A new design code for a major redevelopment will create a blueprint to enhance Lichfield city centre’s heritage, a councillor has said.
Members of Lichfield District Council approved the set of rules which developers the Birmingham Road Site will need to follow.
The code was drawn up following a two-year consultation period with residents, businesses and community groups.
It stipulates strict guidelines on things such as scale, architectural style and materials that can be used.
Cllr Alex Farrell, cabinet member for housing and the Local Plan, said:
“The Birmingham Road Site design code is not merely a set of rules, but a blueprint co-created with residents to ensure any new development enhances our historic city centre and will stand as proud testament to robust design principles as preferred by our communities.
“The clear message from residents was that the architectural design adopted for the Birmingham Road Site must respect Lichfield’s distinct and high-quality buildings and must use materials and features in keeping with its heritage.
“As we start to move into the design and development phases of the site it is vital that we have a code that can be used to determine the design and style of buildings”
Cllr Alex Farrell
The design code can be viewed on Lichfield District Council’s website.
Shame. I was enjoying watching nature reclaim the piles of rubble whilst the aspirational hoardings disintegrated with the winds.
Now then, CAN WE PLEASE GET ON WITH IT!
This corner of Lichfield is a blight and an embarrassment.
I was really pleased to welcome the new Design Code for the Birmingham Road Site at the District Council meeting on Tuesday evening. Not only will this ensure that we have good quality, well designed housing, lovely public spaces and a clear pedestrian through route from the train station to the city centre, the Design Code will also ensure that the affordable housing on the site will be spread around and not grouped together in one are and will also look exactly the same as all the other high build quality housing on the site. I raised this issue at the City Centre Masterplan Task Group that I chair and am delighted that it has been set out as a “must” in the Design Code. This is the way to create truly integrated communities. I’m hoping that the Design Code for the whole District will embrace this approach too. I will certainly be campaigning for this.
Excellent Blueprint and should enhance this beautiful city
Cllr Ball and his Labour mates are just desperate to fill Lichfield up with social housing, probably so they’ll be more Labour voters in future. If you want Lichfield to be an aspirational, desirable place to live, please don’t vote Labour or Lib Dem as they’re obviously hellbent on levelling this area down.
This is a conservation area, surrounded by some of the most beautiful and important buildings in Lichfield. Their setting should not be obscured by housing in any form, let alone the two to three storey blocks suggested opposite the sixteenth century St John Baptist Hospital building & chimneys. This is not the place for housing. The trees by the station on the south side of Birmingham Road, by their age alone, should be protected by everyone in Lichfield. Does the Council plan to fell them all to create more tarmac bounded by concrete retaining walls for the new bus station?
@Simon Lichfield should be a place which is welcoming to all and not just a place where those with money can live. The lack of good social housing is a significant problem and just because someone lives in social housing does make them less aspirational than those who have the luck to afford the quite frankly ridiculous house prices in Lichfield.
@Shergar So your idea of making housing more affordable is to reduce the quality and increase the density of new housing built? All that will do is create a bigger divide and make the area worse. Ghetto style housing has never been a good idea.
Shergar is quite right that we need more quality social housing. After 14 years of Tory mismanagement, we have a housing crisis in this country with too many people forced to pay crippling rents to live in substandard housing. And in Lichfield we are seeing ugly, characterless and overpriced retirement blocks springing up that are completely out of keeping with the city’s heritage. People deserve better.
This country has had enough of the rich getting richer while hard-working families struggle to afford a home and pensioners can’t afford to heat theirs. Meanwhile, the Tories are allowing developers to continue building with inadequate insulation instead of future-proofing our housing stock.
If we want a city and a country we can be proud of, we need to get the Tories out and give everybody a chance of a decent standard of living and a home fit to live in.
@Clare sholl : this country has had enough of the rich getting richer while hard working families struggle to afford a home are you quoting one of Angela Rayner speeches. Rachel Reeves will put a end of the pensioners with their gas fires on with the new codger tax. Sir Edward Troup special adviser to Rachel Reeves described pensioners as an under taxed generation who have had it ridiculously good.
I’ve never seen such a load of rubbish, the new design code is.
Gravel streets, no cul de sac’s, how big is the site, who’s putting the streets in, if it’s being done in parcels of land, piece meal.
I think everyone doing the code comes by train, because they start at the train station, where the bus station ends up, so people have to cross the road, accident waiting to happen.
Crossing will cause grid lock