SUMMIT TO WRITE HOME ABOUT

29-11-2006

Birmingham Council gathered 200 of the city's great and good at the ICC yesterday to draw up a “prospectus” for the city. The difficulty of the task was underlined when delegates endorsed greater awareness of climate change -while at the same time backing airport expansion.

Well, they never said it would be easy, and the council is to be applauded for at least trying to bring people together from a wide variety of backgrounds to have an input into the future of their city. Lawyers mingled with schoolkids, business breadheads sat next to eco warriors, although it has to be said that overall the balance was skewed firmly in favour of the suits.

The government's cities guru Dr Michael Parkinson, who's been hired as a consultant by Birmingham, showed a wonderful grasp of our current situation. We've come a long way in the last 10 to 15 years, he said, but other places are catching up fast and some of the comparisons withManchester were particularly unflattering.

One of our major fault-lines is that Birmingham lags behind inattracting students, and those who do come here are less likely to stay, meaning that our local economy can't benefit from all that brainpower. The increasingly powerful pink pound favours the north-west, too, and local councillor Steve Bedser berated Brum's “tatty” gay village.

Parkinson pointed out, though, that Birmingham fares better than other major cities for secondary education, our crime levels are relatively low, and the city is seen as a good place to do business. Not only that, but for the first time in decades the city population is set to increase - by some 100,000 people in the next 20 years.

So where to start building on what we've got? Parkinson identified the need for more independent shops and greater encouragement for entrepreneurs generally; he talked about the Jewellery Quarter as an area whose heritage should be rather better exploited, but the jewel in the crown he said is Digbeth.

There is already so much atmosphere and great architecture there, and encouragingly, Parkinson talked about development that goes with the “urban grain”. That means using what's special about the area, not flattening it and starting again. A good thing too, as most Brummies know that Digbeth already has the best pubs in the city and with the Custard Factory, a real cultural asset too.

Council leader Mike Whitby talked about the area around the nearby wholesale market which has been earmarked for re-location as the place to create “Birmingham's Covent Garden”. He evoked the image of smoky jazz joints and imagined a place where creativity and spontaneity could thrive.

Dunno about Covent Garden, that sounds more like Soho or the Reeperbahn to me, and sounds like just what Birmingham needs. The question is, how do we keep out the big breweries with their boozing barns and allow bespoke bar owners to flourish? It's a trick no major British city has pulled off yet, but that's no reason Birmingham shouldn't try.

Four main areas emerged as sources for future growth and wealth creation -our universities; digital technology, including film; health, not least because we have an ageing population; and the environment.

All solid sensible stuff, although Whitby's insistence that the case for airport expansion was “inarguable” sat uneasily with the city's eagerness to establish greener credentials.

There's no quibbling though withhis repeated demands for improvements to New Street station. It'scurrent dismal condition is areminder that no matter how well Birmingham Council or its business leaders or indeed its citizens in general perform. Too much money, and too many decisions affecting how we live are still invested in Westminster and Whitehall.