STATION REDESIGN IS DEAD END

10-01-2008

An international architecture competition has been announced to give Birmingham’s revamped New Street station the “wow” factor – all assuming the government comes up with the rest of the cash needed for the development. Barbara Panvel argues that city leaders are missing the point.

So the city council-led partnership is to announce an international competition offering £40 million for ‘best ideas’ for New St Station facade and atrium above new passenger concourses . . .

Planners are said to be seeking ‘iconic status’ and have already spent millions on fruitless ‘ideas’ for the station and the Central Library which could have been put towards improvements.

The international credit crunch and household debt crisis indicate a need to spend resources on essentials rather than bolstering up a search for prestige, iconic developments and so on.

Above all, long-suffering rail travellers need a service which will get them to work on time or meet other timetabled connections. At present the service is unreliable and passengers breathe a sigh of relief each time it works according to the timetable.

The Department for Transport has earmarked £128 million to refurbish New Street; why isn’t this being done instead of spending time and money continuing to search for ideas – predictably an imposing entrance and a grandiose ‘retail concourse’ or shopping mall?

Platforms were closed 15 times last year due to overcrowding because passengers were waiting for trains running late on congested tracks – not because the station needed redecorating.

If additional funds are available, they could be used to improve the actual rail service. In 1999 Hansard recorded proposals for four tracking to Coventry and Wolverhampton, opening up the tunnels. To these could be added new local railway infrastructure for the proposed rail routes along the Camp Hill line and out to Castle Vale, with stops at Kings Heath and Moseley.

Expensive, wasteful and polluting demolition and carbon intensive new construction projects, which have many impacts on human & environmental health, should now be a thing of the past.

Planners should take the advice of the government’s Sustainable Development Commission [SDC]: repair and refurbishment is the better course, because there is so much “embedded energy” in existing buildings that no matter how energy-efficient a new one might be, there will be a net carbon loss.

Taxation could be revised so that greenhouse gas emitting ‘newbuild’ would no longer be tax-free whilst repair and refurbishment is subject to 17.5% VAT . The SDC, its advisory body, suggests that VAT should be equalised at 11-12% and thus be revenue neutral - and others would like to go further and see repairs and energy conservation measures zero-rated.

Councils will earn the respect & support of their electorate if they begin to prioritise the well-being of the general public and, to that end, make the best use of the money which – directly or indirectly - is all given to them by the taxpayer.

The first goal for New Street should be a reliable and efficient rail service.

Hansard ref: click here

See also Barbara Panvel questioning the need to rebuild the Central Library (see link here)

Would the money earmarked for New Street Station be better spent expanding capacity rather than designing an “iconic” entrance and shopping centre? And does the same apply to the city’s Central Library.