Birmingham gets first new park in 130 years

Birmingham has its first new park in more than a century with the opening of the first phase of an ambitious urban landscaping programme that forms part of a multi-million regeneration scheme.

Stretching from the city centre out into Eastside, past Curzon Street Station and Millennium Point, Eastside City Park will provide 14,300 square metres of landscaped green space.

Features include 310 trees, formal lawns, public squares and a 188-metre canal feature which incorporates 21 jet fountains.

Many of the trees have been imported from the continent, but none are ash trees in the wake of the ‘ash dieback’ crisis.

Eastside City Park was proposed in the early 2000s as a focus for the Curzon Street area of Eastside’s regeneration. Working with Advantage West Midlands (the former Regional Development Agency) Birmingham city Council secured funding through European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) to buy and clear the land and buildings to create the park.

The park will greatly increase the amount of green space within the City Centre, providing a visitor attraction alongside the Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum. It will also include a Science Garden funded by and in association with the museum.

This will form the heart of Eastside, encouraging more people to live and work in the area. It will contribute significantly to enhancing the image of the city locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, and include water features, a range of planting, grassed and hard landscaped areas suitable for many activities and events.

Patel Taylor and Allain Provost successfully emerged from two stages of an international competition as the winners of the commission to design Birmingham’s first new park for over a century. “This is a wonderful opportunity and one which has had our highest attention,” said a spokesman for Patel Taylor.

“The site is a long, narrow site which joins the city centre along the frontage of Millennium Point eastwards to the Digbeth canal and lies within the city’s Eastside regeneration precinct.

“The design follows our strategy of making a sequence of defined spaces with a logical yet pleasurable route between them, but with added layering of meaning as these work differently in the lengthwise or traverse directions.

“The park’s length lends itself to a continuous narrative, while across its shorter dimension it is more a moment of green in a journey through the city.”

Birmingham City Council and its regeneration partners, Wates Construction and landscape architect, Patel Taylor, hosted an after-dark light switch on to unveil Eastside City Park.

Sir Albert Bore formally declared the £11.75 million park open on behalf of Birmingham City Council. He was joined by Andy Hands, business manager for Wates Construction Midlands, Patel Taylor director Andrew Taylor and Millennium Point Trustee, Richard Green.