Proposals for riverside neighbourhood advance

Proposals for the development of a new riverside neighbourhood in Birmingham, which include more than 1,300 homes, have been backed by the council.Dandara Living brought forward plans for its Warner’s Fields project on a site located at Moseley Street, Southside.Work can now begin to regenerate the brownfield site to create a community centred around a renaturalised River Rea, which runs through the middle of the site but is not currently accessible to the public.Dandara will invest in landscaping the river, creating new public spaces along its banks and laying the foundations for a mixed-use destination a short walk from the city centre. This first phase of the development will spearhead the council’s Rea Valley Urban Quarter regeneration with successive phases providing further homes, workspaces, commercial space and new active travel routes.Along with the more than 1,300 homes that have been approved, the scheme will include approximately 29,000 sq ft of commercial space.Birmingham City Council’s planning committee discussed the plans on 16 May.Rachel Allwood, planning director at Dandara Living, said: “The redevelopment will deliver much-needed new homes to meet Birmingham’s housing need and drive the ecological and environmental transformation of this part of the city by renaturalising the River Rea and delivering significant net biodiversity gain.”Phase 1 will see the excavation and landscaping of the River Rea for the first time in decades. This initial investment will catalyse the construction of successive phases, including further mixed-use developments and bring much needed regeneration into the area.”We are grateful to the officers at BCC who recognised the necessity of this phasing and recommended the scheme for approval and to the committee members who approved it.”