A city which has so much to shout about remains far too modest about its attributes, argues PAUL FAULKNER
As I was scrolling through the BBC News website recently a headline jumped off the screen asking if ‘Manchester could be a model for the UK to kickstart growth?’
The article itself was an interesting read about recent developments and collaborative working in Manchester, even if it was somewhat lacking in any new insights about the city.
From a Birmingham perspective however, given our city’s recent travails that include bankruptcy and bin strikes, this felt more like a kick in the teeth than a useful guide to follow, and yet another example of how Manchester continues to get its PR story right while Birmingham lags behind due to a combination of real and perceived image problems.
Now, hands up, I was born in Manchester and lived and worked there early in my career. I think it’s a great city and have lots of fond memories of the place, as well as a decent understanding of how it has effectively pulled together over recent decades in order to present a positive face to the world.
Yet, like so many people who call Birmingham home, I continue to be frustrated not just by our city’s seeming inability to match up to our northern neighbour in terms of publicity, but, more importantly, by our struggles to present an attractive and truly representative offering to the wider world.
In recent times it does feel as though we have come extremely close to resetting the narrative around the Midlands. Peaky Blinders burst onto our TV screens in 2013, definitely helping to portray the city in a cooler light and providing a welcome boost to the flat cap industry.
The 2010s saw impressive urban development starting to take shape in the city with the remodelling of the city centre for the new Paradise development as well as the transformation of Eastside with the HS2 Curzon Street station, and more regeneration promised in Digbeth and Smithfield.
The good times built to a peak even through Covid, and 2022 felt like something of a zenith with the glorious Commonwealth Games fortnight generating a magical feeling around the city and wider region, and producing a very real sense that this was going to be ‘our time’.
Since then, despite ongoing development and success stories such as the likes of Goldman Sachs relocating offices to the city, there has been an unfortunate sense of letting that moment and the positive momentum slip, and we have fallen into something of a funk, becoming the all too easy target for news reports around the bin strikes or social unrest.
These issues are of course very real and deserve focus and scrutiny, but they are not THE story of Birmingham. Far from it. The Birmingham I know and love remains a vibrant and exciting place to study, work and live, and now feels like the right time for the ‘coalition of the willing’ across the city to once more pull together and ensure we are telling the right story about Birmingham, loudly and proudly.
The story about the bankrupt city is now behind us thanks to the good work done by the likes of Council Leader John Cotton to deliver a surplus budget for the year ahead. For sure, being solvent is not exactly something to crow about as a city, but it is an important step forward if we want to shift the narrative and get our collective mojo back in Brum.
And then there are all the many, many positive tales we can share. A recent report by Knight Frank estimated the city’s economic growth to be 16% over the next decade, ahead of the national average, while 3% of all recorded property moves in the UK last year were to somewhere with a ‘B’ postcode, more than Manchester, and an indicator both of the region’s affordability and fundamental attractiveness.
Developments around the city are continuing at pace, with more cranes in the sky once again than any other city outside of London. The Liberal Democrats have even suggested that Birmingham should be the home of their proposed new Department for Growth, which seems like a great idea to me!
On the sporting front our football teams are flying, with Blues pushing for promotion and Villa at the top end of the Premier League and in the hunt for European glory this year. The Alexander Stadium will once again come alive this summer to host the European Athletics Championships (what odds on a Keely Hodgkinson world record?!), while next year the wonderful Invictus Games rolls into town, showcasing the incredible fortitude and skills of our wounded military personnel and veterans.
The region’s cultural sector is also booming with he BBC and Stephen Knight’s studio now firmly ensconced in Digbeth. Recently The Rep even hosted the premier of a new play called The Battle, taking a nostalgic look back at the rivalry between Blur and Oasis in the summer of 1996. The fact it was held in Birmingham, rather than more obviously in Manchester or even London says a lot about the city’s vibrant theatre scene.
So, taking that as my cue to wrap up this column, let’s not look back in anger at missed opportunities or negative headlines but rather look forward with a collective sense of positivity to a better future for Birmingham.
