Plans lodged for £260m Digbeth scheme

Developer Cole Waterhouse has submitted a full planning application to Birmingham City Council for its 5.11-acre site in Digbeth which will see the area transformed into a major mixed-use scheme.

The developer exchanged contracts on the site  at Upper Trinity Street last year from multiple landowners and has since undertaken a community consultation programme for a mixed-use scheme that will create a new cultural, commercial and residential neighbourhood.

Artists impression by Corstorphine + Wright Architects

The proposed £260m development comprises almost 6,000sq ft of mixed creative, retail, leisure and workspace, and over 900 homes with a mix of private sale and build to rent apartments.

Also included in the proposal is a 133-bedroom hotel that occupies a key location overlooking the proposed Skypark on Duddeston Viaduct and a new public park called ‘Pump House Park’; named after the former Victorian Pump House.

Cole Waterhouse CEO Damian Flood said:  “We are committed to delivering high quality design which enhance the surrounding environment and community. Our vision is to create a new neighbourhood right in the heart of Digbeth and neighbourhoods need communities, culture and connectivity to thrive and prosper so this has been a driving factor in the development of our plans. We’ve worked really hard to involve the local community as much as we possibly can and look forward to this next stage of the process. Now that the planning application has been made we will be moving into the funding phase of the project whilst we move through the planning process and await a decision.”

Antony Harding, planning associate at planning consultancy Barton Wilmore, added: “This is an important scheme in Digbeth’s continuing evolution. It’s a site which has largely been forgotten about and unloved for decades. Strategically the scheme is vital as it expands Digbeth’s cultural provision beyond Lower Trinity Street, which is known for the wonderful Digbeth Dining Club, out further beyond to the edge of Bordesley. The residential element within Digbeth is much needed and goes some way to start positively creating communities again and addressing the impact made by the mass building clearance within Digbeth in the 1960s.

“The project team has worked collaboratively with the Canal & River Trust and we are thankful for their positive and proactive approach in working with Cole Waterhouse to bring forward this land. It  will provide much needed new urban parkland space and will celebrate the site’s unique Victorian engineering history.”