Good Local Economics

Birmingham is finding new ways to connect sectors and link innovators across the city, as Patrick Willcocks explains.

Birmingham is home to over 5,800 creative businesses employing over 30,000 people, many of them clustered in two distinct quarters of the city centre; firstly, the Jewellery Quarter, the centre for jewellery manufacture in the UK, with over 400 jewellery firms as well as many other creatives including a growing number of digital firms, and secondly Digbeth, the home to the famous Custard Factory and other  shared workspace schemes such as Fazeley Studios, the Bond and the Arches.  The creative sector has seen employment growth of 13% between 2005 and 2010 and the city, through its creative city partnership, is committed to growing it further.

‘So you think what you do on this housing estate is a good example of best practice?’ I ask.