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A few hundred yards from one of the country’s biggest HS2 builds, residents are getting used to life in the shadow of towering cranes and a stream of works traffic.
The construction of a £570 million terminus at Birmingham Curzon Street has led to a skeleton of steel and concrete dominating the skyline over the wall of their communal green.
Northumberland Street is on the frontline of the colossal mainline terminus and track construction, a key hub of the divisive and astronomically expensive HS2 project.
Noise, shut-down roads and seemingly endless works traffic have become part of everyday life as activity ramps up in a year when the seven-platform station building itself is expected to take shape.
Residents who spoke to the Metro have been surprised at the speed in which the steel frame in the backdrop has been thrown up, but did not join in the derision that the massively delayed and over-budget infrastructure project has attracted.
‘Relieved my home is safe’
Zacharias Nur, 30, is relieved that an earlier indication that his home of 15 years might have to make way for the line has not become a reality.
‘It’s a huge construction that feels like it’s come out of nowhere,’ he says.
‘The noise does wake up the kids in the mornings, but in terms of the overall project, it will bring the city closer to us and it will push house prices up, which will be a benefit for the residents.
‘From our perspective, we’ve been here 15 years and it was quiet to begin with but there’s been a lot more life and activity as the university has been rebuilt. As far as the negatives go, it’s just the noise and parking, with the builders using residential areas.’
The IT consultant recalled a scare when it appeared that HS2 — which now terminates in the West Midlands after the northern legs were scrapped — might take over the estate.
‘When the whole project was starting off they sent us a letter saying that they might have to demolish all of our homes,’ he says.
‘I was a bit wary and I’m thankful that it didn’t happen, as I’m born and bred here, and my kids are born and bred here.’
‘It’s part of the background’
Rizvi Tanvir, 20, is one of the newest residents on the small estate, having arrived from Bangladesh little more than a week ago to study law at Aston.
‘It’s just part of the background,’ he says of the construction site.
‘The neighbourhood is pretty good, there’s sometimes some trash in front of the balcony and bin bags thrown around, but it’s not noisy.’
Residents nearer to a steel deck section, which will eventually form part of a 150-metre-long viaduct bringing commuters to and from the city on bullet trains, are being impacted by the work.
Ramya Yessen, 25, a customer service adviser, says: ‘It’s a bit loud at times and it does disrupt our sleep at night.
‘One time we had the window open and it sounded like a plane or a helicopter landing. It’s been busy throughout the day.’
Ramya has managed to continue working from home on the estate, where the recent pace of development has taken some residents by surprise.
‘The project has been going on since I was in secondary school but we don’t get a lot of information about what they’re doing,’ she says.
‘All of a sudden we parked up one day and we saw it.
‘Hopefully the project can bring some good.’
A few minutes’ walk from the street Muhin Hussain’s e-commerce business operates at a warehouse by an entry point to the site.
Muhin, group director of Loft 25 EU, worked his way up after starting as an apprentice at the firm, and believes the rail link will eventually help to share Birmingham’s graft with the rest of the UK.
‘It’s not been that much of an inconvenience,’ he says.
‘There are vans coming in which clash with the times when we have lorries filling our own warehouse with inventory, but that’s the only thing.’
‘City of grind’
Muhin is looking beyond the stream of activity at the end of the street, where one of the piers supporting the viaduct dominates the backdrop.
‘I always look at the big picture,’ he says.
‘The big picture here is having better communication between cities, and face-to-face interaction is being better than meeting online.
‘The first thing an army does in war when it goes to a new territory is establishing communication, and trains, planes and trams strengthen a city, strengthen its communications.
‘We can deal with the noise because it will be better for the city.’
Muhin, whose group employs around 50 people across the UK and Europe, believes the city of a thousand trades will outlast the disruption of HS2.
‘Birmingham is a city that has got the grind,’ he says.
‘It has to, because unlike other cities there’s nothing to fall back on, and I say that as someone who works throughout London and Europe.
‘The city has the most entrepreneurs and the most start-ups in the West Midlands, even though there’s no safety net here.
‘A new communication line will spread that knowledge and share the city’s work ethic with the rest of the country.’
‘Pointless waste of money’
Joanna Moriarty, of the White Tower pub, which lies on the corner of a clogged-up roundabout closer to the city centre end of the site, was pessimistic about having a flagship HS2 station on her doorstep.
‘It hasn’t really impacted us, there hasn’t been extra traffic as it’s always crazy round here,’ she says of the work.
‘I think it [HS2] is a pointless waste of money, I drive everywhere anyway, I don’t get the train, so it won’t bother me.
‘I don’t think it will improve the area at all.
‘If they don’t improve the parking at the station for people who leave their cars as they take the train to London it will be worse than it already is around here. It’s absolutely horrendous with the workers and the university, as people confuse Nechells as a car park.’
The licensee, who has been at the White Tower for 37 years, also told Metro that she has had no communication from HS2 other than routine notifications of nearby works.
The new stretch between Birmingham and London could cost more than £65 billion, the outgoing chairman of the company building it has said.
The projection by Sir Jonathan Thompson, of HS2 Ltd, is based on the ‘extraordinary’ rising costs of materials like concrete and steel, taking his figure far above the government’s top-end £56.6 billion estimate.
Overspend, along with delays and changes to post-Covid travel, was cited by Rishi Sunak when he scrapped the northern arm in October 2023, making the West Midlands the end of the line.
When will the first trains run?
An internal fit-out of the first brand new intercity terminus station built in Britain since the 19th Century is due to start towards the end of the year and finish at the end of 2028.
Operational testing and commissioning will run from summer 2026 to autumn 2028, according to HS2.
However, the date when the first 225mph trains will begin ferrying passengers between Birmingham Curzon Street (pictured, artist’s design) and London is a moot point.
The date had been for between 2029 and 2033 but in a project mired in delays and overspend, this is not certain.
In April, HS2 CEO Mark Wild could not commit to this timescale, saying a ‘reset’ of the programme was needed.
Curzon Street is designed to be the first new intercity terminus in Britain since the 19th century, offering 49-minute journeys between the cities.
A sleek arched roof, two squares and a promenade are among the features of the planned station, intended as a net zero operation.
The external building is expected to be ready this year, with the main works phase of the Curzon Street build creating more than 1,000 jobs.
Once up and running, the station district, with regenerated areas and new public spaces, will be a catalyst for an ‘unparallelled’ boom in Birmingham’s fortunes, according to the city council.
‘It won’t be in my lifetime’
However, the first trains are not due to run at Curzon Street until between 2029 and 2033, and even that estimate is clouded in uncertainty.
The timescale was not lost on Oaron Grossett, 69, a retired taxman paying little regard to the steel deck over the wall at Northumberland Road.
‘I don’t really take any notice,’ he says.
‘Fortunately I’m too old to worry, such things won’t happen in my lifetime.
‘Politicians like to make big promises but there’s no certainty in life or death. If it happens it happens.’
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