Birmingham is showing us exactly what kind of levelling up we need

EDITOR’S COMMENT Birmingham council chief executive Deborah Cadman wasn’t lying last week when she described the city as confident, bold and fierce, outlining how the city now knew its worth and would be showing up in a very different way. Not only has it been lifted through its hosting of the Commonwealth Games over the past week, showing exactly what Birmingham and the wider region has to offer, but it is increasingly becoming a real draw for creative talent. Particularly around some of those areas that have previously been unloved.  Take Digbeth as an example. This part of town was long cut off from the city centre by the inner ring road. But with that now taken down the area is undergoing a massive redevelopment, turning old industrial warehouses into a new cultural quarter. A cool place to live, work and play. This week the BBC announced it was ditching its home at the Mailbox, where it has been since 2004, to make a real presence at Digbeth. The move will be a blow for Mailbox REIT (and all its investors) as the media giant was the Mailbox’s biggest tenant, occupying around 70,000 sq ft and providing almost one-quarter of its income. The owners knew the Corporation leaving was a threat (its lease is up in 2026), but in its most recent annual report listed the probability of it leaving as moderate only. Oops. But for Digbeth the move is massive. The BBC has already agreed a deal with Homes England and Digbeth Loc to base MasterChef within the Warwick Bar area and now this deal to establish its Midlands HQ in the redevelopment of the former Typhoo Tea factory, adjacent to Digbeth Loc Studios, will cement this area as a media hub. “Moving our Birmingham headquarters to Digbeth is going to help build the creative success of the region – drawing new investment and production to the Midlands – and sits at the heart of the BBC’s Across The UK plans to deliver significant increases in editorial spend and decision-making outside London,” said BBC director-general Tim Davie. This is exactly the kind of levelling up we need across our towns and cities. Businesses helping to establish areas not just for themselves but creating cultures, establishing a personality and drawing talent in. Bek Seeley, managing director of development for Europe at Lendlease, explains it well. Through levelling up, this industry has the opportunity to make such a profound difference on people’s lives.  She uses Birmingham’s Perry Barr as an example. Almost half the people living in the area, home to the Alexander Stadium, are under the age of 30. Perry Barr was crying out for regeneration, for investment, for levelling up. And while the intention to house the athletes’ village in the area didn’t come to fruition, some 5,000 new homes are being built and the area is being turned into somewhere people want to be. “It is our duty – to our younger generations – to make the places we live and spend time in the best they can be and to ensure they deliver the benefits for local communities that will help them thrive long-term,” says Seeley. I couldn’t agree more. Real estate, working in unison with the public sector and with our city leaders, can create places where big and small businesses alike can set up home, where they can establish business that our young talent wants to be in. I’m almost tempted to pitch for a move of EG Towers from Bishopsgate to Brum.   To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews