A decision on plans for new student blocks in Birmingham’s Gun Quarter has been deferred after a key concern was raised in a planning meeting. Developers are seeking permission to build two towers, one eight-storey and another 21-storey, to provide 279 bedspaces in Cliveland Street near the canal.
A recently-published council officer’s report said the scheme is able to demonstrate a need for the development and added it would be “very well located” to several city centre campuses. However, questions arose during a planning meeting today, January 16, over whether there should be a commercial unit, such as a shop, on the ground floor, which one councillor said could improve the safety of the area.
“If you had a retail space, there would be light and more, I feel, safety potentially if you’re walking down and you can see other people,” Coun David Barker, chair of the planning committee, said. “I would think in a student accommodation with hundreds of people, there would be demand for whatever that retail space may be used for.”
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Coun Jane Jones: “I agree with what you’re saying. If you’ve got students, they would personally welcome some kind of shop, café or something on the ground floor.”
One representation included in the report said the proposed development “fails to activate the ground floor”. “Without a commercial activation the development will fail to improve safety and vibrancy of the street and contribute to additional anti-social behaviour,” it went on to say.
Amid such concerns, a council officer told the meeting it was a “balance” with purpose-built student accommodation when it came to what can be put on the ground floor. “You need to accommodate plant and laundry space, cycle and refuse stores, and some shared amenity space but some of those things don’t have an active frontage,” she said.
“You’re quite limited with what you can put on the ground floor. And we have seen in a number of similar sites in this area where there has been a commercial unit put into the ground floor from the offset, it’s been designed in, but they haven’t been let.
Birmingham City Council House
(Image: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
“So we’re now seeing applications for changing that commercial space into more bedrooms.” She added: “In this case, my feeling is that the balance between active frontage and the services that need to be there is right.”
Coun Gareth Moore said in response: “We should be pushing back and making it quite clear that we need active frontages to create inclusive communities to create safe environments.”
‘Appropriately designed’
The council officer’s report described the proposed towers as “appropriately designed” for their location and said they would be an improvement on much of the existing development lining the canal corridor. It also acknowledged that the proposals would cause ‘less than substantial harm’ to a number of heritage assets, including Barker Bridge and The Bull pub.
“This harm should be weighed against the public benefits of the proposal,” it continued. “The assets affected are all Grade II Listed and are already impacted by existing modern development and the changing character of their surroundings.”
The report also gave “substantial weight” to the use of a brownfield site to provide housing, which it said there is a “recognised need” for. “I do not consider the harm identified to these heritage assets would be so great as to outweigh the public benefit,” it concluded.
The proposals were therefore recommended for approval, subject to conditions, but the committee ultimately decided to defer their decision on the plans.