Birmingham motors on but without the aid of the Haynes manual

Chris Haynes, the head of transportation strategy for Birmingham City Council, stepped down last month after four decades of helping to plan and deliver transport in the West Midlands.

Number one Lancaster Circus seems an appropriate setting for Birmingham City Council’s transportation department. Located on the northern edge of the city centre, the office block is surrounded by a disorientating array of flyovers, gyratories and pedestrian underpasses – a legacy of the masterplan for adapting the city to motorisation in the 1950s and 60s.

Chris Haynes has walked into this office almost every working day since 1975. “Thirty-six years in this building –...

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