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Trends in Development Investment in Birmingham

Published: April 2000

This report identifies the progress Birmingham has made in seeking to raise levels of development investment in the last decade and benchmarks investment in Birmingham against a number of comparator cities in the UK.

The key findings from this report form the basis of Chapter Six in the 1999 Economic Review produced by BEIC.

The primary source of data for this report is the CREDO database of Development Investment and Company Relocations managed by Prism Research Ltd. A study of the industrial building stock in Birmingham by Grimley Property Advisers is also utilised.

Context

• Development investment encompasses all new building, extension and refurbishment activity.
• During the period 1991-1998 there were 1,389 development investment projects in Birmingham that each exceeded a value of £50,000. They generated a total of £2,455 million investment in the City.
• Local development investment during this period has been concentrated in housing and roads and highways development.

Key Sectors

• The report focuses on six key sectors (industry, warehousing, retail, offices, tourism and recreation) and compares the level of development investment per capita in twelve UK cities.
• Birmingham performs worst out of the twelve with development investment per capita in Manchester and Newcastle over four times the value of investment in Birmingham.
• The industrial sector is one of the most important generators of growth but Birmingham ranks only ninth in terms of industrial investment per capita. This may reflect a relatively low availability of sites and premises for industrial development.
• Birmingham also has a poor recod in terms of office development with less than a quarter of the value of office investment per capita recorded in Newcastle or Manchester.
• The report concludes that despite increases in development investment in Birmingham the City continues to lag behind comparable cities in the UK. This may be because other cities are proving to be much more competitive in terms of attracting inward investment and development activity, or it may be that there are supply constraints (such as a lack of suitable sites or premises) in Birmingham that are preventing development investment occurring on the same scale as elsewhere.