Bolt-on fix for New Street 'eyesore'

Nov 26 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Mail

BIRMINGHAM’S New Street Station will not be demolished when work on a £600 million makeover gets under way, it has emerged.

In order to save money and keep disruption to passengers at a minimum, it has been decided to bolt on a stainless steel and glass facade to hide the existing 1960s grim concrete walls.

Network Rail, which this week submitted a formal planning application for the New Street Gateway scheme to Birmingham City Council, said knocking down the existing structure would have taken many months and involved closing the station.

The council planning committee is expected to give the go-ahead for Gateway early in the new year.

When work is finally completed in 2015, a towering six-storey atrium at the centre of the station will allow natural light to flood into a new-look Pallasades shopping centre and, for the first time, down on to some of the 12 platforms.

Spokesman Richard Kirkman said the station’s concrete walls, although “an eyesore” were in good condition.

The council-led partnership behind New Street Gateway was awarded Government funding of almost £400 million a year ago.

Network Rail is now freely admitting that the makeover of one of the few major city centre railway stations anywhere in the country will not allow more trains to use New Street and will not solve the “bottleneck” problems caused by services queuing to get into and out of the station.

Mr Kirkman described Gateway as a “people movement” project and not something which would increase the number of trains able to use the station.

It will, however, put paid to “hideous overcrowding” for the 140,000 passengers who crowd into the existing waiting areas, he said.

Built in 1967, New Street was designed to deal with about half the number of people passing through the station today.

The new station will have eight public entrances, 26 new escalators and 14 lifts, making access to the platforms from the passenger concourse far easier.