Longbridge, The Technology Park and the former (& hopefully future) Rover works

[VerticallyChallenged]

A feeling of deja vu is creeping over me.
Remember MG-Rover gradually selling off all its land to St Modwen?
Apparently Nanjing has already returned some of its site to St Modwen although there is still sufficient land remaining for a viable car plant.
The merger of Nanjing/SAIC has almost stopped Longbridge in its tracks at present. SAIC who are more business wise than Nanjing have looked at the Nanjing operation and insisted on changes.
Apparently the two things SAIC have picked up on are the poor quality of certain Chinese sourced parts and that the spec of the proposed 'new' TF Nanjing were proposing to sell needs further upgrade work.

St Modwen have got a hot potato on the 'old' West Works site. They have now discovered that the site is quite heavily polluted and it will be years before they can actually do much with it.
When I passed the place last week there were a couple of JCB's on the site so perhaps they can remove the top billion tons of soil and send it over to BMW at the Ham's Hall site.
The 'new' West Works, that absolutely huge building you can see from the Bristol Road, is pollution free but St Modwen's efforts to find a tenant is believed to have failed. In almost any other part of the UK, manufacturers would be knocking down St Modwen's doors to take it on - but not in Brum!
Tragically, it will probably be demolished to make way for yet more houses.
St Modwens latest plans for more offices rather than manufacturers at Longbridge seems to be a mite optomistic considering the lack of takers for the office blocks at Great Park. Great Park is just a third of a mile away.
I reckon Birmingham City Council needs to seriously consider giving start-up or relocation companies in Brum some financial assistance such as a five year rates holiday.

[Erebus555]

Demolition work on the West Works site by kate&drew. They ask, is this in preparation for building Bournville College...?
image hosted on flickr

[VerticallyChallenged]

Originally Posted by Erebus555

Demolition work on the West Works site by kate&drew. They ask, is this in preparation for building Bournville College...?
image hosted on flickr

Nope, the Educational Campus will be further up on the other side of Bristol Road, part of former North Works site.

[feltip]

Do you think this can go into construction thread or do we add individual bits to the under construction sub-forum?

Anyway, from the Post today

St Modwen moves into next phase of Longbridge project
Feb 21 2008

An army of excavators is on site and set to remediate enough soil to fill the Royal Albert Hall more than twice over as the next phase of preparation work gets under way at the former MG Rover site at Longbridge.

The extensive investigation and ground clearing programme on Longbridge West fronting the A38 Bristol Road South, will see more than 200,000 cubic metres of soil cleaned across the 17 acre site.

The work will prepare the ground for high tech industry, new homes and parks planned by developer St Modwen and joint land owner Advantage West Midlands.

More than three million square feet of the massive Longbridge site has already been cleared by St Modwen.

The developer is working closely with the Environment Agency to ensure the former industrial site is fully remediated to allow the area to be completely transformed into a prosperous mixed-use development built around jobs, communities and people as set out in the proposed Longbridge Area Action Plan.

Mark Batchelor, construction manager for St Modwen, said the successful completion of this £3 million preparation programme for Longbridge West was crucial to the long-term success of the overall plan.


He said: "The work carried out to make the site ready for redevelopment will need to be extensive and thorough. Following on from the relatively straightforward task of demolishing the buildings, we will have around 20 earthmovers and heavy machinery which will fully remediate the site ready for development."


The six month programme to clear what was formally the old West Works of the Rover plant.


Longbridge senior development manager Mike Murray said: "After the joint announcement in December of the Longbridge Area Action Plan by Birmingham City Council, Bromsgrove Council and Worcestershire Council, the future is looking bright."

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/...5233-20505995/

[NeilM]

Originally Posted by feltip

The work will prepare the ground for high tech industry...

I really hope we get some hi-tech industry as we really need it in this region, it is one thing we definitely lack.

