Illegal Wednesbury car dealership could stay despite council saying it is bad for neighbours
An illegal used car dealership could be allowed to stay despite the council ruling it is “inappropriate” and bad for neighbours.
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West Midlands Cars in Franchise Street, Wednesbury, opened without planning permission from at least 2022 and has been the subject of several complaints due to the site being overcrowded with cars which had overspilled onto residential streets and a pub’s old car park.
The local authority’s planners rejected a move to formalise the arrangement last year but the decision could be reversed after an appeal was lodged.
A planning application by Gul Nawaz of West Midlands Cars to use the site for car storage and sales was rejected in June 2023 by Sandwell Council which said it was “inappropriate” and “to the detriment of residents.”
The plot has used for car sales without planning permission from 2022, according to the rejected application. The site had been used for the sale and storage of cars in 2017 but had ceased a year later following enforcement action by the council.
In a report outlining its most recent decision, Sandwell Council said: “The car sales use and associated comings and goings is inappropriate in the locality and has a detrimental impact on the amenity of an otherwise predominantly residential area.
“The retention of the car sales use would impact on the highway network due to visitors to the site and manoeuvring of vehicles.”
The council’s planners said the proposed work should “function well and add to the overall quality of the area” which the used car dealership did not.
Sandwell Council said it visited the site 18 months ago and found too many cars stored on the site and in the street as well as on the neighbouring pub car park for the former Forge Tavern.
“The site layout was not representative of the layout plans submitted with the application,” the council said.
“There were far more vehicles stored on site. A small car transporter – for one vehicle – was parked on street in front of the site. It appeared that the site was not sufficient in size for the scale of the operation that was taking place there.
“The applicants stated that the vehicles parked on the pub car park were not theirs but were somehow able to confirm that they would be moved. Highways completed another site visit in November 2023, the situation had improved, presumably as the application was still to be determined.
“Since then, the business has begun operating as per the previous levels this has been noted when passing the site while completing other site visits around the borough.”
The council said it had received “several” complaints about cars parked on the street and Franchise Street has been visited by several council departments as well as West Midlands Police.
The council visited again in November last year to find the former pub’s car park full with untaxed and ‘off the road’ SORN cars and several parked on pavements and on the street.
“On-street parking at these levels causes congestion as two-way vehicle movements cannot be maintained and obscures visibility for drivers leaving Beebee Road and Cook Street,” the council added when rejecting the application in 2023.
“Many properties on Franchise Street are Victorian terraced properties so residents rely on on-street parking, this business has a severe impact on residential amenity.”
Nearly decade-old plans to turn the neighbouring former Forge Tavern into an eight-bed house of multiple occupation (HMO) were revived at the start of the year.
The local authority’s planners have turned down several moves to bring the old pub back to life in the last eight years including two moves to open an Islamic tuition centre and two seperate bids for a new community centre.
Sandwell Council rejected those plans in 2018 and again in 2021 over concerns that poor public transport links and its ‘out-of-town-centre’ location could cause “severe” parking problems in the surrounding residential streets.
An earlier plan to convert the former watering hole into a house of multiple occupation (HMO) was approved by the council in 2017 – but the work was never carried out and has now been resubmitted after the three-year planning permission lapsed.
