Plans to replace Sandwell Hospital unit with more than 100 key-worker homes

Sandwell Council’s planning committee is to decide on a proposal put forward by Catalyst Mutual Enterprise to create 12 new houses and 109 apartments at the hospital’s Lyndon Campus in West Bromwich.

The unit will be demolished with a new physiotherapy facility incorporated elsewhere on the site or at the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital currently being constructed in Smethwick.

If approved, there will be six two bed and six three bedroom houses while the new apartment block will feature 50 one bed, 59 two bed flats.

There will also be a convenience store along with a creche and community room incorporated within the scheme.

The developers say the affordable housing will be aimed at hospital staff as well as other key workers such as police and teachers.

A report to the committee, which meets on May 11, also said the scheme is being supported with grant funding from Homes England.

Planning agent Walker Troup Architects said: “The application proposals will provide a supply of housing that is going to be required to meet the needs of both current and future key workers, domestic and international.

“When built, the accommodation will help Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust to hold onto key staff, whilst also attracting new workers who may otherwise be forced to look for employment elsewhere, or who may look to relocate to other geographical areas as a result of their inability to find suitable residential accommodation.

“Key medical workers are critical to the ongoing and successful operation of the NHS Trust, and as such, are critical to the area in which they are employed.

“The social role of this development reflects the area’s need for new affordable housing which will be integrated into an existing recognised settlement, to reflect the community need and help support the social and cultural well-being.”

The proposal has provoked objections from six nearby residents who raised a number of issues.

These concerns included a loss of privacy with the flats allowing residents to look directly into existing houses and the overall scale of the proposed apartment block.

Other issues included not needing another convenience store, parking spaces being cramped, more litter on the roads, loss of the Victorian building the physiotherapy unit is in and the potential loss of hospital services in the area.

But planning officers were happy concerns were addressed and said the scheme would be beneficial and have recommended it for approval.

The report said: “The proposed scheme accords with the housing allocation within the Development Plan and would provide 100 per cent affordable homes for key workers, which meets an identified need.

“The scheme is also compliant in terms of design, air quality, drainage, renewables policies and creating sustainable development.

“Whilst the development would result in the loss of an undesignated heritage asset, it is considered that the benefits of this scheme, outweigh its loss and that full historic building recording would ensure that a record of these buildings is retained following their demolition.”