BACKGROUND

Introduction

Eastside is one of the largest urban regeneration projects in the UK, covering 170 hectares of Birmingham City Centre.  The new city centre quarter of Eastside will focus on the themes of learning, heritage and technology. It will draw on the characteristics of the area, which contains 2 Conservation Areas, Aston University, Aston Science Park, canals and the River Rea.  The initial regeneration impetus is predicted to take ten years and result in billions of pounds of investment.  

EASTSIDE LOCATION MAPS

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Strategy

The development in Eastside is seen as the logical extension of the city centre strategy into the East side of the city.  It builds on the success of the regeneration of the city centre itself;  the new International Convention Centre, Brindley Place and the Jewellery Quarter.  Many of the principles of sustainable development (city living, reducing travel to work, pedestrian friendly environments, new public transport infrastructure) were important components of the city centre regeneration.  Through the promotion of other aspects of sustainable development including energy, water and waste reduction as well as community and social issues it was considered possible that Eastside could become an exemplar.

Sustainable Eastside

Sustainable Eastside - A Vision for the Future [.pdf 1.3MB], published in 2002,  sets out the aspirations for the sustainable regeneration of Eastside.   The Eastside Sustainability Advisory Group, was also set up in 2002 to support the mainstreaming of sustainable development in Eastside.  As a result  Birmingham City Council agreed  to undertake the innovative step of co-locating sustainability advisors with the  Eastside team.  The Sustainability Advisors are employed by Groundwork Birmingham and Solihull and took up their posts in October 2003.

EASTSIDE CURRENT PROPOSALS

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The  ‘Sustainable Eastside’ project is funded by Government Office for the West Midlands, Advantage West Midlands and the East Birmingham and North Solihull Regeneration Zone, with additional support from the Environment Agency and Birmingham City Council.

The project is named in the West Midlands Objective 2 Strategic Package, which runs until 2008.  The project, however, is currently funded until March 2006.