Tall & Urban News

Cole Waterhouse has submitted a full planning application to Birmingham City Council for its 5.11-acre (2.1-hectare) site at Upper Trinity Street in the city’s Digbeth district.

The developer exchanged contracts on the Upper Trinity Street site in 2019 from multiple landowners and has since undertaken an extensive community consultation program for a mixed-use scheme that will create a new cultural, commercial, and residential neighborhood.

For over a year Cole Waterhouse has been working closely with Birmingham City Council, neighboring landowners, and planning consultancy Barton Willmore to bring forward its vision for Upper Trinity Street.

The proposed development comprises almost 6,000 square feet (560 square meters) of mixed creative, retail, leisure and workspace, and over 900 new homes with a mix of private sale and build-to-rent apartments that will help to meet the local housing need.

Also included in the proposal is a 133-bedroom hotel that overlooks the proposed Skypark on Duddeston Viaduct and a new public park.

The community response to Cole Waterhouse’s plans for Upper Trinity Street has been positive following a recent public exhibition at The Engine Room in Digbeth. Jez Collins, the project’s local cultural lead, has been working with the team to ensure the proposals support and nurture the area’s heritage and culture.

Cole Waterhouse CEO Damian Flood, said “We are committed to delivering a high-quality design which enhance the surrounding environment and community.”

“Our vision is to create a new neighborhood right in the heart of Digbeth and neighborhoods need communities, culture, and connectivity to thrive and prosper so this has been a driving factor in the development of our plans,” he added.

“We’ve worked really hard to involve the local community as much as we possibly can and look forward to this next stage of the process. Now that the planning application has been made, we will be moving into the funding phase of the project whilst we move through the planning process and await a decision,” Flood further added.

Antony Harding, planning associate at planning consultancy Barton Wilmore, commented “This is an important scheme in Digbeth’s continuing evolution. It is a site which has largely been forgotten about and unloved for decades.”

“Strategically the scheme is vital as it expands Digbeth’s cultural provision beyond Lower Trinity Street, which is known for the wonderful Digbeth Dining Club, out further beyond to the edge of Bordesley.

“The residential element within Digbeth is much needed and goes some way to start positively creating communities again and addressing the impact made by the mass building clearance within Digbeth in the 1960s.”

“The project team has worked collaboratively with the Canal & River Trust and we are thankful for their positive and proactive approach in working with Cole Waterhouse to bring forward this land. It will provide much needed new urban parkland space and will celebrate the site’s unique Victorian engineering history.”

For more on this story, go to PBC Today.