Residential scheme to be the tallest in the city’s Broad Street tower cluster
Glancy Nicholls has been given the green light for a 47-storey tower in Birmingham that will be the tallest on the city’s Broad Street.
Birmingham council approved developer Regal Property Group’s plans for the 525-home scheme at a planning committee meeting yesterday morning.
The 145m-tall building at 90-97 Broad Street will join a growing cluster of towers in the city centre district, which has been marked out by the council as a tall building zone.
The 0.25ha site is currently occupied by a vacant three-storey commercial building, which will be demolished to make way for the tower. It is close to several listed buildings, including the directly adjacent grade II-listed former Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, built in 1814, and a grade II-listed former bank building built in 1898.
Regal had argued in its heritage and townscape assessment that the construction of the tower would have a positive impact on the former hospital building by replacing the poor quality existing buildings with a higher quality development.
The council’s conservation officer conceded that they were “not entirely convinced” at this analysis, adding: ”Arguing that placing a 47-storey tower adjacent to a 2-storey listed building which presents a challenge to the building and its historic scale is a positive change because it will be high quality does not justify or significantly mitigate for the negative impact caused through scale.”
But the council’s planning officers said that the heritage harm that would be caused by the proposals did not provide a clear reason for refusing the scheme, which it said would make a meaningful contribution to the city’s housing shortage.
Despite the council’s planning policy requiring a minimum of 35% affordable homes on schemes of 15 homes or more, just 4% of the tower’s homes will be affordable.
The officers’ report said that councillors needed to take into account the “high quality of the development and the overall pressures around build costs” in making their decision on the application.
Regal has agreed to pay a community infrastructure levy of just over £3.7m and fund £1.65m of public realm works, including a pocket park next to a metro stop.
> Also read: Developer plans 42-storey tower above historic Birmingham building
Glancy Nicholls director Adam McPartland described the pocket park as a “key part of experience, offering pause to Broad Street’s bustle, much needed habitat and sustainable drainage opportunities”.
Regal Property Group chief executive Mark Holbeche added that the scheme would be the “safest, most technologically advanced and sustainable residential project in its class” and would add a “unique landmark to the ever-growing Broad Street skyscraper cluster”.
Other tall buildings proposed for the area include Howell’s redesigned 100 Broad Street, a 33-storey tower approved last month which replaced earlier plans almost twice as high by Glancy Nicholls.
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