Park Central Zone 1

Prior to 1940 Park Central was a close network of back to back terraced housing, local businesses, shops, pubs, schools and hospitals. After site damage from bombing in the Second World War, much of the housing had been cleared by the late 1950s. It was replaced over the following 30 years with an irregular mix of low, medium and high-rise local authority-owned houses and apartments set around parkland.

By the early 1990s the housing stock was in decline, drug dealing had become rife and the parkland had become a dangerous no-go area for the public. Birmingham City Council stock transferred most of the housing to Optima Community Association, a regeneration agency and housing association by the mid 1990s. Working closely with Birmingham City Council, Optima carried out tenant and public consultation and enabling work in the late 1990s which led to a regeneration strategy for the Atwood Green area as a whole, incorporating Park Central as the initial driver for the regeneration programme.

In 1999 a two stage design competition was launched, based around an initial masterplan drawn up by PRP architects. Birmingham City Council and Optima encouraged contemporary architecture and drew up a flexible competition brief with an emphasis on creating the right design and mix of uses for sustainable regeneration.

Crest Nicholson Residential with Gardner Stewart Architects were announced as winners in September 2000.

A good, close working relationship was established between Birmingham City Council, Optima, Crest Nicholson and Gardner Stewart. A novel financial model was developed: Birmingham City Council granted Crest the land under licence, so no land value is attached, which means the developer is under less pressure to create quick returns from the site. As a payback, as well as a £30m payment by Crest to go towards remediation and public amenity, a virtuous investment cycle is planned, so that once a certain level of profit is reached by Crest, the aim is that funds will be filtered back into a community pot to pay for future public amenity within the site.

Throughout the design and development process a highly organised community association of existing tenants attended bi-weekly design meetings ensuring that the residents' thoughts and needs were taken into consideration. A planner from Birmingham City was also dedicated full time to Park Central, attending weekly meetings and working as part of the design team.

Having won the bid Gardner Stewart carried out a complete reappraisal of the original masterplan and increased the number of units from 1200 to 1898. Outline planning was submitted in late 2001 and granted in just seven weeks, a rare speedy turnaround in the construction industry. Remediation work started on site in 2002. Eighteen units were built by the end of 2003, 132 by end 2004 and over 250 by October 2005.