Sounds good to me.

At least no one could complain about the noise.... And the Midlands is a world class centre for electric vehicle design too.

I don't think the old superprix circuit needs to be adopted for any future racing event. The Formula E cars are smaller and slower than the old F3000 cars that raced in the superprix and could run on a narrower and tighter circuit in a different location.

Engels said:

The historical route doesn't exactly show off the best side of Brum at present but this is also rapidly changing. with the developments coming forward. With the Monaco house and St Luke's estate sites as well as other developments around Pershore St to be transformed over the next few years there will be a much better backdrop for this race in just a few years.

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Formula E should be in the Midlands. A global hub for electric vehicle development.

A chance to showcase the city to a global TV audience. Admittedly at the moment not a very large one but still it has global following. Can only enhance the city's reputation, even the Superprix managed to do this and is widely held as a prestigious event even today.

It's significantly different to holding a stadium-based event like the Rugby World Cup or even the Football World Cup, as generally all you get to see is the inside of a stadium that could be anywhere.

I've already made a suggestion as to the circuit, will try to dig it out later. The previous Superprix circuit could work provided an area for the pits and hospitality could be found. The Monaco House site having been (partly) demolished could provide this? It would cause a lot of disruption though as Bristol Street is a main route through the city.

As to other areas of the city where there is a large enough vacant area for the pits and hospitality areas are around Eastside. The Curzon Street site is large enough for this. The roads surrounding the wholesale markets are another possibility, since the markets site could be cleared quite substantially within the next 12 months. Using these roads would cause little disruption.

The circuit itself doesn't need to be as 'generous' as the old Superprix one, the roads the FE cars can run on can be quite a bit narrower which opens up possibilities of using streets that aren't major thoroughfares. The other bonus is that the cars themselves are virtually silent, so people can't complain about the noise any more.

Start line was outside Monaco House on Bristol Street, the old car showroom there was the pits. Continue along Bristol Street turning left onto Belgrave Middleway, continue along until island at top of hill, return back along the Middleway turning right into Sherlock Street, round the houses a bit and back onto Bristol Street.

It'll be a shame if they use the same circuit. It'll also be quite disruptive when it doesn't need to be.

The Formula E cars aren't as spectacular as the F3000 cars from the Superprix. They are designed for narrow street tracks that the F3000 or F1 cars couldn't cope with. This means we don't need to choose big wide open roads any more. That gives the option of running it on streets that aren't so critical to the function of the city.

At the time the original Birmingham circuit was in operation there were option to use Broad Street as a vehicular route through the city. This is no longer possible.

This was one of my ideas for a city centre circuit. Minimal disruption to traffic, easy to construct pits and hospitality areas, easy to close off and restrict access to ticket holders, easy to add stands...

cyril sneer said:

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Here's what street racing was all about:

And the last feature race that included three future F1 race winners and one future World Champion, Damon Hill.

Don't think there's a minimum length but typically they are 2-3km. The old Superprix circuit was 3.8km so if used would probably be too long.

Utterly smacks of politics.... the way it's worded by the council leader is very strong and critical. Doesn't seem like a cooperative relationship to me. The way to solve any issue like this isn't to go bleating to the press, it would be for Street to admit he's got it wrong.

Besides, what sort of public consultation needs to be held?

Ref consultation. Would an event like this go through the same level of public consultation as the commonwealth games bid did then? I get the feeling there's an inconsistency somewhere....

Some people (not necessarily Billsmothers) have been making a connection between people watching motor racing on city streets and them being encouraged even more to race their own cars on city streets. Which is obviously an absurd connection to make.

So whats your theory then? Why would it encourage people who have never raced on the streets to suddenly charge around? Are people incapable of differentiating between what they can obviously see before them as a sport with a plethora of safety features versus their Ford Focus and a thin strip of fabric preventing them from crashing through their windscreen? Or they can't differentiate between a secure cordoned-off circuit versus the road outside a primary school at 3.15pm on a Friday?

We'll have to disagree. Perhaps instead of seeing it as justification of their actions on public roads these thugs see how racing cars is as a sport and/or under closed road conditions and decide to take it up in a safe environment? Since the message is that society will only tolerate driving fast on public roads if they're closed, barricaded off, use cars designed for the purpose, with a proper set of safety equipment, support personnel, paramedics every 100 yards, safety cars, systems to warn of incidents ahead and trained and experienced professional drivers. It'll put into context just what is required to allow fast driving and expose the risks even more to them. Just like we tolerate boxing in a ring, with safety equipment, paramedics, support staff, a referee. Despite what you might think of these thugs give them a little bit of credit for their learning potential.

It's about as unlikely that it'll encourage them any more than Jamie Oliver using a kitchen knife on t.v. encourages a thug to go out and stab someone.

I'd be very worried for the javelin and shot put.

Anyway, shooting isn't part of the games, is it? Perhaps the high levels of gun crime already in the city mean it's banned?

The reason there's a growing menace of high speed driving is because all the cameras are turned off and there's no traffic police anywhere to be seen. It's not due to an event that hasn't been held in the city for 27 years (nearly all of the thuggish drivers weren't even a twinkle in their parents eyes then, in fact most of their parents were probably in junior school)....

Correct. Credit is too easy to get and most of these cars will be leased by said individuals whose material needs outweigh nearly everything else. Back in the day fast hatchbacks weren't accessible to young 20-somethings. My first car was a Vauxhall Nova 1.4.