[VerticallyChallenged]

Interesting little snippet on local Beeb news tonight.
Those BBC troublemakers had the audacity to pose the question and I paraphrase:

'When MG-Rover closed three years ago, local politicians, the Regional Development Agency and St Modwen promised thousands of jobs as soon as they could get cracking developing the Longbridge site. Where are the promised jobs'?


Advantage West Midlands didn't appear, local politicians didn't seem interested either, however a St Modwen spokesman did pop up to tell us - we have built the Innovation Centre, and a second building, and we're thinking of erecting another building.
We will also have an Educational thingy (where Bournville College will move to) and it's all very exciting because we are building a community with all sorts of goodies in it.

BBC: Er yes, but 6,500 jobs disappeared when MG-Rover collapsed, you have the site, so how many of those jobs have you replaced after 3 years?

St Modwen: Erm about 100.

BBC: A hundred new jobs, but 3 years ago St Modwen talked about thousands of jobs?

St Modwen: Well yes, that still applies, we will produce 10,000 jobs on the Longbridge site.

BBC: How long will that take?

St Modwen: Erm, 15 years.


It's utterly mind-boggling in my opinion that the developer who benefitted HUGELY from the demise of MG-Rover has, with the enthusiastic backing of local and national politicians and the Regional Development Agency, been allowed to turn Birmingham's prime industrial site into some sort of massive housing estate with a few areas set aside for 'high tech', 'educational', and retail use and a little park, and all we get from them is a vague reference to '10,000 jobs in 15 years'!
So, we are being told that 18 years after watching MG-Rover die, we will have those 6,500 lost jobs replaced by 10,000 other, unspecified but of course absolutely guaranteed, incredibly high tech jobs.
I reckon it would be a brave man who believed that even the Longbridge Development Plan now envisaged will survive intact over those 15 years.

Let's look at this mathematically, er, 100 jobs over 3 years so at that rate of progress St Modwen will actually take 195 years to replace the lost MG-Rover jobs.
Blimey, I don't think too many ex-Rover people can afford to hang about for that long.

[Biosonic]

It's not really fair to blame St Modwen. Remember, Rover sold much of Longbridge to them on a sale and lease-back basis before the company went to the wall.

St Modwen are a long-term company so they should be good hands - they don't develop and sell - they develop and keep.

However it is frustrating that progress is so slow, with Nanjing SAIC and everything else. It will be worth the wait though if a vibrant town centre emerges, and that will benefit all of South Birmingham.

[Ginger Tosser]

To be honest when ever I hear a developer/politician/local dev agancy mention the 000's of jobs a site will create I often think reducing that number to a third is usually more realistic.

[Mr Glide]

...and most of those jobs will be shelf stacking and scanning groceries...probably

[blahblah]

Longbridge revamp plan revealed

The plans aim to transform the currently derelict site of the former factory


By Peter Plisner
BBC Midlands transport and motoring correspondent



A £750m regeneration plan for the old MG Rover factory in Birmingham has been unveiled, three years after it closed.

A new Longbridge town centre and 2,000 homes are planned on the 468 acre site.

Bournville College would also move there while three parks would be created and the long-hidden rivers Rae and Arrow opened up.

The factory closed in 2005 with MG Rover's collapse. Nanjing Automotive is set to resume car production in the remains of the plant in August.

Most of the factory has been flattened since it closed in 2005

The Chinese firm, which bought the MG Rover assets, leases a third of the site and earlier this month announced that the old MGTF sports car would be the first vehicle to be made there.

The company also said it intends to make up to four different models in Birmingham over the next five years.

Property developer St Modwen and the regional development agency Advantage West Midlands have submitted planning applications for mixed use development of the factory site.

The plan for the Longbridge site is one of the biggest redevelopment projects in the UK.


Watch a flythrough video of the plans

In recent months many buildings have been demolished to make way for the new construction.

It is part of the Longbridge Area Action Plan, which is expected to help create 10,000 new jobs over the next 15 years.

