Despite more than 15,000 objections, Birmingham City Council seem set to go ahead with plans to tear down a major flyover close to the site of the 2022 Commonwealth Games’ athletes village.
The £27.1 million project to remove the flyover on the A34 - takes motorists from Walsall and Great Barr into Birmingham city centre - in Perry Barr, in the city, in favour of putting all traffic onto a dual carriageway at ground level, will be voted on by the Council’s cabinet members in the next few days.
With no alternative yet to be found, Councillor Waseem Zaffar MBE, Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment, has admitted the scheme is now likely to go ahead.
This follows months of controversy after a 15,273-signature petition was handed in to the Council opposing the removal of the flyover.
Cllr Zaffar said that no suitable alternative proposals had been suggested to the council and, as such, they would be going ahead with plans to remove the flyover.
He said: “With the changes that are coming, with 5,000 new homes being built, half a billion pounds being invested into Perry Barr, it’s going to see major changes.
“One of the biggest changes it will see is the Aldridge old connection from the A453 onto the A34 dual carriageway is being taken away because of the new homes that are being built on that particular site.
“And in line with that closure, also connecting people across Perry Barr with the One Stop shopping centre.
“It’s clearly not feasible to do this, and there isn’t the amount of space to do this, without removing the flyover and capping the Birchfield island.
“We have considered a range of other proposals but, in order to keep people moving efficiently through Perry Barr, in particular on public transport and having that cycling offer that we will have, we will not be able to offer all these real alternatives for sustainable forms of transport through the north of the city without removing this flyover.
“We are very confident that we will achieve this with minimal disruption, we will achieve this within the time allocated that we need to achieve it for the big event in 2022, and we will achieve it to benefit the residents in the short, medium and long term.”
