New plans have been revealed for the site previously earmarked for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games athletes’ village.

The site will become a “shipping-container park” (pictured), with 14 steel containers set to be used to “maximise opportunities” for the Commonwealth Games in Perry Barr. Similar to Boxpark in Croydon, four big screens showing sports events and movies will be installed. Other features include tables for people to sit and watch the screens, as well as parking spaces for 10 vehicles and 16 bicycles.

An additional 72 containers will be added to the site after the Games takes place this summer and will remain in situ for a period of seven years. A children’s playground will also be added in phase 2 of the project, as will a marketing suite and an external stage with a maximum capacity of 1,500 people.

It will be created in Galey Park in Perry Barr on land that was originally intended to be used for the athletes' village.

When Birmingham won the event, it was planned that athletes would be accommodated in newly built, small flats with partitions that would be removed after the event, transforming them into conventional housing. While there were serious questions raised over the deliverability of the scheme even before COVID-19 hit, it was later decided amid the pandemic that it was no longer suitable to cram the athletes into such small spaces. The village has instead been moved straight to its ‘legacy’ phase of general housing, while Commonwealth Games competitors will be put up in pre-existing accommodation elsewhere.

Lendlease is the construction manager on the project, while Kier, Willmott Dixon and Vinci are all working on plots on the scheme.

The container park will eventually be replaced by permanent housing, as part of the wider Perry Barr 2040 masterplan, which will see £700m spent on thousands of new homes and the wider regeneration of the local area.

The overall vision for Perry Barr is to have 5,000 new homes by 2040, as well as a revamped station, rapid-transit bus services and a stadium that could serve as the home of UK athletics. The plan is to have high-quality digital connectivity, and to make use of the area’s extensive parks and waterways to create an environment where people will want to live.

The £30m station is being delivered by Galliford Try. Meanwhile, McLaughlin & Harvey is building the revamped £72m Alexander Stadium.

Birmingham City Council's planning committee will meet on Thursday, 7 April, to discuss the plans for the container park.

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