian construction company Iritecna, called Midland Expressway Ltd (MEL), and will operate as a toll road on a 53-year lease. Compulsory purchase orders are being prepared for the land required for the scheme, and will lead to a public inquiry in June. MEL, which is advised by Grimley J R Eve, hopes to start on site in 1996 for completion in mid-1998.
CPOs for the BNRR have now been published, and the city’s divisional engineer, Chris Haynes, expects them to go to public inquiry in the summer. He hopes that the BNRR will be built by the end of the century. “It is going to be quite a difficult inquiry because it is private sector funded,” he says.
There is commercial frustration about the length of time that the BNRR has taken. Chesterton’s Alan Cave, who is also senior vice-president of planning and development for the RICS, blames Paul Channon, former Secretary of State for Transport, for deciding that it should be a toll road. The first public inquiry was in 1988. “Channon’s decision to make it a toll road delayed the process by four years,” says Cave. “And I am not convinced that a toll road will work while there are viable alternative routes such as the existing M6.”
Grimley J R Eve’s Stephen Hollowood is a strong supporter of the BNRR as it stands. “The amount of congestion between junctions 4 and 10 of the M6 is a major disincentive to use it,” he says. “I am sure that people will use a toll road because of this.”
There are proposals to widen the M42 and M6 as well. Details of improvements to stretches north of Wolverhampton and near the M42 have been published for consultation. Haynes does not expect them to go ahead until the end of the century.
In the city centre, Heartlands has come under scrutiny. One of the problems with Heartlands is that, although it is surrounded by good roads, access to the district itself is quite poor. The proposed Heartlands spine road will link the north-eastern and eastern fringes of the city centre at Nechells with the traditional industrial areas around Spaghetti Junction (junction 5 of the M6). In October, the Secretary of State for Transport John Macgregor confirmed the CPOs for the 3.7-mile dual-carriageway. The £113m project is due for completion in 1997. “It will open up areas such as Nechells, Bromyard, Saltley and Washford Heath,” says Dixit, “which are large industrial areas with poor access.”
All the money required for the HSR is now garnered from the Government, “but there is some question about when the adjoining development will go ahead to help pay for it”, says Haynes. He expects it to be completed by the end of 1996.
Heartlands will also be helped by the widening of the A5127 Lichfield Road. South of the city centre, there has been a dramatic change of heart on proposals to create a through-route from the M42 along the A435 and A34 into the city centre. After a 12-year campaign by local groups, the city council has now announced that the two roads have approval for traffic-management plans including traffic calming. This replaces an idea to scythe an underpass through Kings Heath, and build an overpass across Balsall Heath. Local magazine editor John Williams, a former chairman of the Mosely Residents Association, is delighted at this. “The council has done a total U-turn,” he says.
The council has had more success with plans for Birmingham city centre. This year alone it will spend £43m on roads. The EU is contributing £9.062m to this, compared with £7.657m the year before. However, Haynes fears that the Government’s transport supplementary grant may mean the end of European cash.
The council does not want to build roads just to encourage commuting by car. “We are only building new roads where capacity is justified by development,” says Haynes. “We want the Heartlands spine road to attract investment, as well as improvements to the inner ring road to make the city centre more attractive. We don’t want to penalise the motorist, but we do want to make public transport a more attractive option.”
The council is attacking the city centre by making pedestrians a priority. This is a big shift in policy. Birmingham is traditionally Britain’s “road city” – an example of how metalled roads can beat pavements in city planning.
Central Birmingham is surrounded by two concrete collars, both built in the 1950s. The A4400 inner ring road (IRR) and the A4540 middle ring road (MRR) hoop the city, and are useful for throughput of traffic, but they are not good for access on foot. As part of an effort to improve the environment of the city core for pedestrians, the city council has initiated a programme of replacing underground pedestrian crossings beneath the IRR with ground-level boulevard walkways. “This is one of the central planks of the UDP taking the city up to 2001, because the concrete collar makes the city inaccessible,” says Dixit.
