The post which can be viewed at this link came on the back of news that the Blues owners are looking for the Government to invest in transport infrastructure to help make the £2.9B Sports Quarter a reality.
Interim Blues CEO Jeremy Dale had confirmed at a recent University of Birmingham event that Knighthead were looking for a public investment of around £270M to create the vital transport links needed to make the Sports Quarter truly viable.
All of this has left some Blues fans openly wondering on social media if this is the inevitable catch that will ensure once again promises and dreams will fade.
While I’m a believer that we really need to ditch negative mindsets, I do think that this is a time to properly understand what is required and the obstacles that may be in the way of it happening immediately.
With this in mind I’ve put this piece together to examine exactly what the transport problems are, what £270M could to do solve this and what hurdles lie in the way of that money being invested by the public purse.
The Infrastructure Problem
One of the big things that has emerged since Birmingham City started routinely selling out St Andrew’s again is that the road network around the stadium is struggling to deal with the volume of traffic generated.
As someone who lives in Digbeth and who has to commute to the other side of Coventry on a regular basis by public transport, I can honestly say that public transport in the area is struggling to keep up with demand too.
Throw in the issues that have occurred with the lack of secure parking – ie vehicles getting stripped for spare parts – and it’s easy to understand why there is a desperate need for better infrastructure right now.
The issues aren’t just about the here and now though.
The vision for the Birmingham Sports Quarter will mean a huge further influx of people to B9.
Taking out the issues that a full 62,000-seater stadium could cause on its own, there is a desperate need for better transport links in the Birmingham Sports Quarter area if it is to become a hub for people to live, work and enjoy themselves.
In a simple world, the answers would be easy. More spaces for parking, more roads for vehicles, more buses, more track and stations for trains etc. Throw money at a problem and it goes away, right?
Having attended the “What Next for Birmingham” panel discussion myself, I’ve come to understand the nuances of the problems that Birmingham faces.
Take rail for example.
An obvious answer would be to expand a station like Bordesley so that it has multiple entries and exits; maybe even multiple platforms for trains.
As much as that sounds like the easy answer, it doesn’t attack the actual issue of capacity that rail faces right now.
Back in 2022 former West Midlands Mayor Andy Street was pushing for a £950M investment into Birmingham Moor Street due to the fact that Birmingham New Street is running at full capacity.
Street was quoted as saying
“The longstanding issue with rail in the West Midlands is the capacity in Birmingham at New Street, and actually it’s appalling. It runs at full capacity and if anything goes wrong it falls over, and has consequences across almost the entire country.
“There is no additional capacity in terms of new train paths to put in. So even if we wanted to increase the capacity of certain services, we can’t.”
The idea back then was to add two platforms to Moor Street and link it to the Curzon Street terminal of HS2, effectively turning the two into one huge super-station. Sadly, that plan fell flat after being denied any investment by the Government at the time.
Fast forward to now and Knighthead are asking for a sum less than a third of that ambitious plan – so what would £270M get?
What can we get with £270M?
It’s easy to think that £270M is a lot of money – after all it’s more than a quarter of a billion pounds. However when it comes to infrastructure it isn’t that huge a lump sum of cash as the failed bid for the Moor Street improvements show.
Having made some discreet enquiries, I’ve come to the conclusion that this sum of money would be to pay for two projects.
The first project I believe this money could pay for would be an extension of the Midlands Metro tram past Digbeth to the Wheels project and potentially further.
As it stands the Eastside Extension of the tram network is currently slated to run from the delta junction at Corporation Street / Lower Bull Street to Digbeth.
However, issues with the HS2 works at Curzon Street station have meant that a temporary terminus is being built by the Clayton Hotel to allow for switching of trams until tracks crossing the HS2 land can be built.
The original business case for the Eastside Extension budgeted the project at £137.2M; however by November 2023 this had ballooned to more than £244M due to the need for the turn back facility on Moor Street Queensway.
On April 7 of this year, the West Midlands Combined Authority discussed the Eastside Extension and further funding needed.
Due to reporting restrictions it’s difficult to know exactly how much funding is required.
