Developers of city square criticised over lack of date for reopening

THE developers of Paradise and Birmingham City Council have been criticised for not having a published reopening date for Chamberlain Square.

It’s already 12 weeks since the statue of political reformer Sir Thomas Attwood was reinstalled on July 1 but the square remains fenced off to the public.

And that’s despite the past few weeks of splendid weather which would have been perfect for people to make the most of the new amenity.

The arrival of the Autumn equinox means that the rebuilt square has now been off limits for five summers in a row.

Birmingham City Council’s opposition leader Cllr Robert Alden (Con, Erdington) said: “For the council to be unable to give a date when it will reopen just adds to its awful record for these kind of improvements.

“I was certainly expecting it to have reopened in the early summer so is it over budget as well as over time after the Centenary Square debacle?

“Even the council doesn’t have many people going back into its own offices, so you would have thought they could have done the work quicker, not slower.

“Opening up Chamberlain Square would have enabled people to have had more space.

“Now the council won’t say when it’s opening.

“But then this council doesn’t like to give dates because of its record of missing them.”

Apart from snagging works, the Post understands the main reasons for the delay has been the need to clean the Chamberlain Memorial Fountain.

Yet two years ago, the Queen Victoria statue in Victoria Square was spruced up in double quick time even though Birmingham Civic Society knew she would end up presiding over even more years of redevelopment work all around her.

Civic watchers will now hope Chamberlain Square reopens on or before October 20 – the 140th anniversary of the Chamberlain Memorial’s inauguration in 1880 when the original cost of the 20m (65ft) fountain was £3,000.

Birmingham City Council said in a short statement: “The reopening of Chamberlain Square will be announced in due course by Paradise.”

Paradise said: “The square is currently seeing final cleaning work being carried out, including to the Chamberlain Memorial Fountain, before opening up once more to the public.”

So neither party has committed to when that opening date might be and from our inquiries it’s not clear who has overall jurisdiction over the matter.