Pre-designation By the 1980s, the area, which was loosely defined as
Nechells, consisted of run down housing, derelict wasteland and former industries. It was showing multiple signs of inner city decay and housed around 13,000 people. In 1988, the development agency adopted a development strategy which focussed upon economic development, the improvement of housing and the improvement of the environment. The Heartlands area was broken up into project areas. Government Estate Action funding was used to improve housing and to provide a mixture of tenures in the area which had been dominated mainly by
council housing. The funding was provided in the project areas that had been specifically designated to be focussed upon housing. Areas closer to the city centre were given commercial designations. To prevent conflicts with city centre uses, the commercial areas in the Heartlands were targeted at a specific market.
Aston Science Park, which had opened in 1983, was further developed and close to the science park, the Aston Waterlinks village was constructed. This was built using £6.2 million of government City Grant. When the government launched the City Challenge Partnership scheme as a consolidated inner city funding regime, Birmingham Heartlands Ltd. entered the competition, however, failed to win. This led to a radical organisational change. The public-private partnership moved power to the government. In May 1992, the government redesignated it a
Development Corporation for a five-year period.
Development Corporation Following the redesignation of the area, the Birmingham Heartlands Development Corporation bought out Heartlands company interests and took over nominations to the board, as well as the direction of strategy. This was made possible by the provision of £50 million by the government and by further grants from the
European Regional Development Fund. Other developments include the development of the Fort Shopping Centre near
Fort Dunlop and reclamation of the 'Star' site, which was formerly occupied by the Nechells Power Station, by the
M6 motorway and
A38. The 140,000 square metre site was redeveloped to create the
Star City retail development with the help of a £6.8 million government grant. The chairman was Sir Reginald Eyre and the Chief executive was Alan Osborne and, subsequently, Jim Beeston. It was dissolved in 1998. == References ==