Dear Editor, We wait with trepidation for the findings of Lord Rowland’s report and the proposals for the High Speed 2 line between London and Birmingham.
Lord Adonis and the Department for Transport will hopefully come to the conclusion that the line needs to connect central Birmingham with St Pancras and continental Europe beyond.
It may be appropriate to have stops at Birmingham International Airport, Milton Keynes and Heathrow, but the main raison d’etre should be to connect city centre to city centre.
It is evident that New Sreet Station already has a large enough presence in the city centre, and even with the renovation it would not be able to cope with the additional number of passengers and trains. Therefore I would like to suggest Eastside as the suitable location for a new station, and more specifically, the restoration of Curzon Sreet Station as a major terminus for Birmingham.
The site, known as ‘Curzon Park’, is currently owned by Development Securities and Grainger plc and lies between the West Coast Main Line and the new city park. It is a prime piece of land that could be mutually beneficial for HS2/Birmingham City Council and Development Securities/Grainger if part of the site were to be turned over to hosting a new station.
This would be a real boon to Eastside and its constituent parts as well as the city and region.
At the same time the remainder of the Curzon Park site would experience raised land value as businesses would want to be located next to such an important transport hub. Such a significant part of the city centre would of course require careful masterplanning as well as exceptional architecture and sustainability design but surely would offer a win-win situation for all stakeholders.
The possibility of creating a magnificent extension to the Grade I listed Curzon St Station, which would place the world’s oldest railway terminus back at the heart of the city’s link with the outside world, is too good an opportunity to miss.
Matthew P Bott,
Jewellery Quarter,
Birmingham.
