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Thursday 21 Jul 2011

FIRST STEPS TOWARDS NEW STREET’S BRIGHT FUTURE

Region & Route:

The redevelopment of Birmingham New Street will take another step forward next week as engineers start preparatory work to create the redeveloped station’s stunning stainless steel façade.

Designed to reflect the movement of the city and the station, the 16,000 metre façade will be installed from early 2012 onwards and is featured in a new animated fly through film released today for the first time.

Chris Montgomery, project director for Network Rail said: “The new façade will turn the redeveloped New Street station into an instantly recognisable landmark for Birmingham and the West Midlands when it is complete in 2015. In the meantime, we have a huge engineering challenge to safely install the steel onto the station building and we’ll be working closely with our partners to minimise any disruption to people and businesses in the city.”

Mike Whitby, leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “With work beginning on the cladding, now we really are starting to move forward to a phase of the project which will be highly visible, and should instil a real sense of confidence and pride throughout the city at the transformational changes which are taking place.”

The first section to be clad will be the north face of the station building along Stephenson Street, and a half road closure will come into operation on Monday 25 July 2011 to allow preparatory work to be carried out safely. The work will take place in three phases:

1. Removing sections of the existing concrete panels on the station building to survey and establish fixing points for the facade
2. Supporting structural steel work is then attached to the building
3. Finally, the stainless steel cladding will be attached to the supporting steelwork.

While Stephenson Street will remain open to traffic, the half road closure means that three bus stops on Stephenson St will close on Sunday 24 July: Centro has been working to make sure bus passengers are kept informed of how these changes affect their journeys.

The 35, 45, 47, 61, 63, 80 services will instead stop a few yards away at the nearest existing bus stop in Navigation Street. Those catching the 81, 82, 87, 89, 120, 127 and 128 services should use the existing stops for these services in either Corporation Street or Hill Street.