£600m Snow Hill Masterplan to transform Birmingham business district

An ambitious £600 million masterplan aiming to help create “Birmingham’s Canary Wharf” has been launched. The 20-year Snow Hill Masterplan, which covers the Snow Hill and Colmore areas of the city, has been launched as part of plans to make the city a global finance hub.

Birmingham is already the UK’s largest hub of professional and financial services firms outside London but business leaders say the plan stands to help create 10,000 high-paying jobs and boost the city’s economy by £600 million a year.

City leaders said the Snow Hill Masterplan showed an ambition to take on the likes of London, Frankfurt and Zurich and attract more professional services jobs with 2.2 million sq ft – the size of 28 football pitches – of new office space.

The plan also outlines major changes to roads and a significant redevelopment of Snow Hill station – the main connection between the business district and London.

The scheme would see new commercial buildings replacing the station’s multi-storey car park in a bid to encourage more firms to base in Birmingham, following in the footsteps of Deutsche Bank, which has seen employment in the city rise from 60 to more than 2,000 in recent years.