The European managing director of construction giant Lendlease's development arm said she is "super-excited" about Birmingham's potential to be at the forefront of smart city development.
Bek Seeley, who is overseeing £24bn of building projects including the city's £1.9bn Smithfield mixed-use scheme, was speaking at Insider's Smart Cities Breakfast on Tuesday.
"The best cities in the world navigate seamlessly from one area to another," she said. "It doesn't feel like you're boxed in and individual developments connect and interact with everything else.
"What's super-exciting about Birmingham is it has the planning frameworks to create a broader smart city."
Birmingham City Council's Our Future City: Central Birmingham 2040 Framework, launched in May, aims to create a series of interconnected local centres around central Birmingham.
Seeley added that she was committed to ensuring a large proportion of companies which supply or work on the Smithfield project – being carried out in partnership with the city council - were local because "it's more sustainable and will drive innovation".
Another speaker was Greg Willis, partner at London-based Make Architects, who is overseeing the conversion of the former John Lewis store at Grand Central into 200,000sq ft of workspace.
He said getting the scheme was important to attracting people who currently work from home back into the city. He said this can also be achieved by making the most of the city's unique attributes.
"Birmingham needs to play to its strengths and be the best city it can be and not try and be a facsimile of other cities," said Willis.
To view a video of the breakfast, click here.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ian Griffin
Quelle/Source: Insider Media, 28.06.2023
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