Confidence in Birmingham infrastructure was key to Commonwealth Games 2022 bid

Birmingham’s ability to deliver infrastructure at speed and on a scale necessary for the Commonwealth Games was key to the city winning the bid to host the Games in 2022.

Speaking at our Birmingham event Neil Carney, Project Director for Birmingham 2022 at the City Council, said: “Certainly when I talk to colleagues in the Games Federations, and from experience helping out in the Gold Coast, when I ask, “why Birmingham?” I’m told that the nuts and bolts were there. The transport vision was there, which we can accelerate, and the city approach to business as usual with all the development that is going on gave the Games Committee confidence that our ability to deliver the games was there.”
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Neil Carney, who before joining Birmingham City Council worked as the Head of Games Operations for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, added: “The bigger vision and saying “it’s our time” is not by accident. We’re looking at the Games through the lens of the 2020s and what that means for the city and the region. What growth will it spur and sustain. The Games are a great catalyst to drive developments across the region from our University Campus to transport and sport facilities.”

The delivery schedule for Birmingham 2022 will see a new aquatics centre built, a £70m overhaul of the Alexander Stadium and a £350m athletes’ village as well as transport and other infrastructure built, all in less than 1,500 days.

Anne Shaw, Director of Network Resilience at Transport for the West Midlands, said: “We will have two new stations, one in the centre of Birmingham and one near the airport. In terms of development creating stations alone has stimulated broader development as well and we’re looking at how we can maximise the development around those stations.”

With HS2 and the Games due in the coming decade Birmingham is due to see a huge amount of infrastructure investment over the next 10 years, which Ms Shaw says should help alleviate pressure on the city’s road network.

Alongside the new HS2 stations at Curzon Street in the city centre and Solihull, Transport for the West Midlands is looking to deliver what Ms Shaw called a connections package to see further rail links feed into the new high-speed route. The package will also boost services across the city region.

Ms Shaw added: “It’s no good just having a fast train line between Birmingham and London. We need to make sure that for our economic output people of the West Midlands can connect into those two stations.”

According to Nick Eastwood, Chief Executive of Wasps RFC, which is based at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, the region has a latent demand for sport in the area spanning Birmingham, Coventry and the Midlands.

He said: “You can’t go out and buy a stadium, you just can’t as they’re not available to sell. We ended up in Coventry because of the Ricoh. We were thinking of building a stadium but with the Ricoh other people had taken those risks associated with a new stadium already. We found there was a latent demand for professional rugby. There is a strong sense of regional pride in the West Midlands and putting those two together we had a massive amount of support from local organisations.”

The Games are expected to deliver around 1,400 homes in the Athletes’ Village, close to Perry Barr. The scheme on the former Birmingham University campus will see 1,072 new flats and maisonettes, 79 homes and 268 extra-care apartments made available once the Games have been completed.

Ashley Innis, Project Manager for the Athletes Village & Stadium for Birmingham 2022, said that key improvements will be made to the Perry Barr area.

He said: “There’s an undersupply of accommodation in the city, so we’re encouraging people to move just on the outskirts of the city but creating the transport links into the city as well. This is where the townhouses will be built, there are around 1,400 units to be delivered ahead of the games. Mixed tenure residential scheme. We will be submitting planning at the end of this month to bring forward a further 400-500 homes, with family housing to offset the high-density apartments. Half a billion is going into the Perry Barr area, and some of that is for the village, and some for transport interventions.”

The investment in the Games comes on top of plans by the University of Birmingham to launch a new framework, which would be open to other universities across the UK, to cater for capital expenditure.

Trevor Payne, Director of Estates at the University of Birmingham, said: “We’ve had some success working with construction groups in the West Midlands. We work with a small group of motivated contractors and we spend time investing in that relationship.”

According to Mr Payne, one in fifty jobs in Birmingham depends on the university, with the University of Birmingham contributing £3.5bn to the local economy. By 2021 they expect to spend over £740m on projects.

Payne said: “A lot of that has been with local contractors and we purchase things locally, we work extensively with the West Midlands. We want the framework to be available to the whole of the HE sector, and it would be something to be used by others. All of the frameworks will be awarded by the end of the year.”

The available lots would be:

Lot 1 – Six contractors from £0-2.5m
Lot 2 – Four contractors from £2.5-10m
Lot 3 – Four contractors for work over £10m
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