Preparatory works have taken place on the former Friarsgate site ahead of a potential redevelopment.
Much of the land – now rebranded the Birmingham Road Site by Lichfield District Council – has been left empty since the long-awaited project bit the dust after more than a decade of planning after it emerged funding was not available.
But local authority chiefs say work is now taking place in a bid to kickstart city centre redevelopment plans.
Specialists from environmental consultants Delta Simons were at the former Tempest Ford site – which was demolished as part of the failed Friarsgate scheme – and the former police station site on Frog Lane. They have been assessing conditions and ground water for potential contamination in order to identify any remedial work that may be required.
Cllr Doug Pullen, leader of Lichfield District Council, said:
“We are pressing ahead with our plans for the redevelopment of the Birmingham Road Site.
“It is a key area of the city centre, the gateway for visitors arriving by train, bus and coach and we are committed to transforming it into a vibrant, attractive place with new leisure facilities and accommodation.
“The preparatory works this week are essential for the site’s redevelopment.”
Cllr Doug Pullen, Lichfield District Council
The works have included making shallow excavations, digging small trenches and taking core samples and soil samples.
No final decisions have been made on the Birmingham Road Site’s future, but the council is planning a mixed use scheme incorporating housing, retail and office space.
Put a new leisure centre on there so it’s accessible to all and brings more people into the city centre! Don’t use green space instead.
More old folk flats ??
@mike, you beat my most conservative estimate of how long that old chestnut would take to rear it’s head!
Why can’t it be left as open green space? We don’t need anymore offices in Lichfield…there are countless empty premises already.
Ah so the council ‘may’ have CPO land that is contaminated with oil, chemicals, asbestos heavy metals from car maintenance years ago. Ergo no developer will touch it if it is contaminated. The levels that are allowable vary for domestic versus commercial and whether gardens/living areas sit on or above. However the site is only viable with a residential element.
You can guess who will have to pay for any remediation before any developer will touch it ‘if’ contamination is present.
Unfortunately the land is likely to be more valuable for housing development rather than for a green space or leisure centre. Retail is completely out of the question given the number of empty shops already. LDC having made such a disaster of Friarsgate in the first place are looking to recoup some of that cost by selling it to a commercial property developer. It may not be the popular choice but the economics of it will probably win over any objections.
So they think the old garage site of Kennings might be contaminated ? Has the council thought of the contamination of the old GKN site in Trent Valley Road ? You ask the past workers of what went on ? I’m one of them !!! Lol 🤣😆😆
I would rather this site was used for residential than building a great big ugly concrete carbuncle leisure centre or cinema. Who puts a leisure centre in the middle of a town? Sounds silly to me. And cinemas are old hat, though a boutique bar restaurant cinema in the old Debenhams might be nice. My preference would be to keep it as a public open space. Turn it into a beautiful modern garden area with multi community use. It could host small music events or pop up food events, school kids could use it for learning about plants and biodiversity, it could have all weather seating areas for peaceful retreat. Wouldn’t cost that much and would look really nice and promotes healthy living and community activity.
The sample diggings look like footing for housing to me !!! Contamination my elbow just another reason to build residential housing or dare I say a retirement village?
@Alica, lots of places put leisure centres central in a town actually, for instance, Stratford upon Avon. Not silly at all. And guess what, they actually have a large sports hall to go with it!
Mansfield also has a leisure centre in its centre, which I’ve been to plenty of times, with children’s water slides, soft play and other facilities that bring people together and create footfall.
It makes perfect sense if you want it to be well used.
Doesn’t have to be an ugly building either. I hardly think the new build estates around Lichfield are attractive, do you? You seen the state of the Persimmon/Taylor Wimpey developments? Doesn’t bode well for this site given how useless LDC’s planning department are.
If it’s the gateway to Lichfield why do they want to move the bus station?
100% guaranteed this is retirement flats and they will look naff.
That’s not Sampling. that’s excavating.
Is there something you are not telling us Coun Pullen ?
Grrr,
This time next year. There will be over 500 people, living on this site.
All of whom will not own a car and will use public transport for all of their journeys.
