£20m plans for 150 new homes next to new Midland Met ‘super hospital’ to be finalised
Plans to transform the area around a new hospital by building homes and a primary school are set to be finalised
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Sandwell Council is set to spend £20m to buy land around the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in Grove Lane, Smethwick, and demolish several empty and dilapidated industrial units to make way for 150 homes and a primary school.
The local authority’s cabinet meets on February 5 to formally accept the government’s levelling-up offer.
The official announcement of the £20m funding decision, which comprises £18m from the government’s levelling up fund and £2m from Sandwell Council, was delayed due to last year’s general election.
The funding agreement means the money has to be spent on buying around eight-and-a-half acres of land on Grove Street and Cranford Street, demolishing the buildings and preparing the site to be handed over to developers.
The homes would be made available for shared ownership and ‘affordable’ rent but would not be council-owned social housing.
The council said the state of the former industrial buildings and the cost of demolishing them was putting off developers from building homes in the area.
The council’s funding bid said the “investment would change the area’s profile” and “refocus it from an area characterised by industrial legacy to a residential community.”
“Sites to the east of the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital are dominated by industrial units, some of which are vacant and in a state of disrepair, that are low-rise and between fifty to sixty years old,” the bid said.
“Failure to address these sites would be a missed opportunity in the context of surrounding development, resulting in the area’s unprecedented level of investment being surrounded by areas of derelict buildings.”
The council first bid for government funding in 2022 but was unsuccessful only for the regeneration project to be ‘verbally approved’ at the start of last year.
As the council waited for official confirmation, a general election was called and further delays were caused by the new Labour government’s decision to review the funding.
It was eventually confirmed in October last year – with the deadline to spend the money set to be extended by two years to March 2028 in the spring budget.
