Birmingham city council will today officially launch its City Centre Enterprise Zone, which will provide up to £1.2bn of investment via an uplift in business rates, as well as delivering 13m sq ft of new floorspace across 26 sites.
Chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, Lord Heseltine and chair of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP and John Lewis managing director Andy Street will join Birmingham council leader Sir Albert Bore at the city’s Town Hall this lunchtime, where the LEP and council will announce their strategy.
Over the lifespan of the EZ more than 7m sq ft office space, as well as 6m sq ft of new leisure space will be delivered, contributing £2.8bn GVA annually once all the growth is delivered.
The initial phase will see 970,000 sq ft of new development delivered by 2015.
The council and the LEP have already committed £128m to ensure early infrastructure is in place in the city centre on projects including the redevelopment of New Street Station and the extension to the Midland Metro from New Street to the Westside area, to help deliver key sites.
Plans for the City Centre EZ were first mooted in April 2011 and the EZ investment plan was approved in July 2012.
Developments included in the EZ are the 1.5m sq ft mixed-use Paradise Circus – the key project for delivery. Paradise Circus will benefit from £61.3m of the £76.3m funding pot to help unlock the first phase of development. Arena Central, later phases of Snowhill, phase 2 of Masshouse and Eastside Locks will all benefit from EZ status.
The EZ has been developed to implement the vision for the city first set out in Birmingham’s Big City Plan.
Birmingham has been chosen to develop a pilot project on how to devolve power from central government to the regions as part of Heseltine’s No Stone Left Unturned report launched last November.
The city has been given three months to develop a blueprint for change – known as the Greater Birmingham Project – which will then be submitted to the government for consideration.
lisa.pilkington@estatesgazette.com
