Most cities usually want to emulate London, but Birmingham is determined, instead, to learn from the capital’s mistakes — in one area, at least. Sir Albert Bore, the leader of Birmingham city council, is flying to the annual Mipim property conference in Cannes this week with one aim: to avoid having a housing crisis like London’s.
He wants to secure £9 billion investment from the delegates gathering in the south of France to build 80,000 homes by 2031 in what is intended to be the most ambitious residential development programme in Birmingham’s history. He hopes that it will ease unprecedented demand in the city, with its population of just over a million expected to grow by 150,000 in the same period.
Birmingham fell into decline in the 1970s and 1980s, but a flood of large and small businesses are setting up shop within its borders and there is an influx of Londoners in search of a more affordable life. About 5,480 people in their thirties moved to Birmingham from the capital last year — the most to any regional city.
Birmingham’s are determined to learn from London’s problems, where soaring house prices have put high-quality housing out of reach for most young people.
Sir Albert, who will unveil the housing plans on Thursday, said: “Birmingham is determined not to repeat the mistakes that London and other global cities have made, where rampant house price growth has triggered an exodus of young people and hit the quality of life of professionals living and working in the city. We want to stay ahead of the curve, which is why we are acting now.”
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The city is launching a fund so that it can prioritise resources and streamline planning to target the most important brownfield or disused sites. The council has identified more than 40 such sites and is considering developing on greenfield areas.
The average house price in the region is £198,000, well below the national average, but prices are expected to increase by 17 per cent over the next four years if demand continues to race ahead of supply.
BLOB Britain is Europe’s choice for commercial property investment, despite investors becoming nervous about the prospect of a Brexit if the Conservatives win the election. A CBRE survey found that just over 30 per cent of investors chose Britain as their preferred market, more than twice as many as those voting for Germany and Spain, in joint second place. At the city level, London was top, followed by Madrid and Paris.