It’s site investigation works, probably for pre construction packs to accompany the sale of the land and it’s development – you may as well send it straight to McCarthy and Stone. Strange really as this work would have been undertaken by the original developer. I guess LDC have used tax payers money to pay for the survey’s again.
Why wasn’t this done earlier? Oh yes elections coming up.
Get the fence down please so we can see what is going on. We are all interested.
Looking forward to see what stupid ider the council come up with . I hope it’s green and environment friendly. And none pollutant…
Window dressing. Doug Pullen says he is pressing ahead with plans for the redevelopment of Birmingham Road Site. Um!! There has been glacial progress and he and the Conservative council needs to make things happen here. I am on a task group on Lichfield District Council scrutinising this development and trying to get some progress. Let’s hope my pressure pays off and some REAL progress starts soon
Why is the council obsessed with houses and office blocks for failed friersgate Lichfield needs retail shops, I suggest you take a trip over to Tamworths retail park . no matter what day you go it is always busy
Cllr Ray. Can you tell us what you would like to happen with the site? There was an article saying you wanted lots of affordable housing to be built.
I do not know anyone in Lichfield, who wants yet more housing on this site.
@Cllr Ray – let’s hope your pressure doesn’t pay off, because all I’ve heard is your desire to ram houses on the site. I’d much rather the task group actually listened to people about what the site should be used for. If you listened, I very much doubt you’d hear a majority saying ‘yes please, more houses’ but instead you might hear the complete opposite. In the absence of a compelling reason to do anything, doing nothing except turfing it, planting trees and leaving it as open space should be top of the list of things to do. But I guess that wouldn’t look good on anyone’s election leaflets.
@Cllr Paul Ray,as you are on the task group for this site, what do you want to see it being used for????
Robert Lichfield is full of empty shops
Well people of Lichfield let’s get rid of the dead wood on the Council and by that I mean all of them. The cowboys have had a good run and time and again messed up so a radical idea, let’s vote in some new Councillors.
Perhaps then we will have the City we all want!
Mike, please name a few empty shops. Then compare against any neighbouring town – we have far, far fewer, even compared to a lot of places in the South.
We all like a moan, but a simple walk around our beautiful city will reveal how much better Lichfield still is compared to Tamworth, Sutton, Burton, Cannock etc (N.B. town centres only! You really can’t compare an old town centre to a retail park).
You may disagree with the council’s decisions etc (don’t we all), but there is no denying that Lichfield remains a much more pleasant and desirable place than any of the surrounding towns and we should all be proud of it.
Completely agree with Joanne Grange. All Cllr Ray wants to do is put housing on the site. No thanks.
Whatever is developed on that land please improve the existing traffic lights at that junction, a filter with pedestrian lights.
Having recently been knocked down there by a car turning whilst I was already, as I thought safely crossing the road, it’s an even worse accident waiting to happen.
Mr Bucket
Of top of my head the phone shop in the in bakers lane has been empty for several years the shoe shop by Costa,what was H & B next to Nat West a shop up near Michael’s for a start
What would I like to see on the Birmingham Road Site?
– public open space – green space with maybe with a local bakery/coffee shop where people can meet
– new bus station. This is so badly needed
– link into the Three Spires Shopping Centre to join up our city centre
– redesign of Birmingham Road/St John Street/Upper St John Street junction which is currently dangerous
– redesign of the exit from the train station to make it so much more presentable
– hotel – data shows Lichfield needs more hotel capacity
– the site developed in an environmentally and sustainable way (materials, cycle paths and energy sources).
I appreciate that there is real sensitivity with the building of homes in the area BUT I want to be honest and open with residents with my views on this. I accept that there will be a number of homes on the Birmingham Road Site – and I want to see a range of homes including affordable ones for key workers (nurses/police etc). SEE FURTHER POST BELOW WITH MY REASONS
I accept there will need to be homes on the site for 2 reasons:
1. Without that the council will just not have the money to fund the things we want; new bus station, public open space etc. LDC owns the land and so the sales money all goes to LDC.
