If you buy a copy of this week’s Birmingham Post you’ll find inside a supplement all about Digbeth: Soul of the City, with articles about that Big City Plan, Digital District things and places like South Birmingham College, The Bond, Fazeley Studios and the new Birmingham Coach Station. You’ll find some spectacular photos from yesteryear on pages 4 and 5 and on page 16 there’s an article by yours truly, all about a few if my favourite Digbeth things. In a newsagent near you until Wednesday.
This morning myself and many other local types went along to the Digbeth Corridor Study Stakeholder Consultation meeting at The Bond, organised by Birmingham City Council’s City Centre Development Team. The Big City Plan’s Philip Singleton kicked off the proceedings, then we all boarded the Green Bus, on which a team from Atkins took us on a tour of Digbeth’s key features. Once we’d been gotten thinking we returned to The Bond, where we split into brainstorm groups covering Movement, Streets, Events, Development, Leisure & Environment, Creativity & Services.
Whilst there Atkins asked us to complete a Digbeth Consultation Questionnaire to help them with their study, and asked us to pass it onto anyone we thought might like to submit their ideas. Unfortunately it is not available online, so I’ve created a Google Form so you can complete it online if you like. I’ll forward the summary spreadsheet to Atkins, who I spoke to during the meeting and are aware of what I’m doing. You can comment on the dedicated Digbeth Consultation Questionnaire page I’ve created, so you can discuss your feelings about the questionnaire if you want to. Questionnaires must be submitted by mid-January (I’ll double check the exact date with Atkins, and be sure to close the form then).
The answer to both questions is YES. Belfast does have quarters. Seven of them because, “We’re Irish and we can’t count.” (Titanic Boat Tour Captain Derrick Booker’s words, not mine). The one in line for the biggest overhaul is the Titanic Quarter, which Derrick and Colin Cobbs tell us all about. It kind of reminds me of Eastside – not too much there at the moment but big talk of many ‘mixed-use developments’ (are there any other kind these days?).
It’s even got its own creative community website. It’s not quite not quite Created in Birmingham but the Community Arts Forum gave a fantastic collective response to proposed plans to develop the soul out of the area (sound familiar?). The Cathedral Quarter – Let’s Get It Right campaign ‘aimed to push forward the sensitive and successful development of the area’ by voicing the neighbourhood’s concerns and publishing alternative visions. What’s even more impressive is they succeeded:
In October 2004, in a move that was applauded by the Let’s Get it Right campaign, the Department of Social Development announced that Cathedral Quarter would have its own regeneration masterplan. This would push forward development of the area, while protecting its unique built and cultural heritage.
Go on.
In answer to Michael Grimes’ question, Belfast has The Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan 2015 (BMAP), which is ‘a development plan being prepared under the provisions of Part III of the Planning (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 by the Planning Service, an Agency within the Department of the Environment (DOE)’. I’d tell you more, but attempting to download one of the huge PDF’s the plan is made up of almost killed my computer.
So there we have it – both cities have more than four quarters christened with pet names by city planners and a city plan seemingly written for developers rather than residents, with a website that Could Do Better. It’s just too close to call, I declare this #brumvsbelfast round a draw.
Well, Lolitics has been busy posting captioned pictures of a massive walrus bemoaning the loss of his consoltaishiun bus. Considering the bus-based bee in my bonnet I’ve developed over the lost Highgate Big City Plan bus, I feel his pain. I Am The Walrus (please comment your audible groans).
Luckily, Birmingham City Council seem to have realised that standing the public up during a public consultation exercise doesn’t send out the best message. It took a few emails and phone calls, but yesterday afternoon the Press Office sent me this statement apologising for the ‘error of judgement’:
Clive Dutton, Director of Planning and Regeneration, said:
“I have become aware of concerns that have been raised regarding the relocation of the Big City Plan consultation team from their pre-advertised location during the afternoon of Wednesday 12th Jan.
“It was an error in judgement that when the bus was temporarily relocated no staff stayed behind to continue the consultative work, or to explain to members of public that the absence was only temporary and the full team would return shortly.
“I’d like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
To be honest, it was the lack of consideration rather than the inconvenience that bothered me. But the council seem to agree that the consultation should have gone ahead as planned and advertised, which is good. I’m still awaiting the response to my Freedom of Information request, which should give me the audit trail behind that decision.
Yesterday marked the official end of the Big City Plan consultation period. Go to Big City Talk to see people’s comments and discussions around the document, which city council PR Director Debra Davis and Big City Plan Project Manager Philip Singleton have agreed to look very closely at.
