Campaigners are warning that a major development project that will be approved by Birmingham city council falls far short of the city’s own guidelines for open green space.
The £1.9bn Smithfield scheme will bring 3,500 new homes as well as restaurants and offices to 17 hectares (42 acres) of fenced brownfield land in the centre of the city. But the new park – Smithfield Park – will be only 0.8 hectares, smaller than a football pitch.
Jim Tucker, a local resident, set up the CityPark4Brum campaign eight years ago with a petition that collected more than 11,000 signatures. He said the plans represented “a failure of a once-in-a-generation opportunity” to bring green space to a dense, urban area where thousands of children live.
Developers Lendlease, who are working in partnership with Birmingham city council, say the project would not be viable if they had to meet the council’s guidelines.
A spokesperson for Lendlease said: “The council’s policy for green space cannot be met in this [city centre] location, and that’s also been the case with other major schemes coming forward in the heart of Birmingham. We’ve aligned with national guidance that prioritises the most efficient use of brownfield land in urban locations … our revised plans include a 23% increase in the minimum area for Smithfield Park.”
That increase brings the park from 0.6 hectares to 0.8. This is well below the council’s guidelines for new residential developments, which state they should provide 2 hectares of public open space for every 1,000 new residents.
Council officers have already stated that they agree with the current proposals based on “viability”. The final decision will be made on Thursday – after having been deferred last month to reconsider the green space issue.
Tucker said he hoped for a last-minute change of heart from councillors.
“At the last council meeting in May I was given 90 seconds to explain why we believe there should be a much bigger park. If we met the local guidance on this site there should be 14 hectares of open space – we are asking for just 4 hectares, 25% of the site. We think this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
“We know that physical and mental health is linked to access to green space. We know that tree canopy cover reduces heat in cities. We know that what people need is spaces to come together.”
About 4,000 children live in the Bordesley and Highgate ward and more will arrive with the new homes.
Tucker said there were precedents for large-scale developments built with a focus on green space, pointing to the recently built Mayfield Park in Manchester, the city’s first new park for 100 years.
“Manchester’s Mayfield Park makes up about a quarter of the entire development in that part of the city,” he said. “The green space came first and the housing is being built around it. We would love to see that happen here. There is such a green space deficit in our city centre, in particular in this ward.”
Naomi Fisher is an architect who runs outdoor play projects in parks in Birmingham. She said that local children were already living in housing that is too dense.
“I work near the Smithfield site and I hear children’s voices and play coming from the windows of flats. It makes me sad that there are so few opportunities in the centre of Birmingham for outdoor play.
“Children need to spin, climb, balance on uneven ground to develop gross motor skills and in my work I see children falling over on gentle slopes or unable to even balance on a log.”
Lendlease first applied for planning permission in 2020 and faced criticism from Historic England, who said the site was not appropriate for an area with medieval history. The developers then carried out more consultations including taking park campaigners to visit the controversial Elephant Park in south London, also built on public land.
A council spokesperson said the plans were appropriate for the brownfield site.
“The development is planned to provide significant public benefits for the city in addition to a new public park. All of these infrastructure requirements have to be balanced against the viability of the development, and … the site’s unique brownfield central location where a higher density of residential uses should be expected,” they said.
They added that the deferral of the decision showed the robustness of the process and denied claims by local people that their role in the development made it difficult for them to be objective in assessing the planning permission.
