Birmingham is booming, with £8 billion of city centre regeneration projects creating 40,000 jobs due to come on stream.

Martineau Galleries, a £550 million residential, leisure and shopping complex, will be bigger than the Bullring.

The Rotunda, once a tatty symbol of 1980s decline, is being turned into swish apartments. Scores of people camped overnight to pay a deposit, such was the demand to live in a Birmingham icon. All were sold within hours of going on to the market.

Baskerville House, a 1930s reminder of Birmingham's grand civic past, is at last being restored in a £30 million refurbishment project and will soon be marketed as grade one office accommodation.

Work on The Cube, a stylish addition to the Mailbox, will start this Autumn.

The Snow Hill Station site, for years a derelict blot of tatty car parks at a prime entrance to the city centre, will soon be transformed as part of a £400 million mixed-used scheme.

Land off Great Charles Street, vacant for years as council and developers argued over whether it was suitable for a new coach station, is about to be sold for upwards of £25 million and will be turned into flats, offices and shops.

Life is sweet, as far as Birmingham City Council is concerned.

But not everyone is so happy. Critics of the council's Tory-led coalition are beginning to step up the pressure, claiming that dithering and indecision has either delayed or lost completely opportunities for mould-breaking projects including a new library, a super casino and the redevelopment of New Street Station.

An article in a magazine called Building, which dubs itself the UK's top magazine for building professionals, laid into Birmingham's record on regeneration, which it said had slowed since Labour lost control of the city council in 2002.

Reporter Vikki Miller wrote: "The city's hard-won reputation for urban regeneration is now being undermined by a series of delays."

The article, accompanied by pictures showing a drab city landscape with piles of rubbish and graffiti, referred to the lack of progress over Arena Central, a city centre scheme off Broad Street that was supposed to give Birmingham one of the UK's tallest buildings, and to the £1 billion redevelopment of Paradise Circus which has stalled since being announced six years ago.

The magazine quoted architect Will Alsop praising former Labour council leader Sir Albert Bore, described as a man of vision, and bemoaning a "lack of strong lead-ership" at the council today.

"Birmingham is nervous of the new. It will go so far and then retract," Mr Alsop said.

It was hardly surprising that such sentiments left Birmingham's Tory council leader Mike Whitby incandescent with rage. After all, Coun Whitby's campaign for the council leadership had been based to a large extent on his ability to do business with developers and to get Birmingham on the move again.

The council leader's mood was not helped by the intervention of CBI director general Sir Digby Jones who, speaking at the Conservative Party conference last year, hit out at delays over New Street Station and urged the project team to "pee or get off the pot".

Nine months later, the business case for the £500 million redevelopment of New Street has only just been signed off by all of the partners involved.

Last month another trade magazine, this time Estates Gazette, parodied Coun Whitby's attempts to sell Birmingham at the important MIPIM trade fair in the south of France.

An article in the magazine's gossip column referred to a "puffy-eyed" Whitby attending a breakfast briefing where he was supposed to give a speech and asking an aide what he was doing there.

Coun Whitby (Con Harborne) hit back at his critics: "We have not yet been in power for two years, but during this time Birmingham has been named European City of the Future and the Mercer Report said we are one of the best cities in the world to live in.

"Those people who say that economic activity has ground to a halt have ignored the fact that prime office rents in Birmingham are giving a 9.2 per cent return and prime industrial and commercial land is giving a 6.4 per cent return. These are among the best figures anywhere in the world."

Ken Hardeman, the cabinet member for regeneration, said he was fed up with Birmingham being portrayed in a "knocking attitude" by the media. Coun Hardeman (Con Brandwood) said: "This has been a good year for regeneration in terms of financial confidence, investment and employment.

"The Martineau Galleries scheme will be half as big again as the Bullring and will bring the Birmingham Alliance investment in the city centre to £1.5 billion. That is courage, that is faith in the city.

"We are drawing up a masterplan which will empower massive investment, up to 20,000 jobs and transform the city centre.

"It will be the first of its kind in terms of scale and vision."