Plans to spruce up empty Wednesbury town centre shops revealed

Planning applications have been submitted to Sandwell Council which would see the former Rajpoot Discount Warehouse in Market Place, Wednesbury, and the former Barclays bank in the town’s Lower High Street renovated and re-opened.

If approved, the work would also include a new 11-bed HMO built in Market Place with four flats built above the now-empty bank.

The first application would see the building in Market Place, Wednesbury – which was home to the Rajpoot Discount Warehouse – renovated with the tired shopfront tidied up. The building’s crumbling brickwork would also be replaced.

The application by Shokat Ali would see new ground, first and second-floor extensions built with the building’s loft converted into another floor to make way for an 11-bed house of multiple occupation (HMO).

The former shop, described as a ‘prominent’ eyesore in Wednesbury town centre in the application, has become a mess with the building’s rear courtyard overgrown and covered in bricks.

A statement included with the application said: “The application proposal would result in an improved standard of accommodation for future occupiers and an acceptable impact on the occupiers of neighbouring properties.

“The level of accommodation now proposed would be appropriate for the size and scale of 16 Market Place and would be compatible and consistent with many other recent permissions that have been granted in the immediate locality.

“The property is located in a highly sustainable location within an established town centre location.”

A separate planning application would see the empty former Barclays bank in the town’s Lower High Street converted into new shops and flats.

Sandwell Council approved an application in 2020 to convert the former bank into a new shop and three flats but the work was never carried out. The latest application now asks for permission to build the same ground floor shop but build four flats.