Engineering: New Street’s new look

 

The 1960s is a decade that saw the construction of the best and worst new buildings in the UK. The best could be represented as anything designed by Cedric Price and the worst, arguably, by New Street Station in Birmingham. But now it is undergoing an enormous redevelopment.

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Rebuilt in the 1960s, New Street was designed to cope with 60,000 commuters a day, but now Birmingham has far out grown that capacity. Furthermore, the concrete box dotted with sterile artificial lights has become such an eyesore that passengers, the city council and businesses alike have campaigned for improvement. Now, with almost £600 million in funding for Network Rail, Advance West Midlands and Birmingham City Council to play with, change is afoot.

We spoke to Dominic Pendry, Communications Manager for New Street Gateway, to see what changes the central train station is about to undergo.

“The main focus for us at National Rail,” Pendry explained, “is to make sure the passenger experience is much better for the 35 million people who use the station every year, and we will do that by making the station much lighter and brighter. There will be vastly greater amounts of room for people to wait in, and the very important factor for us and the other funding partners – the council and Advantage West Midlands in particular – is that the station will become much more permeable, allowing people to travel through it to other parts of the city.”

Transition vamp

The first phase of the building work is scheduled to finish by 2011 – in time for the 2012 London Olympics. The second phase is due to be completed by 2013. Pendry said: “We’re actually phasing the work so it will have less impact on passengers. Clearly it is one of the busiest stations in the country, and we don’t intend to shut it at any point during the work. We need to keep the place operational and the way to do that is to build the first phase off-site.”

Apart from extending the station to cope with twice as many passengers again, the project called Birmingham Gateway will start off-site. “We’re taking an area of land that currently is a car park, which sits alongside the station. We will build a whole new concourse there between now and 2011/12 time. And at that point, we’ll open up the new concourse and close what is currently used as a concourse, so we can start work on what is already in place.”

Plans in the works

Regeneration company Advantage West Midlands have led the project hoping to ‘create the right first impression’ to visitors to Birmingham.

Its concourse will extend to about three times the size of the current one, which will open up the station interior to let in more natural light. There are also plans to regenerate the surrounding area and pedestrian connections to and from the city centre.

Passenger capacity will also double and each platform will become accessible via escalators. This will see an increase from five escalators to 42. “There are only a limited number of escalators and only one core lift that accesses the various platform levels – we are going to introduce 42 escalators and there’ll be lifts from every platform to the concourse. So it is going to make the station much more accessible. And given that the place is used by long distance travellers as well as commuters, it is very important to us.”

There will also be three new stylish entrances into the station from the city centre – with the aim of welcoming new visitors. Pendry comments: “At present, there are only a couple of entrances to the station and it acts like a block to certain parts of the city centre, so on a logistical level, it is quite difficult to get around. So it will improve that and also make the station more accessible for people with prams, luggage and obviously people in wheelchairs.”

Birmingham Gateway aims to make New Street a more pleasant place to be for commuters and tourists equally. “We’re going to create a real gateway to Birmingham. It’s going to be much lighter, much airier, and it’s going to be somewhere people will want to be. And I think with all the best will in the world, it is not something most people would suggest about the place at the moment.”

But that’s not all…

As well as regenerating the station, two 30 storey glass towers, one for commercial purposes and the other residential, are also proposed under the plans that will form part of the entire £550 million redevelopment of the railway station. These twin towers could become two of the tallest buildings in the UK.

The towers will help the entire project to become sustainable. According to Pendry: “It is quite and important part of the funding mix and what we tried to do here is look for a solution that has as small an impact as possible on the fare and tax payer. It is clearly a significant investment.

“The total public sector investment from the government and various funding channels is about £400 million. But what we want to do is also look to the commercial sector to see where funding is available. And we’re actually going to bring in an extra £200 million as a result of that. While it is only a third, it is still a significant proportion of funding for the overall development.”

Fit for an airport

The station already serves as an important landmark for Birmingham due to its location. “It is probably the most centrally located station of any of the big cities - they tend to be out on the outskirts - this is right in the middle,” said Pendry.

“It [the new station] will allow more passengers to come into the station, and importantly for the council and ourselves, it is going to open up an appropriate gateway for the city,” he said.

Designing stages

In its early stages, the powers involved are seeking out the best designers from the region to determine the external look of the station to best represent the city. “At the moment, we’re actually looking for concept designers for the external envelope of the station, and rather than take the decision entirely ourselves we’re bringing in RIBA (Royal Institute of Architects) to help us with a design competition, and we’re taking in experts from around the city and region so we get the right designer - someone who can really bring the certain ‘wow’ factor that Birmingham really needs.”

There is more to the project, however, than just space, light, looks and modernity. The Gateway to Birmingham is a large economic project too: “[The final station plans] offered by far and away the best value for money, and pound for pound, we will expect to see around £4 to £4.5 back in benefits for every pound spent.”

The project is ongoing but its ultimate aims should be realised before the 2012 Olympics. Watch this space.

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