18/04/2026
Neighbourhood Public Square
Planning Application: Open For Comments
We are excited to share that, after 6 years of dreaming, designing, rehearsing, and building together with you all, the first planning application for the Neighbourhood Public Square site (2026/01280/PA) is now live. This application is for the change of use, enabling works to repair and reinforce the existing buildings, and retrospective planning for temporary structures to learn together on site.
This will be the beginning of a phased retrofit of the existing buildings of this former waste transfer station to demonstrate regenerative civic infrastructure at the heart of Ladywood, Birmingham, co-building and democratising access to the spaces, tools and resources for a bold, imaginative, distributed transition, held in common with the neighbourhood.
This defining step marks a shift that the past decade of our collective organising has been in service of, and the next decade will be committed to, following the purchase of the freehold for the site at the end of 2024 and building upon research, practice and rooted organising together as Impact Hub Birmingham and CIVIC SQUARE since 2015.
You can directly submit comments to until Thursday 7th May 2026, which will be taken into account when the planning application is assessed. We’d love to invite your messages of support from near and far, what the site can enable, as well as be able to address or adapt to any concerns or questions.
Direct link to our application on Planning Online:
bit.ly/PlanningCS
We know looking at planning applications can be a headache, so we’ve designed our own page to help you navigate our application, find out how to have your say, connect with us, and discover more about the journey so far to this moment.
Visit our Explore The Planning Application page:
bit.ly/ExplorePlanningCS
Prefer to meet and chat things through, ask questions, and share ideas over a cuppa? Explore all aspects of the application at our first Supper Club of the year on Tuesday 21st April, 4pm—8pm , and at The Floating Front Room Friday 8th—Saturday 9th May, 10am—4pm.
bit.ly/AprilSupper26
[All links in bio]
