City Centre Café Given Go-Ahead

Tyler Parkes has obtained planning permission for a new café on a tightly-constrained site in the centre of Birmingham. Opportunities for development on the Edward Street site, previously owned by Birmingham City Council, became limited when the Council granted permission for an eight-storey apartment block on the neighbouring site.

The neighbouring apartment building (now built) was approved with apartment windows directly on the boundary with our Client’s site, and this limited the height of any proposal. This was confirmed when we submitted a request for pre-application advice to the Council, who initially resisted the proposal.

An additional constraint to the site's development came in the form of protected trees on the other side of the site and the spread of the trees' roots under our Client’s land.

Our solution to the site's constraints was to design a large, contemporary café which avoided impacting on views from the new apartments and built on ‘raft’ foundations to avoid damaging tree roots.

Despite the Council initially resisting any form of development on the site, we were able to design our scheme around their objections and our Client was subsequently granted planning permission.