For David Perry, a real estate partner at law firm Shoosmiths and a self-described “Birmingham boy”, the West Midlands city has much to shout about from a real estate perspective – but has not yet quite found its voice.
“It’s always struck me that Birmingham has never had enough swagger,” Perry says. “Look at all of the fantastic projects that have been delivered over the last 20 years. Things like Grand Central, the Bullring, Curzon Street, Brindley Place, the Conservatoire [music and drama school], the increasing residential presence in the city centre. There’s so much for us to talk about. The opportunity for us as a city is to chat a lot more about who we are, what we are, where we want to be.”
Perry was speaking on a panel session during EG’s The Future of Birmingham event, held virtually and streamed live in early April during the UK’s lockdown. Joining Perry were Michael Davies, a director in the planning division at agency Savills, and Jacqueline Homan, head of environment at the West Midlands Combined Authority.
Guests put a brave face on the situation around the pandemic, underlining those areas of their work where some semblance of normality can still be achieved.
“We’re working with a range of planning authorities around the region, and their response has been first class – they’ve adapted well,” Davies says. “Material that we’re submitting is being read and being processed. I’m hearing from colleagues [in other business areas] that are also adapting. In terms of new homes, we’re doing video viewings of properties. In terms of the logistics sector, there’s still a strong demand for space. So there are some good news stories, it’s not all doom and gloom. What I’m seeing across the piece is people adapting.”
Change in mindset
That element of adapting will be key for Birmingham and other cities – getting back to business will by no means necessarily mean business as usual. Demands are likely to change and development will be under pressure to keep track.
“We could potentially see a generational change in how people want to interact with their houses, how people want to buy things,” Perry says. “You could see a massive shift to online retail. It could see people not choosing to go back to high street shopping. That opens up massive opportunities for city centre redevelopment.
“And I don’t think it means the death of the high street at all. I think there’s a good case for saying that what you might actually see a shift towards in the medium term is district centre regeneration.”
There’s time for us to pause and reflect and think about the different types of future that we could create, the different types of places we could create
– Jacqueline Homan, West Midlands Combined Authority
Change need not be disheartening, EG’s guests agree, provided real estate changes with the times and companies ready themselves to grab new opportunities as they arise.
“After this crisis is past us, the need to place make, to regenerate, to invest in high quality places to work, homes, infrastructure to support all of that, will still be there,” Davies says. “Just the shape and the approach to it will be different. With any crisis, we always learn from them, and I think there will be some innovation that comes out of it. It probably doesn’t feel like a positive position for most people at the moment. But I think at the end, when we look back, we will start to see those hopefully those positive changes.”
Pause and reflect
For now the coronavirus pandemic has pushed other emergencies further down the agenda – not least the climate crisis. As the WMCA’s head of environment, Homan is keen that a longer-term perspective is not lost entirely.
“We’re committed, as are all our constituent authorities, to addressing climate change and Birmingham has a very ambitious target for addressing the climate challenge,” she says. “[The aim is] understanding what the recovery will look like and making sure we have an eye to the longer-term – not rushing to then invest in things that are, for example, fossil fuel-heavy.”
That won’t be easy, Homan acknowledges, particularly once people leave lockdown and clamour to book a holiday flight and take to the skies once more. “People have been isolated and there’s a potential that everyone is going to rush to reconnect in high carbon ways,” she says. “But there’s also time for us to pause and reflect and think about the different types of future that we could create, the different types of places we could create.”
And that’s a cause for optimism, EG’s guests say. Look beyond this crisis, and there is reason for cheer on the horizon.
“We’ve got the Commonwealth Games coming up – can we turn that into the biggest party the West Midlands has ever had?” Davies says. “We have a real opportunity of selling the city with that as our big window. HS2 is planned to come forward, and we’re on the first stop out of London. There’s still some huge infrastructure and huge development projects that are going to bring a focus to the city and provide a spotlight that hopefully will enable us to have that swagger.”
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