10 November 2008
The UK's leading regeneration specialist St. Modwen has started an extensive remediation programme on the site of the former MG Rover North Works. The preparatory works are clearing the way for construction of the new £84 million Bournville College, which represents the first phase of a new town centre for Longbridge.
This latest milestone takes St. Modwen and joint landowner Advantage West Midlands a massive step closer to delivering a new heart for the £750 million Longbridge scheme with a vibrant new local centre, and to the creation of 10,000 new jobs across the development.
The 17-acre Longbridge North site is bordered by the A38 Bristol Road South and Longbridge Lane. It will eventually include a new town centre with a learning quarter set to be anchored by a new purpose built facility for Bournville College, which announced its intention to relocate to Longbridge earlier this year.
The vision for Longbridge town centre includes a major food store, together with a variety of other retail and service uses, employment space, hotels and leisure uses. This truly mixed use scheme will also include a mixed range of 460 new homes and The Austin Centre – a community building which will primarily be used as a focal hub for a host of local groups.
Thousands of tonnes of soil will be remediated at Longbridge North - enough to fill more than 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools - and, following the removal of ground contamination and concrete obstructions, the site will be re-graded to enable infrastructure and building works to commence. Construction is scheduled to start on Bournville College in summer 2009.
The preparatory works will also include the construction of the realigned River Rea, which has been underground since the early 1900s. The river will be returned to an open watercourse and will become a key feature of Longbridge North. It will run through Austin Park at the heart of the town centre, which will also include cycle lanes, footpaths, riverside seating and grass terraces.
Mark Batchelor, construction manager for St. Modwen, said: "Sustainability is very much at the heart of the regeneration of Longbridge and more than 95 per cent of on-site material is being recycled for future use in the project. Contaminated material will be treated by Hawk and Celtic Ltd using ex-situ bioremediation, which allows for the treated material to be re-used elsewhere in the scheme. This reduces the need for importing and off site disposal of material, thus decreasing traffic on the roads and reducing the carbon emissions of the project.
"As well as the environment, the interests of the existing community surrounding the 468 acre Longbridge site are of utmost importance, with St. Modwen introducing measures that will keep disturbance to an absolute minimum. Hawk's innovative new silent breakers will drastically reduce noise disturbance and excessive dust, a common problem during preparatory work, will be reduced using Celtic Ltd's filtration kit.
"Around five million square feet of the vast Longbridge site has already been cleared by St. Modwen. We are working closely with the Environment Agency, Birmingham City Council and Bromsgrove District Council to ensure this former industrial site is fully remediated, allowing the area to be completely transformed into a prosperous mixed-use town centre built around jobs, communities and people."
