{"id":84583,"date":"2025-05-08T12:22:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T12:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/84583\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T12:22:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T12:22:13","slug":"major-birmingham-station-plans-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/84583\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Birmingham station plans approved"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plans for the revised design of Birmingham\u2019s new flagship high speed railway station have been approved – but HS2 has been urged to \u201cget on with it\u201d.<\/p>\n

The proposals for Curzon Street Station, the city centre<\/a> terminus of the divisive HS2<\/a> line, will help to \u201cfuture proof\u201d the station, according to those behind the plans.<\/p>\n

They include a change in material from timber to aluminium within the station roof due to recently tightened fire standards while the eastern concourse has also been replanned.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/b>HS2 \u2018reset\u2019 explained – impact on Birmingham, potential delays and \u2018serious challenges’<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The plans were considered at a council planning meeting earlier today, May 8, where councillor Gareth Moore (Conservative, Erdington<\/a> ) said he supported the application but expressed frustration at the progress made so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cHS2 offers tremendous benefits to Birmingham<\/a> which we, as a city, should very much welcome,\u201d he said. \u201cTo unlock those benefits, we need a station so this application is crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI suppose my only key ask is can we get on with this?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need the station and it\u2019s pretty damning that more progress has been made with that infamous bat shed than the actual station that\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor David Barker (Labour, Brandwood and Kings Heath<\/a> ) added afterwards: \u201cI agree with that.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A visualisation of the proposed revised design for Curzon Street Station, the HS2 station in Birmingham. . -Credit:HS2<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy to approve it, I would like to see the further parts of this project brought forward as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we just need this done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Lee Marsham (Labour, Nechells), chair of the planning committee, said he thought HS2 was of \u201cgreat importance\u201d to the city and could be a key part of the tram extension to the proposed new stadium and sports quarter for Birmingham City FC.<\/p>\n

A council officer\u2019s report, published ahead of the meeting, added that the revised design of the proposed station building \u201cwould still be a world class 21st century landmark building\u201d.<\/p>\n

It went on to say that the station would display \u201chigh quality architecture\u201das well as contribute to \u201cmaximising the regeneration and development potential\u201d of HS2 in the city centre.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/b>HS2 update on \u00a31bn tram line to new Blues ground that promises to ‘reshape Birmingham’<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The report also said a combination of factors were involved within the redesign, including value for money, technical complexities, engineering constraints and changes to standards and regulations.<\/p>\n

The redesign plans were ultimately approved by the planning committee this morning.<\/p>\n

Construction work on the station began in January last year amid optimism it could provide a huge economic boost and drive investment.<\/p>\n

But despite progress being made on the design of Curzon Street, the new CEO of HS2 Ltd recently confirmed that a \u201creset of the programme\u201d<\/a> was needed as \u201cserious challenges\u201d continue to plague the project.<\/p>\n

This \u2018reset\u2019 will involve a review of the project\u2019s cost and schedule.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/p>\n

Mark Wild, the CEO of HS2 Ltd, at the Curzon Street construction site on April 3 -Credit:Alexander Brock<\/p>\n

CEO Mark Wild said recently: \u201cThis is of a scale never done before \u2013 the last mainline terminus we built was 1899 in Marylebone.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruth is also the construction has been harder than we would have thought so we\u2019ve lost ground in construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a combination of factors of getting a little bit behind and also the complexity to come means we need to reset the programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good news is that this is all completely solvable and I\u2019m very, very confident,\u201d he added. \u201cBut you get one chance to reset it to give people confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether the aim was for trains to run between 2029 and 2033, as previously suggested, Mr Wild responded: \u201cWe\u2019re so far into the civil engineering now, it\u2019s time to reset \u2013 as frustrating as it is, that will take me the rest of this year to do.<\/p>\n

\"HS2<\/p>\n

HS2 Curzon Street station in Birmingham -Credit:andrewhendry.com<\/p>\n

\u201cStanding here, I don\u2019t really have an answer \u2013 I\u2019m just going to do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI have said to the government though, before the summer I\u2019ll give them some advice and we aim by the end of this calendar year to have firm advice about the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people are patient \u2013 it\u2019s the only time we\u2019ll do it [a programme reset] from now until the end of the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Wild added: \u201cTwo things are happening in parallel – peak production and at the same time, parallel to the reset.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re sitting on our laurels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans for the revised design of Birmingham\u2019s new flagship high speed railway station have been approved – but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,1205,748,40731,32623,393,4884,29350,32624,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-84583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-councillor-david-barker","12":"tag-curzon-street-station","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-hs2","16":"tag-station-building","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114472193155968516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}