Plea to end travel woes for Aston Villa fans with investments in Sports Quarter transport

Councillor Robert Alden, leader of the city’s Conservative Group said it was vital to make sure the transport facilities serving the £3 billion Sports Quarter in East Birmingham were fit for purpose.

He was speaking at a meeting of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s Transport Delivery overview and Scrutiny Committee as they discussed reviewing ‘place based strategies’ and the processes by which transport investments will be agreed.

Birmingham City Football Club owners Knighthead has invested £100 million in purchasing the former Wheels site in East Birmingham which represents part of its wider Sports Quarter vision for the area.

Their plans include a new 60,000-seater stadium, sports campus of training facilities, a new academy, community pitches as well as leisure, commercial and residential development – creating around 8,500 jobs.

Blues chairman Tom Wagner also revealed a vision for a £20 million tunnel to transport the public from New Street station to the Sports Quarter.

Councillor Alden said: “I’m happy to support this going forward as it’s the sensible thing to do.

“One of the examples you used is proof as to why we need to make sure we’re getting this right and hence scrutiny and overview is so important.

“If you look at the proposed sports quarter in Birmingham, that has real opportunity for the city and the region.

“One of the key things that needs to happen is to make sure the new train station is in the right place to be able to enable in and out access quickly.

“What we don’t want to do is end up seeing one or two new sports stadiums being built in a part of the city where there is no actual transport getting those people in, when you are going to have tens of thousands of people getting in and out.

“We’ve seen the issues with people from the Midlands trying to get down to Wembley in the last few months – both Blues and Villa fans – and the trouble that’s been.

“What we don’t want to have is a sports stadium in our own region where people can’t get to.”

Committee chair Tim Huxtable said there were a number of major projects in areas such as East Birmingham and North Solihull and the Black Country where transport schemes were key to unlocking new jobs.

He said: “We will need to get people to the region where those new jobs are being created and all the skills that are involved in that whole place based strategy.”

West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker and city council leader John Cotton co-chair a dedicated strategic board set up to drive the project forward.