Urgent calls for eyesore Wolverhampton site to be redeveloped
Urgent calls are being made to redevelop a derelict former industrial site on a gateway to Wolverhampton, saying it is hampering efforts to regenerate the city.
The former Edward Vaughan stamping works site in Lower Horseley Fields is next to the 'Welcome to Wolverhampton' sign.
Councillor Wendy Thompson said plans had been drawn up to redevelop the site several years ago but the council had turned them down. Now, years later, she says it is still an eyesore and something needs to be done.
Councillor Thompson, leader of the opposition Conservative group, made the comments as Wolverhampton City Council agreed to formally adopt a vision for two areas of the city, which it hopes will create around 4,000 jobs. Action plans for the Stafford Road and Bilston 'corridors' were approved by councillors at a meeting last week. The plans, which set out the council's planning policy until 2026, will now be presented to Secretary of State for Communities Eric Pickles for final approval.
The Bilston corridor plan has been amended to create an extra 147 homes, and identifies large parts of the Horseley Fields area as being suitable for housing.
However, when Cala Homes applied to build 133 homes on the former Vaughan stampings site in 2007, permission was refused.
Councillor Thompson said something urgently needed to be done with the area.
"The site is still derelict," she said. "When is the council going to do something about it?"
The Bilston corridor covers an area from the edge of Wolverhampton city centre through to Loxdale, and includes plans for the construction of 2,747 new homes, an increase from 2,600 when the proposals were submitted to the Government last year.
The Stafford Road plan, which aims to create around 3,000 jobs along the three-mile stretch from Five Ways Island on the edge of the city centre to Junction 2 of the M54, has been amended to place greater emphasis on the use of the city's canals.
In future, the waterways in the area must not simply be viewed as an historic backdrop, but as an important commercial resource in their own right.
The plan has identified nearly 30 areas as suitable for employment use, as well as proposing hundreds of new homes and major transport improvements.
Cabinet member for regeneration Councillor Peter Bilson said it had been a long, drawn out process to produce the plans, but said they were crucial to the city's future prosperity.
"I sometimes get frustrated with the speed of the planning process, but the outcome at the end of this is a framework which will boost the areas."
