Birmingham New Street Station
The Gateway Project
The Birmingham Gateway Project was a redevelopment scheme to regenerated Birmingham New Street Station and the Pallasades Shopping Centre. The main construction finished in September 2015 and the project aimed to enhance the station to cope with increased passenger numbers as well as expected future growth in traffic, but due to the nature of the rail tracks coming in to the station and the space available did not alter the train capacity of the station. In 2008, the station handled passenger numbers far in excess of the capacity of its existing design. The current station and Pallasades shopping centre were completed in 1967 and have become the subject of criticism for the congestion of the station and shabbiness of the shopping centre and parts of the station.[1] It is part of the Big City Plan.
New Street Concourse
November 2015
The Early Days
My first experiences of the New Street project was documenting much of the demolition. From the top of Stevensons Tower to the old Victorian tunnels being used to bring out all the debris. Access to New Street was extremely limited .
THE CONSTRUCTION
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THE PEOPLE
Throughout my time on the project the thing that always fascinated me was the sheer number of people working on the site. On the night before the first phase opened I photographed the staff through the night, fixing benches, polishing floors, adjusting lighting, every conceivable job was being done at the same time in order to be ready for the 7am opening. The hard work and especially the dedication of the workers to make the project work was extraordinary.
