Birmingham City Council and Lendlease’s plans for the £1.9bn Smithfield development have been recommended for approval.
The joint venture’s new plans for the 42-acre site include 3,000 homes – build-to-rent, for-sale and affordable – and 1.7m sq ft of commercial space.
Lendlease was chosen as the development partner for the site in 2018, and initial plans for the site were submitted in January 2023. The plans have been revamped twice since, with the first revised scheme submitted in October 2023 and the second in January this year.
The latest proposals for the site see the city’s Bull Ring markets form a centrepiece for the city. They include a rooftop garden, dining hall and new market square. The markets were previously positioned above the buried historic moat and manor house site of the De Birmingham family, which drew objections from Historic England owing to location’s archaeological significance.
The large events space, Manor Square, will now sit above the manor house site instead, and mark the location as the birthplace of Birmingham and the city’s historic Bull Ring markets.
Birmingham City Council planning officers have recommended the plans to be approved in a planning meeting later this week.
Image from Lendlease
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