The new town centre, just off the A38 Bristol Road South, would form a new heart for the community, developers say.

Bournville College would relocate to a "Learning Quarter" featuring a new purpose-built £84m educational facility, expected to open in 2011.

There would also be a new recreational area including "Austin Park" at the heart of the town centre and "Rea Park" on the western side of the development.

BBC News

[Brummyboy92]

Wow this is fantastic, I hope it happens as this area will look stunning if it does. There is also a small highrise in the video or is that me!

[Erebus555]

It looks nice but I'm a little cautious about the design. The long block looks very similar to the 1960s streets in the sky concept and we know what happened to that... But I am just a bit uneasy about something of this size and scale. They appear to have embraced the Oxford-model for the West Works and that is a good thing. Let's just hope the architecture is good enough for it to work. The main centre I am just more cautious about. Nice, we have a park and there's a retail thingy but it just looks really boxed in. I guess it hides it from the main roads but it just looks disconnected. Longbridge East looks like a Spanish holiday resort with a hint of typical English village (albeit with a huge green and a mound?!).

Thanks for posting!

[brum2003]

looks great, surely 'family' home, ie houses would be better suited to this area, most people aspiring to live apartments want to live in the city centre...saying that I hope it works

[Delirium]

Whenever we drive past the ol' long gone Longbridge site on the way into Brum, my dad always tuts loudly and says ''Look at it, just look at it '' tis rather sobering.

erm not exactly helpful but y'know

hope all goes well *touch wood*

[U475 Foxtrot]

Longbridge should have been one of Mr Brown's Eco-towns

[Biosonic]

Blimey!

I like that

[djay]

reminds me of the olympic park a little...looks great though. not sure about the lack of 2-3 floor buildings tho, everything seems high rise

[hammerb24]

Didn't the government promise to do whatever it took at the time to re-generate Longbridge, still waiting for then!! It does grate with me a bit that the government seem to be putting a lot of effort into finding Manchester a alternative to the Casino but this just seems to have slipped off the agenda, not that I begrudge Manchester I just want to know where this help is for us....

[Biosonic]

http://www.propertyweek.com/story.as...de=3114012&c=1

St Modwen submits plans for £750m Longbridge scheme
18:14 | 20.05.08

St Modwen has submitted four planning applications for the £750m redevelopment of the former MC Rover Works site at Longbridge, near Birmingham.

By Deirdre Hipwell

The applications for the 468 site were lodged with Birmingham City Council and Bromsgrove District Council this week. The cover the development of Longbridge North, Longbridge West , Longbridge East, and improvements to the A38 and responses to the Longbridge Area Action Plan that was submitted to the government in March this year.

St Modwen is working with joint landowner regional development agency Advantage West Midlands on the regeneration of the site. Overall they are planning a 15-year programme at the site, which is near the existing Longbridge train station, which will see around 1.8m sq ft of commercial development and 1,980 homes. It will also include a learning quarter, anchored by Bournville College, three parks, and the opening up of the Rivers Rea and Arrow

The applications do not cover the part of the site where Chinese car maker Nanjing Automobile, which bought MG Rover, is in operation. Nanjing in 2006 took a 33-year lease from St Modwen on 105 acres of the 470 acre site.

The news will be a boost for the West Midlands area as the site is a key development area in the region. Mike Whitby, leader of Birmingham City Council, said it was a hugely important project and would put ‘Longbridge back on the map’.

Bill Oliver, chief executive at St Modwen, said: ‘Longbridge is a site with a world-renowned heritage and …the potential Longbridge has to become a thriving economic hub and a sustainable new residential community is now apparent.’

Mick Laverty, chief executive at Advantage West Midlands, said: ‘The submission of four major planning applications provides a clear statement of intent, showing the scale and ambition of what Advantage West Midlands and St Modwen expect to deliver over the next 15 years, and highlighting the level of our commitment and continued investment into Longbridge.’

[Biosonic]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/w...ds/7411110.stm

Cool video.