However, there is a note in the minutes that the WMCA Board have been asked to approve the budget and funding for phase 2 of the Eastside Extension at its next meeting in May, subject to an appropriate funding solution being identified and agreed.
The timing of this meeting and the upcoming board meeting, along with that between Wagner and Reeves leads me to believe that the Knighthead chief has been lobbying the Government to pony up the required funds for this project.
I believe the second project that Knighthead are seeking funding for is the improvement of Adderley Park Station.
The proximity of Adderley Park station to the Wheels land makes it the natural choice of station to improve and its position on the line between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International make it a good choice for fans travelling from the Blues heartlands in east Birmingham.
While the issues with capacity are still very much a thing, I suspect what Blues will push for is an improvement to the platforms so that they can handle longer trains.
The reason I think this is one of simple logic; if there can’t be more trains on the network due to capacity issues, then surely the answer is to add extra rolling stock to improve the services currently to the station.
As it stands, the station is served by one train per hour on the line between Birmingham International and Rugeley Trent Valley, which is made up of the new Class 730 fleet, typically running six carriages, split as two sets of three.
There is also a service between Birmingham New Street and London Euston via Northampton which runs on the same line, although it makes its first stop currently at Birmingham International. This train is normally made of Class 350 rolling stock, typically running eight carriages, split as two sets of four.
Now while I’m not a train nerd (despite the evidence above), my thought is that if the platforms at Adderley Park were lengthened to a point where they can take 12 carriages, it might be possible then to run special longer versions of the above services stopping at Adderley Park to ensure more people can get to and from the station than currently can.
It’s easy for us as Blues fans to think of these projects as no-brainers – after all, we KNOW Birmingham needs investment in infrastructure. Surely the Government see it the same way?
The Financial Issues
Whatever the flavour of Government in power, the biggest issue any Chancellor has to face is the basic economic problem of infinite wants and finite resources.
I can’t remember much of what I learned in my college economics lessons, but what I do remember is that every Government runs policies based on how it feels it can best service the needs of its electorate with the resources at its disposal.
The current Chancellor Rachel Reeves has made it plain she will stick to various fiscal rules in her efforts to get the economy into the position she wants it to be during the current Government term.
As I understand it, the basis of these fiscal rules is that the Chancellor wishes to balance spending with the revenues brought in from taxes over the next five years and only wishes to borrow further money for investment projects.
Now, while Knighthead are looking for money for investment in infrastructure in Birmingham, they’re not the only ones.
Every city, town and local authority will have their own projects that they want funded by the Government and there can be only so much money to go around.
It’s not for nothing that Tom Wagner is making sure he gets face time with everyone he can in local and national Government.
Wagner will be well aware that the investments Knighthead have already made will be at risk if the funding does not come through and from the tiny bit I know of him and his team they will be playing every pressure point they can to make sure they get the funding they require.
What this means for us is that the public investment required is in no way a done deal; there is very much a battle still to be fought.
However – I think as fans we have every reason to remain positive that everything will continue as Knighthead want it to.
I personally think it’s telling that HM Treasury were the ones to share the selfie with Wagner on LinkedIn, rather than the other way around.
Right now, the current Government need to show that they’re attracting investment in the country and Knighthead’s vision to invest in one of the most deprived areas in the UK is almost certainly a good look for them politically.
It might also be naïve on my behalf, but I have faith in Tom Wagner himself.
The last two years has seen a sea change in the way the club is run, particularly with respect to commercial partnerships. If Wagner and Knighthead have the force of character to create partnerships with truly multinational businesses, then I have to believe that they can do what is necessary to get the public sector on board.
I can believe that for many the whole Birmingham Sports Quarter is still very much an abstract; a dream on paper that is a long way from completion.
It’s not hard to understand why fans have doubts either; the last decade has been a series of metaphorical kicks to the nutsack with little to no help from entities such as Birmingham City Council.
As fans, I think we have a choice to make. We’ve seen on the pitch that the club can have a winning mentality far beyond what has happened in recent times.
Now we have to decide if that extends to matters off the pitch.