A History of BIRMINGHAM Places & Placenames . . . from A to Y

William Dargue - A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames . . .  from A to Y

 

Heartlands

B8 - Grid reference SP098896

Use the grid reference on the Ordnance Survey website - Get-a-map.

First record c1992

This name was coined when the Birmingham Heartlands Development Corporation was set up by the Government in 1992. Its aim was to revitalise a long swathe of c1000 hectares of decayed industrial land along the Rea and Tame valleys. Heartlands includes parts of Bordesley, Saltley, Nechells and Bromford. The Development Corporation had extensive powers of compulsory purchase and planning and worked as a facilitator between public and private enterprise. It was wound up in 1998 having largely achieved what it was set up to do.


The Heartlands Spine Road opened in the late 1990s and was later renamed Heartlands Way from Saltley to Bromford Bridge. From Bromford Bridge to the Chester Road it is called the Fort Parkway named after the Fort Dunlop tyre factory. Along the spine road are industrial and warehousing units, wholesale and retail centres and leisure facilities. The largest of these is the c10 hectare site of Star City, a leisure complex with a multi-screen cinema, casino, bowling alleys, bars and restaurants which cost some £100 million to build. In 2007 work was completed on the imaginative redevelopment of the main block of Fort Dunlop for residential and recreational use.

 

Birmingham & Derby Railway, LDV van factory (left)Birmingham & Derby Railway, LDV van factory (left)

This name was coined when the Birmingham Heartlands Development Corporation was set up by the government in 1992. Its aim was to revitalise a long swathe of c1000 hectares of decayed industrial land along the Rea and Tame valleys. Heartlands includes parts of Bordesley, Saltley, Nechells and Bromford.

 

The Development Corporation had extensive powers of compulsory purchase and planning and worked as a facilitator between public and private enterprise. It was wound up in 1998 having largely achieved what it was set up to do.

 

 
The Heartlands Spine Road opened in the late 1990s and was later renamed Heartlands Way from Saltley to Bromford Bridge. From Bromford Bridge to the Chester Road it is called the Fort Parkway named after the Fort Dunlop tyre factory. Along the spine road are industrial and warehousing units, wholesale and retail centres and leisure facilities. The largest of these is the c10 hectare site of Star City, a leisure complex with a multi-screen cinema, casino, bowling alleys, bars and restaurants which cost some £100 million to build. In 2007 work was completed on the imaginative redevelopment of the main block of Fort Dunlop for residential and recreational use.

 

 

Click to enlarge the images below.

 

 

William Dargue 21.03.09

 

  

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For 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps of Birmingham go to British History Online - Maps.