As the clock struck midnight and ushered in 2022, who could have predicted we would finish the year with a new Prime Minister and a new monarch?
What started with yet another covid-19 lockdown, albeit a mercifully brief one, ended as one of the most seismic and memorable in British history, with Birmingham and the West Midlands playing their part by hosting a hugely successful Commonwealth Games in the summer.
Here, Midlands business editor Tamlyn Jones rounds up some of the key headlines from across the region in our four-part Review of the Year, kicking off with the first quarter of 2022.
The review starts with the news that an ambitious £2.5 billion project to build a huge new gigafactory in Coventry took a major step forward in January when two local councils backed the proposals in the same week.
The planned development site at Coventry Airport spans both Coventry and Warwick so it was left to the two councils' respective planning committees to thrash out the issues before awarding consent.
It will have 5.38 million sq ft of space where batteries for electric vehicles will be manufactured and also recycled, creating in the region of 6,000 jobs and providing a massive boost to the wider Midlands economy. Work has since been ongoing behind the scenes to secure a financial backer so construction can begin.
Warwickshire County Cricket Club reported its latest financial results which showed losses had fallen dramatically but the club remained in the red as it battled back from the impact of the covid pandemic.
In its accounts for 2020/21, the club posted a pre-tax loss of £140,365, marking a significant improvement on the £974,314 loss it registered a year earlier. Revenue was also boosted as Warwickshire welcomed back crowds and corporate events and, later in the year, the club announced the next phase of redevelopment work at its Edgbaston stadium.
A new inquiry was launched into controversial rail plans which saw part of the HS2 project downgraded last year. The inquiry was announced by the cross-party Transport Select Committee following the news in November 2021 that the eastern leg of the high-speed rail project was being massively curtailed.
The original plan was for trains to run between Birmingham, a brand new station in Toton near Nottingham and Leeds but the Government said the high-speed trains would instead stop at the existing East Midlands Parkway station before switching onto conventional tracks.
A new 17-storey hotel to be built as part of Birmingham's £700 million Paradise project received the green light from city planners. The 152-bedroom hotel with a roof-top sky bar will front onto Paradise Street as part of phase two of the long-running regeneration project and sit among new walkways and public realm.
February welcomed the news that hit BBC show MasterChef was to relocate out of the capital to Birmingham, with its production company Shine TV signing a six-year deal.
The show is set to bring all formats to the city from 2024 and, in October, a planning application was lodged to create the studios which will become its home in the former Banana Warehouse building in Digbeth.
Staying with culinary matters, the West Midlands' fine-dining scene welcomed yet another Michelin star after Lichfield restaurant Upstairs by Tom Shepherd received the coveted accolade just four months after opening. Originally from Sutton Coldfield, Mr Shepherd opened the 24-seat venue above his father Paul's shop City Jewellers in Bore Street.
A campaign was launched by business and civic leaders to bring a new research institution to Birmingham. The Government announced in 2021 that it planned to set up an Advanced Research and Invention Agency as an independent body to fund high-risk, high-reward scientific research.
Regional leaders in Birmingham and the wider West Midlands have called for the agency to be based in the city and have identified the old Curzon Street station as a place to locate it.
The design team leading the first phase of Birmingham's £1.9 billion Smithfield project was appointed.
Architects leading the scheme kicked off a programme of collaboration to design a range of residential and commercial property across the 42-acre site near the Bullring which could eventually contain more than 3,000 houses, a new home for the historic Bull Ring Markets and other commercial and public space.
It was double delight in March for a young Birmingham chocolate maker after it secured £90,000 worth of backing from not one but two Dragons. Russell & Atwell, which was only founded in 2020, appeared on the hit BBC show Dragons' Den and won high praise from the whole panel and cash from Steven Bartlett and Peter Jones.
Co-founder Giles Atwell later told BusinessLive that their appearance had generated so much interest they had to stop taking new orders and were only just getting back to normal service in mid-June.
Completing our look at quarter one of 2022 is the news that a major new tourism project which had stalled because of financial issues was kickstarted by a fresh round of funding from the West Midlands Combined Authority.
The £30 million 'Forging Ahead' scheme will expand the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley to showcase the history of the area in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. The project, said to be the largest at the museum since it opened in 1978, will comprise a visitor welcome centre, learning spaces, industrial quarter and an historic town, expanding the size of the museum and creating 140 new jobs in the process.
