Streets key to West Midlands says Brum mayoral candidate

Housing and infrastructure will be at the heart of Andy Street’s manifesto, as the former head of John Lewis looks to become the first elected mayor of the West Midlands. Street stood down as head of John Lewis earlier this month after agreeing to stand as the Conservative candidate for mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority. It is one of 10 regional mayoral races that will take place next May. The WMCA comprises 12 local authorities and three local enterprise partnerships. Until standing down to run, Street had chaired the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership since 2011. Speaking at last week’s Estates Gazette development summit in Birmingham, Street confirmed that real estate issues would be central to his campaign. “This mayoralty is all about driving the economy of the region and critical to that are housing and skills. But the public sector has to provide the infrastructure that then leverages private sector investment.” He said there were already good examples of close working between the public and private sectors, pointing to the Paradise Circus and Smithfield redevelopments in Birmingham and the work undertaken by Solihull’s urban growth company on the proposed HS2 station in UK Central. “We’ve got lots of models, whether it’s the enterprise zone model that has worked so well and has produced Paradise’s redevelopment and is underpinning Smithfield. Or if you look at Solihull at the UGC model and the masterplanning and the subsidy from HS2 to drive out the private sector investment.” One of Street’s last tasks before he began campaigning was to open a John Lewis in Leeds’s £165m Victoria Gate last month, a year after John Lewis had opened in the £750m redevelopment of the 500,000 sq ft Grand Central in Birmingham. “Both cities tell an important story that big retail brands have to be there in all of the key cities and that the cities do thrive from retail regeneration,” he said. Street insisted he could deliver the 4% swing from Labour to Conservative that he would need to be returned as mayor. “We’ve got six months to tell the story and I’m very confident we’ll get that message across. And I will win.”