Isis puts Birmingham's Icknield Port Loop scheme on backburner

Sep 9 2008 By Alun Thorne, Head of Business

The delivery of a high profile 65-acre regeneration project on the edge of Birmingham city centre looks set to be delayed after the economic downturn forced to the developer to axe half its staff.

Last week Isis - the waterside regeneration arm of British Waterways - announced the departure of chief executive Mark Ryder as part of ‘streamlines’ in the difficult economic conditions.

This has followed the departure of a further eight staff over the summer including Nick Bird, Isis’s development manager for the Midlands, who was driving forward the Icknield Port Loop scheme as well as the smaller Warwick Bar project in Eastside, Digbeth.

The Manchester-based developer said that it had now acquired the Digbeth site and expected to see progress in the relatively short term but admitted that it had been forced to change its approach to the larger scheme.

Company spokesman Mike Finkill said: “It is fair to say that with the reduced resources we will have to tackle our projects in a different way. Our approach has changed but these projects have now been reallocated and are being managed by our Manchester office.”