Care needed when defining EZ parameters says law firm
LAW firm Wragge & Co has said while the decision to grant Enterprise Zone status to Birmingham city centre is welcome, great care needs to be taken defining the its parameters.
The firm said with the anticipated creation of 40,000 new jobs in the financial services, digital media, information technology and creative industries, including 4,000 new private sector jobs by 2015, the Government’s announcement would accelerate the economic growth of the city.
It said the zone would also help to capitalise on the proposals for HS2 and the transformation of New Street Station.
The firm’s real estate specialists said care needed to be taken to address what form the EZ would take, including setting out the precise boundaries of each site. They said the council also needed to establish how the process would be streamlined when it could not make a development order until environmental assessments were carried out.
Adrian Bland, head of real estate, said: “This is a rare and golden opportunity for Birmingham. It gives momentum to Birmingham’s ‘Big City Plan’, which includes the re-engineered New Street Station, the plans for High Speed 2, the new city library and a whole new Birmingham City University campus in Eastside. The key is creating a real sense of place-making, not a hotchpotch of hastily assembled structures.”
Wragge & Co’s real estate team helped advise on the creation of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership.
