BYRNE: "NEW STREET REVAMP COMING IN NEW YEAR"

11-12-2007

West Midlands Minister Liam Byrne has told The Stirrer he expects the long awaited revamp of Birmingham New Street station to be finally given the go-ahead early in the New Year - and he's also responded to an article about his Hodge Hill constituency posted on this website yesterday.

Byrne was speaking at the official launch of a new, AWM-backed £20 million Innovation Centre at Longbridge on the site of the old MG Rover car factory - part of a scheme to create 10,000 new jobs and 1,300 homes.

When quizzed about the final tranche of government funding for the much delayed New Street project, the Minister was upbeat.

He said the deadline has now passed for all of the Council’s submissions, and that “The Department of Transport will be looking at it over Christmas. I'll be making sure they don't read too slowly.

"I've also been to the Treasury, to make sure there aren’t any new fences to jump over. I’m optimistic we can sort this in the New Year.”

Byrne was talking at the launch of the new Regional Economic Strategy and the Regional Spatial Strategy, which forsees the creation of 362,000 new homes over the next two decades – “that’s a new house every half hour” he pointed out.

He also took time out to comment on yesterday’s article on this website by Stirrer reader David Parker (“Between Alum Rock and a Hard Place” http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/awm1012071.html) about his constituency of Hodge Hill.

Parker questioned the role of the regional development agency AWM, and said he had “yet to see the evidence” of their involvement in the area, even though it has significant and well-documented economic problems.

Byrne defended their role, saying, “AWM has been very successful in putting together a real platform for regeneration in Eastside and elsewhere over the last few years.

"Growth over the next ten years has to be in the urban centres and in areas of deprivation.

“Hodge Hill is in a part of Birmingham that is now being prioritised, the Eastern Corridor.

“We’ve got to address all sorts of issues like housing. We’re about 30,000 homes short in the and we need a massive rebuilding programme.

“There are also practical problems. I’ve got 16 year olds in my constituency who are looking for work, but who tell me they can’t get to the Fort Shopping Centre which is just a few miles away because the public transport isn’t good enough.

"There are going to be 5,000 jobs created in Eastside alone over the next few years and we have to make sure everyone can share in those.".