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2 Snowhill Plaza (Metropolitan Workshop)Huge Birmingham skyscraper will have no car parking and 464 bicycle spaces instead
A skyscraper in Birmingham, which once complete will contain 462 flats over 48 floors, is to have no car parking, instead offering residents 464 cycle spaces and a bicycle workshop.
The news, reported by Birmingham World comes as plans for the city centre build were approved at the back end of last week by the city's council, with the planning committee voting in favour of the Snowhill Plaza development by seven votes to six.
Plans for a 48-storey skyscraper in Birmingham have been approved - it will not have parking spaces but will instead have 464 cycle spaces for residents. https://t.co/I5zZifzeHf
— Transport Action Network (@TransportActio2) July 8, 2023
Objections came from Historic England who believe it will harm the character of nearby heritage assets, namely St Chad's Cathedral and Birmingham Children's Hospital, once it is constructed next to the Holiday Inn near Snow Hill station.
However, the objections did not prevent the voting councillors approving it. In February, Southwark Council approved a planned office development in south east London despite residents raising concerns about the 200 bicycle parking spaces meaning the road would become congested with "bottlenecks and noise" from those commuting by bike. The views of the objectors to the development on replacing the bike parking spaces with ones for motor vehicles were not reported.
> Objections raised to office bike parking scheme – because it will cause "bottlenecks and noise"
In the case of Snowhill Plaza however, concerns of that nature were not heard, the construction to now go ahead with more than 450 cycle spaces as well as a bike workshop as part of the building's communal facilities, which also include a co-working space and gym.
The planning committee was reportedly split on prioritising the need for housing against potential viability concerns in the location.
"It's an incredible-sized building – the scale of it dwarfs everything else," councillor David Barrie said. "A lot of the benefits of this could be promoted on the back of this could be delivered in a much less intrusive development."
However, those in favour outnumbered those against the development, Brad Burridge of HUB saying it will be a "striking landmark for Birmingham" which will result in a "new public route that will open up this part of the city centre for pedestrians".
A 2020 planning permission application was refused for part of a major redevelopment to the area around Cambridge railway station, because it "fails to provide high quality cycling infrastructure commensurate with Cambridge as the leading cycling city in the UK", including accommodating the long-planned Chisholm Trail cycle route which will cross the city.
Cambridge City Council voted not to grant permission to developer Brookgate for the development, known as the Devonshire Quarter, which would have been built on the existing car park at the station, with plans for an aparthotel, office block, and a multi-storey car park.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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23 comments
This 464 cycle storage number, which conveniently is the same as the number of flats, seems to be mentioned a lot without much detail to back it up.
Digging into the actual planning application:
http://eplanning.idox.birmingham.gov.uk/publisher/mvc/listDocuments?identifier=Planning&reference=2022/08119/PA
in doc http://eplanning.idox.birmingham.gov.uk/publisher/docs/0A0C5CE3E1F5E33A8D6386C721ED0C29/Document-0A0C5CE3E1F5E33A8D6386C721ED0C29.pdf page 5 shows a room with 2 layouts - one option with part cycle store, part resident storage, and the _second_ option with full bike store totalling 464. Also, the "workshop" described is maybe just a fixed floor pump, bench and box of tools.
Checking the dimensions of this space, it is very generously max 300m^2 which at 0.7m^2 per bike (https://content.tfl.gov.uk/lcds-chapter8-cycleparking.pdf) is 429 spaces - completely filled. And measuring the layout as represented probably only about 60 meters of 2 tier racks so more likely under 200 spaces.
I'd say its a Curate's Egg.
The appearance of the building is a horrible mess. The no parking spaces is excellent.
What it will require is effective enforcement.
Fortunately iirc Brum Cathedral has stained glass windows, so it can't be seen from inside.
Only one bike per flat. I'm out. 🙂
Easy way round this, buy two flats, one to live in and one for the bikes.
"Objections came from Historic England who believe it will harm the character of nearby heritage assets, namely St Chad's Cathedral and Birmingham Children's Hospital, once it is constructed next to the Holiday Inn near Snow Hill station."
