City Design

Policies/Guidance: Planning Guidance: Birmingham City Council

Birmingham City Council has developed a small team of urban designers, Design Policy, within Planning responsible for advising on architectural and design issues in relation to public and private sector development projects. Its main roles include drawing up design briefs, development frameworks and design policies. The team is also responsible for providing design advice on planning applications and planning appeals.

The team is headed by City Design Adviser, Philip Singleton who reports directly to the Chief Planning Officer. His task is to champion good design and produce a clear design vision for Birmingham reflecting its international standing and the aspirations of its communities.

Design Policy has produced a number of Supplementary Planning Guidance documents including Places for Living, Places for All and High Places. Design Policy has also contributed to the design policies with the City's UDP. The team has also been heavily involved in major projects within Birmingham such as the Bull Ring, Brindleyplace and Attwood Green.

Update June 2008: Public Art in Birmingham Eastside is an advice and guidance document rather than an adopted policy, and is targeted at a major regeneration area of Birmingham, the key stakeholders and developers, and council officers and public sector organisations concerned with the area. It was produced as a collaboration between Nigel Edmondson of Birmingham City Council and Samantha Wilkinson of InSiteArts, with graphics by Bharat Patel. The document aims to be a concise, focussed and comprehensible guide which identifies the key elements and mechanisms for advocating public art within a regenerating urban context.

Birmingham City Council is currently working on a Public Art Strategy, which will embody the principles of the Eastside document.

Birmingham is one of the few councils to have produced specific planning guidance advocating creative lighting and the use of artists in city lighting schemes - see 'Lighting Places' download, below.

Contact for further information:

Philip Singleton
Acting Assistant Director
City Cenre Development + Design
Planning + Regeneration
Alpha Tower
Suffolk Street Queensway
Birmingham
B1 1TU

Tel: 0121 303 3666; Email: Philip.Singleton@birmingham.gov.uk
www.birmingham.gov.uk