Birmingham is racing ahead in terms of development activity across the country’s regional cities, according to figures from EG Radius.
The statistics reveal that Birmingham has already commanded a healthy amount of development interest over the past five years and, in comparison with other key regional cities, has seen an intensification of that activity more recently.
Looking at applications for new commercial projects since the start of 2016, none of the other major regional city markets have seen as many as Birmingham (688) – and only Manchester has seen applications for more new residential schemes than Birmingham, with 316 applications versus 264 in Birmingham.
That is partially due to the size of the city, of course, but Birmingham has also seen a unique acceleration of both commercial and residential activity in recent years, following the announcement that it will host the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
Cutting the past five and a half years into periods before and after that announcement in December 2017, the share of new commercial proposals by square footage coming since January 2018 is 66.4% – second only to Glasgow (74.9%).
For residential proposals, that skew towards more recent activity in Birmingham is 69.1% – second only to Leeds’ 70.4%. None of the UK’s other regional cities surpassed the 12,200 new units that came through in planning applications during the pandemic-hit 2020.
Keeping up this momentum in an uncertain post-pandemic world won’t be a simple task for Birmingham, but with many of those recent proposals now coming to life through construction, there can undoubtedly be hope that Birmingham is positioning itself strongly for the next phase of urban renewal.
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