I believe in being honest but that does not mean that we should cram the site with houses. The site must be developed in a sympathetic way and with plenty of space.
Also and most importantly we MUST ensure that facilities are increased for the new homes being built (GPs/schools etc). When I speak to residents they often tell me that they are not against new homes being built but they are very concerned that the facilities are not sufficient to support them. I totally agree.
2. As high street shopping has reduced, the successful centres of the future will be those that are vibrant and having residents living in them will contribute hugely to that. In particular city centre living will generate income to support local businesses.
Give up saying there should be a leisure centre in the site already. It’s been looked at. The site isn’t big enough. It’s not going to happen. Don’t put housing on the site, the city simply does not need it. Don’t put retail space on the site, there’s empty small shops in the centre and big chain stores is not a thriving sector. But for f*** sake do something with the eyesore already. It’s pathetic how long we’ve had to look at those ugly hoardings. Joanne Grange’s suggestion of grass and trees is unexciting also very low on controversy, very very realistic, relatively cheap and so so so much better than leaving the site as it is for years or more or housing or retails. So just do that. Trees all around the road edges, grass and some flowerbeds and benches. And a small gravestone inscribed with here lies Tempest Ford, killed by Lichfield City Council’s incompetence.
Gosh, I look at other areas and we’re just so unambitious in Lichfield. Zero dynamism. Really quite sad because there’s the makings of a really great place to live if there was just a bit of vision.
Beware off cllr Rays proposals he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Lets have proposals from the whole council, then put it to a referendum involving all the Lichfield people, of who i am sure would prefer something other then housing or rest homes not concrete
I read Cllr Ray’s comments and genuinely thought they had come from Doug Pullen.
It’s not true that there’s not enough room for a leisure centre on the Birmingham Road site. An indoor leisure centre the same size as the one in Burntwood would fit quite neatly into the old Tempest Ford site with a swimming pool, gym, sports hall, squash courts (just compare the two on Google maps). The site’s not suitable for football fields or outdoor tennis courts, but Lichfield has those in Beacon Park. It is also not unusual to have such facilities in a city centre. Walsall, for example, has a swimming pool close to the town hall. And where I worked in the centre of London years ago there was a public swimming pool and five-a-side football pitches close by which my colleagues and I used every week during our lunch hours.
Miles A suitable Leisure Centre will fit easily on the site. As Carl has said the outdoor pitches are in Beacon Park also in town so no need to have them duplicated. Take a lovely day time trip to Malvern & see what they did. There is no reason why LDC could not copy Malvern or any other towns others have mentioned. Bear in mind Elections are in May & all sorts of indications & false promises will be made to try to get elected to yet again do nothing of benefit to the majority of residents on Friarsgate!!.
@Cllr Ray – so where’s this new bus station that is ‘badly needed’ going to go? And why is it ‘badly needed’ other than LDC are planning to build on the existing bus station that’s in exactly the right place, between Lichfield City Station and the City Centre? Bit of a circular argument really – we need a new bus station because we’re going to build on the old one, and we can’t afford a new one without building over it. Interesting that you’re also looking at redesigning the Birmingham Road/St John St junction – the critical route for North Lichfeldians (you know, the ones you represent) to travel south to the A38. Has any traffic modelling been done to predict the impact on existing resi areas if all that traffic is then routed via Curborough Road and through (e.g.) Boley Park?
Cllr Grange, you and your common sense, no nonsense approach will be sorely missed.
Joanne Grange is absolutely right. It is plain to see that the best place for a bus station in Lichfield is precisely where the existing one stands. There is no justifiable reason to build housing on the site of the Ford garage (that was ousted) and has sat empty for a long time now. There is already too much housing in Lichfield with too little infrastructure to support it. There is a need for good connective public transport. The site ought to be used as green space with nice benches. Perhaps one building – a small art gallery or info centre as adjunct to Tourist Info Centre. Coach park area added to buses. Small shop or cafe. Reason little cash available? Central Tory government failure to give funds to regions. LDC oddly silent about where they might move the bus station to. Any commuters from outlying areas who want to catch a train from Lichfield City will not be well served if it is moved.