Here’s the minutes from Monday’s Resident’s Association meeting, which discussed the Big City Plan. Residents seemed most excited about possible plans for the neglected Highgate Park, which they are eager to see become a safer, greener, more pleasant space for everyone to enjoy. Here’s a larger version of the document. Digbeth Residents Association Jan 2009
It’s worth a hell of a lot. Capsule, organisers of the fantastic Supersonic Festival rather tellingly say their ’success has happened in spite of the city rather than because of it’. Their suggestions to make Digbeth blossom as a cultural quarter are:
Why do people get on planes and trains to come to Supersonic – because we offer them a totally unique experience of the highest quality. There is a real opportunity to acknowledge what makes Birmingham a unique city and invest in independent and niche activity. Steer clear of a homogenised approach – learn from those that do it well and have a track record.
Lets learn from other cities like Berlin, Glasgow and Manchester and take risks with our empty buildings – an opportunity to invest in content to be housed in these empty spaces to animate the area, lets not be so precious i.e. noise restrictions – creativity is often loud and messy lets embrace and celebrate this.
Encourage more creative companies to have the opportunity to be able to buy their own buildings rather than be tied to short-term leases.
Create flexible spaces that can house a variety of activity which changes from week to week, this will keep the area vibrant.
Don’t just invest in a couple of landlords this creates a monopoly.
Lets get the basics right – look at infrastructure: cash points, post offices, signage, and streetlights.
Think about the visitors experience as well as what its like to work in this area, lets make it the highest quality experience – currently feels like quite an intimidating, unfriendly area.
Creative quarters need to grow organically, invest in supporting growth rather than imposing structured ideas of what you think creativity should be.
Thanks to Stef Lewandowski, for passing onto me an announcement by Philip Singleton, Project Manager of the Big City Plan. £8 million has been dedicated to the 7 ‘top priority projects’, one of which is to transform Digbeth High Street into a pedestrian-friendly, clutter-free walkway that will ease the journey from the centre to Digbeth. Thank GOD, here’s hoping for no more ‘no-man’s land’ that cuts us off, but a seamless walk without the rugby scrum of bus queues outside Digbeth Cold Storage.
‘Digbeth police station evacuated,’ reads the Birmingham Mail, ‘after suspicious package was discovered inside…A cordon was placed around the station and a number of roads were closed off.’
However to Twitter addicts such as myself this news was, like, so last hour. We’d been discussing the road blocks, traffic jams, suspicious package and bomb squad for hours. So much so that, after viewing the search results, Pete Ashton went and wondered aloud if Digbeth could become top-rating, trending Twitter topic for the day.
It was like a red rag to a bull. If you tweeted, you simply had to mention Digbeth. Even if, like Antonio Gould, it was to say you weren’t sure what to say about Digbeth.
Pete Ashton’s blogged about the internetty aspects of today’s little exercise, so let’s get on with the important stuff:
But if you’re sticking to strict anagramming like Shona McQuillan you get THE BIG D, which is still pretty cool.
There are Killer Badgers in Digbeth according to Emma Jones. In the Police Station, apparently. Part of the Anti-Terrorism Act, I think. They’re better at extracting intelligence than bog-standard dogs. I shall be risking life and limb David Attenborough-style to get pictures of them for the Faunography trail.
Me and that bloke down the pub aren’t the only ones who think Digbeth is derived from DUCK BATH. Andy Mabbett says so too, so it must be true.
As you can see, our efforts weren’t in vain and it all left me rather distracted and excited this afternoon. Oh yeah, there was some stuff on Winterval as well, which made Simon Gray wonder if that could be a trending topic too. Go on, Tweethearts: you know what to do.
So Bennie Gray’s been in the paper saying Birmingham needs a few more Custard Factories. George Ferguson, who spoke at the Organic Eastside seminar held by MADE* and Digbeth Business Association in South Birmingham College last night, would heartilly agree. He feels that creative hubs are part of a pattern that make up ‘complex cities’.
George’s philosophy of looking beyond architecture in regeneration, planing change and bringing the best out of places rather than rebuilding, went down a storm.
He had a very interesting take on the credit crunch, that it may actually be a blessing in disguise. It’ll stop the building of blinkered, one-use projects in their tracks for a start. It could instead leave room for ’slow architecture’ of more flexible, mixed-use buildings, which develop organically over time, adapting to economic and environmental change as they grow.
George later said that we need to ‘identify the maniacs’ who’ll make exciting places by sympathetically utilising their environments rather than flattening and rebuilding them. Bennie Gray is one such maniac, and Birmingham is blessed to have him.
Jonathan Bore’s less popular presentation of the Big City Plan wasn’t exactly new information – expand the concrete collar in building a bigger and better city centre. Some felt he had too many questions (for which he’s had the time to find answers) rather than solutions and others felt the means being used to achieve the goal were questionable, with talk of areas such as Highgate undergoing ’social cleansing’.
Other highlights were the Rescue Geography presentation, Richard Trengrouse’s Digbeth wisdom and the presence of the men behind the planned Horton Project opposite Selfridges – a ‘city within a city’ that will transform Digbeth Cold Storage and surrounding buildings. Let’s hope they move those bus stops, which are as restrictive as that concrete collar, whilst they’re at it.
