Birmingham Tag

Last Friday saw the third Woods Hardwick Football tournament at AFC Kempston Rovers’ ground. With the last tournament taking place in 2019, it’s been a long time coming!
The evening started in entertaining fashion with a 3-0 victory to team DevCon, despite the great efforts from renowned shot-stopper, Calum Wilson for TechCommIT Utd (a mix of our Technical and Commercial Architecture departments).

Yesterday Planning Director Paul Woods alongside Centre for the New Midlands’ Chris Smith, presented at the British BIDS conference, looking at the Levelling Up agenda and what it means for UK High Streets.
The event focused on BIDs, Culture and Communities, looking at how they can work together to drive economic growth and help their communities - with the main message; the need for greater collaboration.

Elena is a Graduate Civil Engineer in our Birmingham office. She joined Woods Hardwick in September 2021, and is already supporting many clients.
She shares her thoughts on how we can encourage more women into the sector as well as her career journey to date  -jumping (or flying!) from aerospace manufacturing to civil engineering. And we also find out how she has encouraged a love of all things aquatic in the Birmingham office!

Over the past decade, Birmingham has seen a surge in development and investment, with focus on the regeneration of key city centre sites. 
This has seen new residential communities formed in the central area alongside retail, business and cultural destinations. 

On Tuesday 14 September, our Planning Director Paul Woods, chaired a session at the Built Environment Networking’s Midlands Development conference, hosted at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
This was one of the BEN’s first hybrid events, with around 150 people in attendance in person, with another 80 viewing online. 

This week the Centre for the New Midlands announced the first appointments to their Housing and Communities Leadership Board. Woods Hardwick’s Birmingham Planning Director, Paul Woods, is delighted to be one of the inaugural Board members. 
The Board, to be chaired by Dr Halima Sacranie (Research Lead, Housing and Communities Research Group at the University of Birmingham), will be responsible for shaping the Centre for the New Midlands’ work across this hugely important area of public policy.

As we emerge out of lockdown, to say that Birmingham is a hive of development activity is quite the understatement!  With HS2, plans for next year’s Commonwealth Games, the expansion of