Plans for Willenhall railway station could hit the buffers over ‘pop-up’ building near platform

The West Midlands Rail Executive has had to adjust the project’s plans around this ‘crumbling’ building to deliver the much-anticipated station as scheduled. 

Councillors at the economy and environment scrutiny committee were told the news in a general progress update for the Willenhall, Darlaston and Aldridge railway stations.

Victoria Kinally, one of the speakers delivering the update from the West Midlands Rail Executive (WMRE), said: “It doesn’t have planning permission or building control from what we can work out. 

“It popped up in May this year. We came back to work after the bank holiday weekend and it had appeared next to our construction site. We alerted HSE, Network Rail and Walsall building control. 

“Work was done on this building in September 2024, which was really uneven and unstable and in fact already started to crumble. [The owner] had taken that down but then they’ve secured it a bit more and cladded it in the last couple of days.”

James Callingham, also from WMRE, added: “Because this building isn’t going away, quite frankly, we’re looking at doing some mitigations and adjusting the design. It is far from ideal to be changing this at this stage but effectively we’ve got no choice but to keep the project moving and on schedule.”

Councillor Cheema asked why an unstable building with no planning permission isn’t being torn down.  

Deputy leader of the council, councillor Adrian Andrew said: “If the planning enforcement process was as easy as that, we’d be doing it a hell of a lot more on a lot more sites. 

“You know how difficult it’s been to tackle the derelict sites in Willenhall and how long it’s taken, the money it’s taken and the process.

“Our building control people have been down there on a number of occasions. We are looking at other ways of doing this but we need to act quickly so this project doesn’t go off track.”

WMRE is still accessing the cost impact of the ‘pop-up’ building, but suggested it wouldn’t affect the overall budget for both the Willenhall and Darlaston stations, which currently sits at £85m – £30m over the approved 2021 budget of £55m. 

Around £15m of the increase has been blamed on the bankruptcy of the original contractor for the project, Buckingham Group. The failed company’s railway projects were bought out by Kier Transportation, the contractor now delivering the railway stations.  

‘Pop-up’ buildings and budgets aside, the Willenhall and Darlaston stations connecting Walsall and Wolverhampton are still on track to be completed by late 2025, early 2026. Now the ground remediation works at both sites have both been completed, the next steps for the Willenhall station is to install a flooding attenuation tank and a sewer diversion. 

At Darlaston, upcoming works include laying a car park base layer and installing platform foundations. The WMRE is planning to submit an amendment to the planning applications in order to include a lift at Willenhall to Bilston Street and a footpath at Darlaston station. 

In Aldridge, work is on-going at the new one-platform railway station which will provide a service to and from Walsall. It was confirmed that the service will run half-hourly, taking six minutes to get into Walsall. 

The study into car parking for passengers using the service is ongoing. Currently 45 car parking spaces have been identified but full travel patterns and access arrangements will be considered in the coming months. 

It was also confirmed that the railway station car parks will be free, with no limitation on duration of stay.