We ask Brummies: Do you think Birmingham is a commuter city for London?

London is a mere 90 minutes away from Birmingham on some train lines and that’s set to reduce when HS2 is finally up and running. With significantly cheaper property prices and an up and coming culture - some suggest that Birmingham may become a commuter city for London - do Brummies think this will be the case? We asked local people out and about in the city centre for their views.

John says: “It’s quite exciting times for Birmingham at the moment. We’ve come in today and just had a walk around today, and it’s been a while since we’ve actually experienced being in the city.

“And I think with a lot of development, it seems to be that there’s a lot of housing moving into the city centre, which can only rejuvenate the city. It’s quite interesting. We were in London not long ago, weren’t we, and how expensive I think London is.

“And it’s, it’s interesting that a lot of people are moving up to the Midlands now because Birmingham, still, obviously the second city, but could it overtake London? I think the potential here is amazing at the moment.”

Clarissa says: “Yeah. So we were moving towards London. And then we moved here three years ago, and we haven’t looked to leave. So yeah, it’d been that way.” Sinead says: “Probably, I mean, as a Londoner and myself, I like it here. So I would say it’s like a mini London - the same kind of atmosphere, but smaller, less busy, easier to get around. Even I want to meet her in the future, personally. So I would say yes.”

Andrew says: “I don’t see that HS2 is immediately going to make a big difference in regard to Birmingham becoming more of a commuter town. I think if we saw more east/west travel, perhaps that might make a bigger difference.

“Perhaps through time as people get more used to the idea. But am I right in saying it’s gonna make about 20 minutes of a difference or something like that to the travel time? And goodness knows what the cost of the tickets is going to be. So I’m not sure that it will have the huge impact that everybody’s anticipating in its first infant steps at least.”