Admittedly not a reason to keep developing, but I would say the character of those heritage assets has probably already been somewhat harmed by the massive dual carriageway and redevelopment in the last decade: https://goo.gl/maps/Yt2Mct6CuCngbGhw5
The dual carriageway is part of the unforgivable decision that the "car is king" made in the 50's/60's by the council. The decided to have a main artery go though the centre of Brum slicing it in half and building loads of subways* for pedestrians. Only a small section was going to be called the Queensway but the Queen, when opening that section, declared the whole section to be called the Queensway in her speech, so by "Royal Decree", the council had to follow that.
Since the 90's, they have been reversing alot of the problems and removing cars but that section is still a blot seperating the "Centre" from the JQ and the civic centre area.
*The subways.pedestrianised area on that section used to contain mosaics including JFK. (Pictures at the bottom of the page.)
ahhh that explains why they included:
to help quieten down those noisy gear changes and squeaky brakes.
It is definitely cyclists that keep me awake at night and not hooligans racing up and down the street in their cars.
You've confused the Cambridge planning application, 200 bicycle parking spaces, with the Birmingham one, which includes the bike workshop.
ah fair enough. The residents should be outraged then. Those unmaintained bikes will drown out the noise of the handful of motorists in the area.
You've confused the Southwark application (noisy bikes objections) with the Cambridge one (failure to provide high quality cycle infrastructure)
A few years ago an area of derelict land behind my office was developed and a six-apartment building was put in there. Part of the planning application was that - since it was about a minute's walk from the city centre - there would be no car parking (there was no room for any, anyway), just bike parking and bin storage. Once the building was finished, the inevitable happed: cars parked in the access lane, meaning bins couldn't be accessed, and cars turning up in our office's small car park.
So that's at least 462 cars in Birmingham which will end up being parked on surrounding roads...
There are two multistorey car parks right behind the plot of land so I suspect they will just give subsidised use to any residents to them. One plus point is the new building is right next to WMP HQ so I doubt they will be as lenient to pavement parking or stealing of space from them.
I'd imagine the roads around there will have fairly restrictive parking arrangements.
If we want to build better urban centres, we shouldn't give in to entitled drivists. If people start parking like that, they should be fined. What sort of imbecile buys/rents a city centre flat with no parking space but buys a car anyway? 🤦♂️
I once worked with a guy who bought his wife a car. She couldn't drive and had no intention of learning to drive, she just wanted a car to call her own. Now that's stupid.
Sounds perfectly sensible to me. She wanted a car. He wanted to drive a car, one that was not his and not registered in his name. Presumably so she could bat away any points by not declaring who the driver was.
Appartment leases usually include the right to park (eg in a designated space), and sometimes also a right for a visitor parking space. So clearly parking is something which can be written into the lease agreement. Why not have a clause in the lease which proscribes parking any motor vehicle anywhere within a mile of the building?
Because otherwise the intention that the building should generate no new motor vehicle burden will be frustrated by people simply clogging up any available spaces nearby and encourage guerrilla parking.
Where parking is written into the lease, the lessor is giving the lessee the right to park on the lessor's land. I suppose in theory you could proscribe parking within a given radius, but unless that radius is also the lessor's land, I guess it would be practically difficult to enforce.
Yup, about as easy to enforce as putting terms in a lease that you won't go to pubs, or won't learn to play guitar.
My lease says I can't keep a horse at the address, fortunately they included a secure bike shed so I choose to cycle to work instead.
It's a 1st floor flat BTW......
O
First floor flat? Pah, nothing...
Quite a lot of new flats in London (and I assume other places) are granted planning permission on the condition that residents of those buildings will never be able to get a residents parking permit. Council then has an incentive to introduce residents parking so that they can raise money and collect fines from the residents who have nowhere to park the cars they aren't meant to have.
That can be controlled via a Plannign Condition.
There is probably enough precedentto stop that being overturned on Appeal.