Eastside City Park

Ever since the winning design for the Eastside City Park was announced I've been trying to find a decent image of what the thing will look like. Today, after much hunting through our lovely Council's beautifully structured website, I finally found the PDF for Patel Taylor's design from which the above image is excerpted. Annoyingly it's low resolution so you can't read the text but the general idea is clear.

It's basically a long thin strip, about the width of the current Millennium Point car park, stretching from the gardens on the junction of Park Street and Fazeley Street down past Millennium Point and terminating by the canal just before Curzon Circle on the Middleway. Which was not what I was expecting really. I'd assumed they were going to do something with the green areas in front of Cuzon Street Station but it seems, other than some trees, they're being left as open spaces, which makes sense for events and festivals.

The general theme seems to be water with little rivers, fountains and "features" scattered along the route before merging with the existing canals. It also looks like Curzon Street, amongst others, is going to be pedestrianised but that shouldn't be an issue - it doesn't get too much traffic as it is.

What'll be interesting is what happens to the area behind the station, currently a boarded off patch of wasteland. Is this the location of the much vaunted "learning quarter"?

It's also interesting to note that the spit'n'sawdust pub opposite the station (the name of which annoyingly escapes me - the Woodman?) is clearly marked on the plans. I wonder if it'll keep its unique charms in the redevelopment?

On the whole I give the new park a cautious thumbs up. It looks like a nice place to chill out and, once the rest of the developments around Masshouse Circus are complete, should really tie Eastside / Digbeth into the rest of the city centre.

(If that PDF link vanishes I've stuck a copy here. If anyone can send me a readable copy I'd be most grateful.)