Gateway Plus

The Gateway Plus (previously known as Birmingham Gateway) project is a redevelopment scheme that regenerated Birmingham New Street railway station and the Pallasades Shopping Centre above it in Birmingham, England. It finished in September 2015. The project aimed to enhance the station to cope with increased passenger numbers as well as expected future growth in traffic, but did not alter the train capacity of the station. In 2008, the station handled passenger numbers far in excess of the capacity of its existing design. The current station and Pallasades shopping centre were completed in 1967 and have become the subject of criticism for the congestion of the station and shabbiness of the shopping centre and parts of the station. It is part of the Big City Plan.

New Street station was built to cater for 650 trains and 60,000 passengers per day, which was roughly the same usage it experienced when it was first constructed. It was believed that demand for rail travel would decrease. However, it now caters for 1,350 trains and over 120,000 passengers - twice its design capacity. Passenger usage of New Street has increased by 50% since 2000. It is predicted that passenger usage of the station will increase by 57% by 2020.

Between 1995/6 and 2004/5, rail passenger journeys in the West Midlands increased by about 44%, and at New Street Station, passenger numbers have increased by about 53%. In the next ten years, this is expected to rise by another 28%. With the station serving more train journeys, the approach from the east, underneath the Bullring Shopping Centre, has become a bottleneck which is constrained by the foundations of the shopping centre preventing widening. Here, twelve tracks constrict to become four and this was outlined in the "Birmingham and West Midlands Rail Capacity Review" as a future capacity problem.

The proposed design for the project was unveiled in June 2006 and in the following month, the Business Case had been completed. The Business Case had taken 18 months to produce and was created by representatives from Network Rail, Birmingham City Council, Advantage West Midlands, and the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority (WMPTA). During July and August, Warner Estates, the owners of the Pallasades Shopping Centre, were in negotiations with the developers.

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