REDEVELOPMENT 2

Approximately a mile from the city centre, designed to divert more traffic therefrom is the Middleway, 6.5 miles long. Two more years should see its completion. Old roads have been widened, and new stretches are under construction to join them.

Flyovers and underpasses - notably the long double tunnel beneath Bristol and Pershore Roads, and Hockley Flyover - prevent delays at some of the dozen major junctions.

At Bordesley a major intersection is begun to link the Middleway with Small Heath Bypass, part of Coventry Expressway, and the roads to Warwick, Stratford, and Alcester.

The Outer Circle 'bus route, 26 miles and 20 major junctions, has grade-separation at only two - Perry Barr and South Yardley. Much of the route goes along suburban streets and slightly-improved country lanes, with some completed dual carriageways.

The radial roads have to perform eight competing functions and are inadequate for all of them. Perry Barr Expressway is no more than a double road with limited right turns : the western Expressway does not exist. The Motorway 'box' around Birmingham awaits completion of the M42 from M5 at Lydiate Ash to Solihull.

Redevelopment in and around the city centre was spectacular during the Sixties and early Seventies. Concrete crates, which stain but do not weather, have largely replaced brick and eroded stone. New buildings provide their own parking and internal loading bays. Cleaning has restored many fine terra-cotta and glazed brick edifices to their original glory.

Victorian market buildings have gone, their functions now performed in a 22-acres complex off Pershore Street. Demolition of the old library has given us the 'inverted step-pyramid' in concrete which is the new Central Library, overlying a great gloomy cavern which was intended to be a 'bus terminus.

Off Broad Street is that monstrous war casualty, Baskerville House - just over half of one block of the neo-Georgian civic centre we were promised. Revised plans for the area ('44, '58) have progressed no further than the original.

The new Repertory Theatre and three dwelling towers have been built and the James Brindley Walk opened ('69), a welcome first move in the campaign to open up 30-odd miles of city canal as an amenity : otherwise the only civic work has been a bronze fountain in the Hall of Memory Gardens. It is now proposed to build a conference centre about Broad Street, towards which end Bingley Hall has been demolished.

City centre landmarks are the cylindrical Rotunda, the Central TV 'sail', the Sentinel and McLaren Towers, the architectural aberrations of Aston University, and the grey monstrosity of the NatWest Pile.

Welcome changes are the half-million pound lawn in front of the Council House, arcade refurbishment, and the sadly few pedestrian precincts. New Street Station is rebuilt and much used, the site of Snow Hill is at last being overbuilt (with provision for a small railway station somewhere underneath). Large areas once covered by sidings and yards are cleared and overlain with towers.

Since '48 Birmingham has lost the greater part of its powers to regional authorities - least willingly to the West Midlands County Council. The addition of Sutton Coldfield brings the population back to a million and the city's area to more than 100 square miles, but little that goes on therein is directly controlled by the citizens.

Amid the gloom of dwindling industry and remote authority, one plan for the future shines out bravely : this is the ambitious schemed for canal-side development associated with the Parkways Plan. Valley walks, towpaths, disused railway routes, are to be linked with existing open spaces, balancing lakes, and adventure and conservation centres like the Ackers Park and 'Wheels', providing green avenues to leisure pursuits. If the city cannot give its people work, it can at least make their idleness pleasant