Big City Plan

So Birmingham's ruling Tory-Lib Dem coalition have set out the first stage in the 'Big City Plan' - their vision to make Birmingham a more pleasant place to live and do business.

Some of the ideas sketched out so far are actually quite could like providing better links to Digbeth and the Jewellery Quarter (surely the best two parts of the city). But lets not forgot that it was the Labour party under Dick Knowles and Albert Bore that began the process of breaking down the Queensway Collar which did so much harm to our once glorious city centre. For those readers who don't know Birmingham well, the Queensway is a giant 1960s ring road that encloses the retail and commercial heart of Birmingham and has acted as a deterrent to growth ever since it was built.

I just hope that the final plan includes a proper proposal for dealing with mass transportation. Whilst I accept that Birmingham may never get the tube system it so desperately needs we should at least see a tram (or the existing metro scheme) extended to bring more areas of the centre of our city into the zone of prosperity that extends from the Bull Ring to Brindley Place.