Members of Birmingham City Council’s planning committee have flown in the face of officers’ recommendations and refused to back proposals for a 711-home city-centre development designed by Glancy Nicholls Architects.

The practice’s Pressworks scheme for Prosperity Developments would have delivered the new homes and 2,099sq m of new commercial space on a 1.2ha site in Digbeth that forms part of the wider Smithfield Masterplan area.

But at a meeting last week councillors criticised the lack of larger family homes in the proposals, the quantity of affordable housing – 10% rather than the city’s target of 35%, and the loss of several industrial buildings on the site.

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