Birmingham Coach Station

Birmingham Coach Station
Coach interchange

The station at night
Other names Digbeth Coach Station
Location Digbeth, Birmingham, England
Coordinates 52°28′31″N 1°53′19″W / 52.47524°N 1.8886°W / 52.47524; -1.8886Coordinates: 52°28′31″N 1°53′19″W / 52.47524°N 1.8886°W / 52.47524; -1.8886
Bus stands 16
Bus operators
History
Opened 1929 (1929)

Birmingham Coach Station (formerly Digbeth Coach Station) is a major coach interchange in Digbeth, Birmingham, England offering services to destinations throughout Great Britain and also to Belfast and Dublin. National Express, the largest scheduled coach service provider in Europe, has its national headquarters on the site.[1] The refurbishment was estimated to have cost £15 million.[2]

It was officially reopened on 18 December 2009 by the then England national football manager Fabio Capello.[3]

History

The original Digbeth Coach Station, built in 1929 as a bus depot

The original interchange was built in 1929 as a bus depot by Midland Red, which was later converted into Digbeth Coach Station. The original building was dark and dingy as it was not originally intended to serve passengers as a coach interchange.[4]

Plans were initially developed for a new coach station on Great Charles Street, as Digbeth was considered by National Express to be an "undesirable" location.[5] However, after the completion of the new Bullring and the planned Eastside redevelopment, it was decided to demolish the old structure and build a new coach station on the same site.[4]

Outline planning application for a design by MAKE Architects was submitted on behalf of National Express Ltd to Birmingham City Council in March 2006.[6] However this option was abandoned in favour of a competing design by SBS Architects.[7]

The final planning application for the design by SBS Architects was submitted on 29 October 2007.[2]

The old coach station closed in November 2007 for redevelopment and during reconstruction National Express used a temporary site in Oxford Street on the opposite side of Digbeth High Street, called Birmingham Central Coach Station. The new station has been awarded a BREEAM 'Excellent' rating.

December 2009 - The rear of the new coach station

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, May 31, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.