Birmingham building project 'fails residents' on green space

Campaigners are warning that a major development project likely to be approved by Birmingham city council falls far short of the city's own guidelines for open green space.

- Harriet Grant

The £1.9bn Smithfield scheme will bring 3,500 new homes as well as restaurants and offices to 17 hectares of fenced brownfield land in the centre of the city. But the new park - Smithfield Park - will only be 0.8 hectares, smaller than a football pitch.

Jim Tucker, a local resident, set up the CityPark4Brum campaign eight years ago with a petition that collected 11,000 signatures. He said the plans were "a failure of a once-ina-generation opportunity" to bring green space to a dense urban area where thousands of children lived.

The developer, Lendlease, which is working in partnership with Birmingham city council, says the project would not be viable if it had to meet the council's guidelines.