HOMES on Longbridge’s iconic West Works estate are well on the way to completion with buyers set to occupy properties within as little as six months or less.
The 75-acre project – the latest phase in a £1 billion regeneration of the huge Rover car plant – features 350 homes and new business premises creating 5,000 jobs, and was helped by £6 million investment from West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) three years ago.
During a visit to the site on Monday (March 4) to see how progress was going, Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands and chair of the WMCA, confirmed a £200 million funding pot to deliver another 12,000 homes on brownfield land across the West Midlands – part of the authority’s ‘brownfield first’ programme.
Around 20 percent (2,400) of those new homes will be affordable, a minimum developers must meet in order to receive WMCA investment.
The mayor said: “The derelict Longbridge site was always a stark and painful reminder of how far the West Midlands had fallen during the so-called ‘boom years’ as the rest of the country surged forward.
“But standing on the iconic site now, when so much life has been breathed back into it, shows just how far we have come in recent years.”
The West Works was a key part of the old Rover plant, once the largest car factory in Europe. But in 2000, Rover Cars and the Longbridge factory were sold to the Phoenix Consortium, which renamed it MG Rover Group, in a management buyout for a symbolic tenner.
Then, in April 2005, the MG Rover group went into administration leaving behind a more than century old manufacturing legacy and 6,000 workers who lost their jobs.
Nigel Barfoot, aged 75, spent five years at the Austin factories. He said the apprenticeship he undertook, resulting in a mechanical engineering degree from Aston University, was responsible for his career as Sales Director at Unipart Cowley.
He said: “We had a vibrant industry here which went in 2005. Sadly this site has been dormant for 15 years but now money is going into it. It’s going to be a different place but one which hopefully remembers its heritage.”
The 468-acre site fell into disrepair before developers St Modwen, acquired it in 2005 and began their regeneration plans.
Critically, the River Rea, hidden for decades, has been re-naturalised for the first time in almost a century. The mile-long route will reconnect Rubery and Longbridge town centres.
A riverside park is also being created to provide high-quality outdoor space and develop a sense of community and enhance biodiversity.
Sarwjit Sambhi, chief executive officer, St Modwen, said: “The £1bn restoration of Longbridge is a fantastic example of what can be achieved through the regeneration of brownfield land.”
