Southside Street Food

The Birmingham Mail has reported on plans for a permanent street food centre in Birmingham, http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/see-first-pictures-birminghams-new-11282707, with plans to have Phase One of the Pershore Street centre ready at ground level before the end of May.

The plans for the 650 square yard site are the creation of food entrepreneur Duncan Stanley who runs the successful Brum Yum Yum monthly food festival in Kings Heath.  The Kings Heath Street Food Market celebrated it's 3rd birthday on the 8th April and is now one of the biggest and best in the country with up to 25 traders every month.

The Kings Heath Street Food Market, which takes place on the second Saturday of every month, attracts throngs of food-lovers to the Birmingham suburb with each event. Chairman of the Kings Heath BID, Stan Hems, added:“We have a fantastic calendar of regular events here on the Village Square each month, including the Farmers Market and Vintage and Antiques Fair, and Brum Yum Yum’s Kings Heath street food market is a real highlight! It’s great to see how far Brum Yum Yum have come since starting out in Kings Heath, and we’re proud that they’re continuing to fly the flag for us!”http://thebirminghampress.com/2016/04/brum-yum-yum-celebrates-third-kings-heath-anniversary/

The street food centre will be modelled on 'hawker centres' in Singapore and will see 16 containers joined together to create an indoor / outdoor street food centre.  Phase one will run from May 27 until early September over 15 weekends before the centre becoming permanent in a second phase, opening seven days a week from about 10am until Midnight.

With the site sitting adjacent to the Arcadian and buzzing Southside area and soon to be joined by the a redeveloped wholesale markets site under the Smithfield name it can only add to Birmingham's culinary choice and encourage even more fab food.

The plans follow other street food markets across the city with the Digbeth Dining Club and Duncan Stanley's own Kings Heath street food market.  Ironically the site could well have had one of Birmingham's first street markets with previous planning applications to turn the site into an open air street venue;  previous planning application in 2014, 2014/08069/PA, for the change of use for an open air street venue which itself followed an application 2013 for the same, 2013/00332/PA. 

Prior to this the former warehouse which stood on the site was demolished to make way for a car park although this was refused planning permission in 2006, 2006/06816/PA, after earlier plans for residential / commercial in 2002 were abandoned.

It seems Duncan Stanley will be developing the site at the perfect time both in a regenerating Southside but also with the demand for good food seeing new restaurants springing up across the city.

Yum Brum indeed.

Artists impressions of the new centre are shown below, reproduced from: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/see-first-pictures-birminghams-new-11282707