Ten years in shaping Birmingham's future

Written by Mike Best, Office Director, Birmingham. This article was written for and published by the Birmingham Post.

When we recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of Turley Associates' Birmingham office at the fantastic new Edgbaston stadium - a scheme for which we secured planning permission - I found myself reflecting on the city of a decade ago.

Brindleyplace was the new business hub, the Bullring was Europe's largest development site and Masshouse Circus was about to complete opening up Eastside. The geography of the city centre was changing, reflecting the plans of a decade earlier, but I wondered if this might leave a hole in the middle.

Our office moves since 2001, from the Jewellery Quarter into Waterloo Street and then to Colmore Row mirrors what I view as a resurgence of the city's core over that time. Buildings have been refurbished, more bars and restaurants established, and major developments like Colmore Plaza and Snowhill have shifted the centre of gravity back towards the CBD.

We have had a long involvement with this area, having prepared the original brief for the former Post & Mail site, and I believe it is one of the most accessible business locations in the country. I am incredibly lucky to enjoy a 25 minute journey to work every day on trains that run roughly every 20 minutes; and I can get to business meetings almost anywhere in the UK and back in the day. Long-awaited investment in transport infrastructure will only help.

That is what inspired me to become a board director of Colmore Business District Ltd in 2009, to give something back to the area that I've worked in for almost 20 years. I think the business community recognises how important it is to maintain the quality of the place and, even in these economically challenging times, to pay extra towards improving what we have. As public realm champion, I am working with the City Council to turn a section of Church Street into a calm oasis of benches, trees and greenery where people can dwell, meet and hold events. That should be delivered in 2012.

Another transformational change over the decade has been Bullring which pulls in 40m visitors a year. I remember before it opened, the city's streets were deserted by early evening whereas now the centre is alive and (despite the recent riots) feels safe day and night. We are working with the Birmingham Alliance to propel Bullring into its own second decade with the development of Spiceal Street, which will deliver three new restaurants and improve St Martin's Square.

I think we should look back with satisfaction at the changes that Birmingham has witnessed over the decade, but look forward with anticipation of what is to come. Birmingham's future is set out in the Big City Plan, which I think is bold and ambitious even though its 20 year horizon looks too little to deliver what looks more like 50 years' worth of development.

I like the areas of transformation approach though and it accords with my view that Birmingham is better served by development which works horizontally and at a human scale rather than vertically, although there will be places suited to taller buildings. We have to accept it will happen in bite-sized chunks

I also favour this idea of an arc of office activity all the way from Five Ways through the CBD and down to Eastside, where I hope we one day see the HS2 station. It needs a high quality transport route of its own connecting these areas. The Metro extension will link Snow Hill with New Street whereas other routes being considered seem to bypass the CBD.

Together with Enterprise Zone status, these areas of opportunity and our ability to connect them by delivering infrastructure will be an incredibly powerful argument to developers, investors and occupiers in considering Birmingham as a preferred location.

While Birmingham is our focus and our home, Turley Associates has grown its business across the region and across all sectors. We are known for our retail strengths, and have retained the Sainsbury's West Midlands contract throughout the last 10 years, as well as securing listed building consent for a new Debenhams store at Slingfield Mill in Kidderminster. The retail sector has also made the Midlands the heart of the logistics industry and we have worked for many years with Solihull-based Prologis on distribution parks from Northampton to Stoke.

As well as helping to deliver the new Edgbaston stadium, we have worked on the new stand at Alexander Stadium, which has reinforced the city's status as an international athletics venue, and count both Aston Villa and Wolves as clients.

Adding to the region's cultural offer, we were instrumental in relocating Elmhurst Ballet School to Edgbaston, helping to deliver the first phase of the Royal Shakespeare Company's theatre transformation, the Courtyard Theatre, and securing planning permission for the University of Wolverhampton's Performing Arts Hub in Walsall.

Our track record in higher education is particularly strong and we have worked for many universities including Warwick, Birmingham, BCU and Wolverhampton, which are the engines of growth in the new economy. Also, as a graduate of Birmingham's planning course, I have for the last five years offered my time as a lecturer and sit on their practitioner's panel to share my experience with the next generation of planners.

What has remained consistent over the years is our approach to business. We work without fuss, keeping close contact with our clients, trying to find common ground and consensus rather than banging the table. The measure of success for all the detailed groundwork and careful negotiation we put into our clients' projects is that we almost always avoid having to go to appeal. We don't have a high profile; we are a small independent business operating in an increasingly corporate-dominated market. It is good to have the choice. We want to be the planning consultant that clients choose.

As a Birmingham business, I feel strongly that too often the city is dismissed by people who know very little about it and don't take the time to see the huge advances it has made over the last few decades. In whatever small way we can, Turley Associates want to change those perceptions and help realise the city's potential.

Mike Best is the Birmingham office director at Turley Associates. The company has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in the city. Click here to read our ten year anniversary brochure.