£20m new council housing in Tipton to go before planners

Sandwell Council submitted a planning application for its multi-million-pound plans to build 55 one and two-bed flats in Union Street in Tipton in June.

The authority’s planning committee meets next week to decide on the application.

The council’s planning officers have recommended the plans are approved. No objections were raised against the application.

Sandwell Council’s planners said the “much-needed” affordable housing would be of “great benefit” to the town.

A statement included with the application by Sandwell Council said: “The central aim is to regenerate two key underused sites within the town, by replacing 15 obsolete flats and derelict buildings to deliver new affordable, low-energy, socially rented housing.

"The council will also secure frontage improvements to the properties along Owen Street and invest in further highway improvements throughout the centre to improve safety and security.

“The canal walkway will also be reinvigorated and upgraded, with other additional public realm upgrades and improvements.

"Together, these initiatives will act as a catalyst for further regeneration, by offering the town a new heart and focus.”

The blocks in Union Street, which date to the 1950s, and the adjacent Albion Street car park would make way for a new three-to-four-storey block according to the application.

The land on the opposite side of Union Street and a council-owned car park would also be used for a new three-to-four-storey block of flats.

Kiddies Playhouse Nursery in Union Street would stay in place.

Sandwell Council said the much-needed flats would address a chronic shortage of affordable housing and long waiting lists in Tipton and across Sandwell.

The local authority was given millions in ‘levelling up’ money from the government to invest in regenerating Tipton town centre with the main plans demolishing the 70-year-old flats in Union Street in Tipton town centre to make way for new flats.

But initial plans to breathe new life into many empty and run-down shops in Tipton town centre were scrapped over rising costs.

The application follows the council being given permission to demolish the row of shops and flats in Union Street to make way for the new housing in February.

The council said the ageing shopping parade would be demolished by August to allow work to begin next year. Construction was expected to have then finished the following year.

The authority said the much-needed flats would address a chronic shortage of affordable housing and long waiting lists in Tipton and across Sandwell.

More than half of the units in Tipton town centre are empty according to the council.

The locally listed but former and long-empty Conservative Club, which has now been vacant for some years, was recently bought by the council after its condition was rapidly deteriorating following a number of break-ins.

Sandwell Council’s planning committee meets on October 23 in Oldbury.