Mike Whitby hails Birmingham opportunities at MIPIM
Mar 11 2009 by Alun Thorne, Birmingham Post
Birmingham will have “opportunities galore” in its shop window at MIPIM 2009, according to the city’s leader Coun Mike Whitby.
He said that during the four-day global property conference in Cannes, city officials would be giving potential investors a preview of Round Two of the Area Investment Prospectuses (AIPs) which are due to be officially launched in Birmingham on Thursday, March 26.
“In the first round of AIPs in October 2007, we set out our stall to developers and investors and said – here are significant development and investment opportunities outside the city core where you can work with us to build a new Birmingham over the next 20 years.
“We identified almost 60 major locations throughout wider Birmingham, and a year after the initial launch, progress has been made on more than half, with preparatory work and construction starting on many of those.
“These developments will see significant job creation, as well as bringing vacant and under-utilised sites back into use. The schemes with planning permission, and those in the immediate pipeline, amount to £1.5 billion of investment.
“This time, we are taking a slightly different approach, to reflect the changing market conditions during the last 18 months. On March 26 at the ICC, we will be formally announcing that about 50 sites – adding another 20 new sites to the shopping list – are ripe for regeneration and development.
“Some will be locations where we believe the market can lead, but others will be sites which we realise the public sector will have to bring forward.”
He added: “We know that, and we are working hard with developers and investors to find innovative solutions.
“This involves not only making new contacts with potential investors at MIPIM but also finding ways of helping our existing developers and investors already working in tandem with us and our own partners at regional and governmental level,” he said. The first round of AIPs involved three areas covering east Birmingham, south Birmingham and, taken together with the Big City Plan, were intended not as formal planning papers but as a family of documents that will support and encourage Birmingham’s ambitious agenda of transformation and regeneration.
Coun Whitby said: “All three areas have a lot to offer developers and investors in terms of potential for economic and physical growth, as well as existing high quality transport links and housing, cultural depth and environmental diversity. But we at the city council realise we have to raise our game in this hard economic climate.
“We are developing quickly a wide range of measures to accelerate development and support developers and investors wishing to locate in the city.
“We are working with Advantage West Midlands, the Homes and Communities Agency and other important partners to pull together on all planning, financial and environmental issues to ensure we get the earliest possible result for the future economic benefit of Birmingham and its citizens.”
