£9m Wednesbury health centre is given go-ahead

The long-awaited scheme in High Bullen will provide new facilities for users of two GP surgeries, Malling Health and The Spires Health Centre – which will be incorporated into a new building.

Sandwell Council planning committee unanimously voted to grant the scheme at its meeting last night.

The project won outline planning approval in April this year and will be located next to the leisure centre.

Planning documents state: "The proposed development will provide and integrated design, joining healthcare with wellness to bring new life to the Wednesbury leisure Centre site. An overall aim is to create a campus feel between the existing leisure centre and the new health centre that will be accessible to the whole community."

Planning documents state that since outline planning permission was granted, design company One Creative Environments has taken over as the design team and the proposed scheme has been completely redesigned and developed.

Designs position the building to front onto Dudley Street and retains and reuses existing vehicle access off Dudley Street.

A new public plaza has been created as a gateway to the development and on-site parking will also be shared between the leisure and health centres. The site will have CCTV cameras.

Planning chiefs approved the plans subject to a number of conditions which included that a parking survey be done, and archaeologists survey is completed and that movement at the Mammography unit be limited to between 6am and 10pm.

Wednesbury Councillor Elaine Costigan said: "We now just hope the funding is there to build the scheme. We want to get this started."

This news comes just a week after a planning application was submitted to bulldoze a council building in Smethwick to make way for a modern medical centre.

This new application will see the former Sandwell Social Services building on High Street flattened to make way for the proposed centre and chemist. The centre will also have 19 car parking spaces.

The report by architects P W Peacock states the existing building is currently unused and is in a poor state of repair and it is more economically viable to demolish the building rather than have it refurbished.