The council is starting its environmental improvements in the city centre. At Paradise Circus, in 1989, the whole road was lowered, and pedestrian access put above it. And the same solution was implemented at Smallbrook Queensway last year. The next section to be looked at is St Martin’s Circus, but this will depend on London & Edinburgh Trust’s plans for the Bull Ring. The St Martin’s Circus section, together with Bull Ring plans, should mean the pedestrianisation of Lower New Street and High Street.
In order to take the pressure off the IRR, the MRR is being improved by the widening of its Lawley Street section. The council wants to rid the centre of cars. “We don’t want any new parking within the IRR – and we don’t want full parking between the IRR and the MRR,” says Haynes. “We want a combination of parking and commuting by public transport.”
Many in Birmingham disagree with Haynes on the viability of this plan. “It would be very inconvenient for car-based businesses which need to be in the city centre – such as chartered surveyors,” says Connell Wilson’s Charles Smith. But his views are not preventing Connell Wilson from moving its Digbeth office into the central core.
Cave makes the point that the central-core workforce is split into two – those who spend all day in their office, and those who are in and out all the time. He says that the first category are unlikely to bring their cars into work anyway, but cars are vital for the second category. Chesterton’s offices are on Colmore Row. “It takes me 15 minutes to walk to my car, and that is not productive,” complains Cave. “I don’t think that reducing car spaces moves people on to buses. There is a danger that traffic controls squeeze the vibrancy of the city centre.”
Cave blames central-core traffic congestion on lorries making deliveries to retailers. He says that national guidance and local policies have not taken this fully into account.
Parking is a moot point for developers. Until recently the council required one space for every 300 sq ft of a development, or alternatively, a £7,000 commuted payment per 300 sq ft. This excess fee has now been halved, but it still creates disincentives for development. “Look at AXA Equity & Law’s proposed development, The Fountains,” says Smith. “AXA plans an 80,000-sq ft scheme with only 60 spaces. It may have to pay £725,000 for commuted parking. Now it is talking about downsizing.”
The city council wants a light railway to complement the existing BR network. Midlands Metro, which is planned by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (Centro), has now gained Parliamentary approval but no funding. The Government says that the earliest that it is prepared to fund the scheme is 1995/1996.
Hollowood fears that this timescale is out of step with the council’s plans to remove cars from the core. “PPG6 and PPG13 are getting people to reduce car journeys and get on to public transport,” he says. “Unless you have user-friendly public transport now, you won’t get change. Midland Metro is still years away.”
Even though Midlands Metro was being talked about as early as 1986, the Government is not committed to funding it. Birmingham has been pipped by both Sheffield and Manchester in this respect. Centro has now applied for funding from the EU.
Chesterton acted for Centro on planning applications for all the stations and contributions from developers. “There is no lack of political or technical will in the West Midlands,” says Cave. “It has been the lack of a consistent line from the Government on it.”
Line One is proposed from Snow Hill to Wolverhampton, and will follow existing dismantled British Rail track. There is also a proposed extension to Line One, which has won approval, from Snow Hill to the Bull Ring shopping centre, subject to LET’s refurbishment proposal there. Line Two is proposed to run from Fiveways, at the top of Broad Street, through the city centre and Birmingham Heartlands to the NEC and the airport at Solihull. This also has approval.
The main criticism of Midlands Metro centres on the current plans to put it underground. “An overground system could be put in faster and cheaper than a tunnel system,” says Smith. “I want to see lots of bright cheery trams with dozens of stops at 10p a time.”
The council is not satisfied with Birmingham’s existing rail facilities, mainly because of the passenger congestion around New Street Station. The council commissioned Ove Arup to look at the viability of a Heartlands railway station, but that was scotched last summer, to audible sighs of relief from the local business community. “Birmingham International is heavily used and, with 2,000 parking spaces at £2 per day, it is ideal,” says Cave.
Instead, British Rail Property Board is addressing possible improvements to the existing New Street Station. BRPB’s Malcolm Vince says that the station is one of those earmarked for development, and will eventually be administrated by an independent operator.
On transport policy overall, the city council is in an odd position. While the council’s efforts are applauded nationwide, it is the subject of much local criticism. In short, those who do not have their lives repeatedly inconvenienced by the upheaval of construction work are often those who are loudest in their praise for the council’s “vision”.
