My new workplace
This is what’s oppostite my new workplace in Camden street, Jewellery Quarter. I believe it’s a former GKN works (due for redevelopment - item F on this map) but is now where the smokers from where I work hang out.
Having trumpeted my return to working in the Jewellery Quarter I actually find myself in a rather undeveloped corner of it which still has large empty factories and small, usually busy, warehouses. That’s fine as I like undeveloped corners of the city and walking from the centre to here takes you through the back of the library - now there’s a nice messy undeveloped bit.
I work in the B1 building which has the following benefits:
- It sells okay Starbucks coffee for half what it costs on the high street.
- The cafe doesn’t understand portion control for cakes.
- It is close to the canal networks for pre, during or post work runs.
- It has shower facilities for the above.
Working in the Jewellery Quarter generally has the following benefits:
- Banks (and therefore cashpoints).
- A supermarket.
- Newsagents that stock newspapers.
- People - both work people and customers for shops.
- Lots and lots of place for lunch.
- A train station
- A diverse population of blue and white collar workers.
In a fight between Digbeth and Jewellery Quarter I wonder who’d win?
The Custard Factory needs a train station
Today I did lunch over at the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. Given how tricky it is to regain a parking space on the streets surrounding the Custard Factory once you’ve given it up ( I work on Bromley street), I decided to use the train.
As I walked up to Moor Street it occurred to me that what the Custard Factory really needs to stop it having that ’slightly too far from the centre of town’ feel is a train station. Okay so the station would only be 500 yards from the centre of Birmingham but imagine how convenient it would for the growing population of workers located at the Custard Factory and the many more who will follow once Devonshire works are complete as well as the new units on Fazeley street.
The recent train crash (see report from Alex Hughes) showed us where the possible entrance might be:
(pic by H4NUM4N)
As well as linking our two creative quarters by rail the killer reason for a Custard Factory station is the fact that at some point all the talk about reopening the line from Moseley/Kings Heath into Moor Street is bound to happen. And where do all these creative types who work in the Custard Factory live? I rest my case.
Dave