Birmingham Council to borrow over £300m for athletes’ village

Birmingham City Council is to borrow over £300m to forward fund the delivery of the athletes’ village for the Commonwealth Games in 2022. The village, which is being delivered in partnership with Lendlease, will provide 1,400 homes after the event and cost in excess of £496m.  Central government has provided a total of £165.6m for the village, £148.3m of which will be used to develop the village, related highway works and assemble the land needed for the scheme.  A further £17.3million from the government will be used by the West Midlands Combined Authority to deliver transport infrastructure. The council will borrow the remaining funds required to deliver the village from the Public Works Loan Board. However, the loan is expected to be relatively short term and repaid shortly after the games. Leader of the council, Ian Ward, said: “We’ve had a significant contribution for the village from the government. The City Council is also borrowing money which we will recoup through the sale of housing units after the games.” The athlete’s village is being funded entirely separately from the Commonwealth Games budget, which the government said this week will amount to £778m. Three quarters of the public funding will come from central government, with Birmingham City Council sourcing the remaining £184m. Ward said the council was aiming for a “quicker turnaround” on housing delivery than the 2012 London Olympic Games, with its East Village development in Stratford. “Look at what happened in London. We have learned lessons there. What they did was build for the games and then retrofit after. We are turning that on its head: we are building for the legacy of the site and retrofitting for the games.” The village is part of a wider regeneration of the Perry Barr, North Birmingham area, which is set to ultimately deliver 5,000 new homes. Ward added that he hoped the Games would drive further investment into the city. During the first quarter of 2019 Birmingham saw total commercial investment volumes of £140 million, of that £50m was office investment, accounting for 36%, according to Savills data. Other major developments in Birmingham include the £1.5bn Smithfield project, a 34.6 acre development in the city centre, which is expected to deliver 2,000 new homes and more than 3m sq ft of commercial, retail and leisure space.  Birmingham City Council selected Lendlease as its development partner for the project in January. To send feedback, e-mail lucy.alderson@egi.co.uk or tweet @LucyAJourno or @estatesgazette