Sandwell Council recommends canalside homes should be built - despite concerns

The application by SY Homes asks for permission to build four two-bed homes on the scrubland in Brades Road, Oldbury.

Sandwell Council’s planning officers have recommended the application be approved by councillors despite clashing with several of its own policies.

The council said the “positives would outweigh the negatives.”

Officers said “the merits of providing housing in this location with limited impact on residential amenity, highway safety and canal infrastructure would outweigh the negative effects of non-compliance with policy.”

The Canal and River Trust raised concerns over building homes next to the canal saying it endangered the “structural integrity and ecology” of the waterway.

Concerns were also raised over the homes being built next to a high-pressure gas pipeline.

A plan to build six homes on the land near the Enterprise Flex-E-Rent and Birmingham Canal Old Main Line was rejected by Sandwell Council in 2021.

The council’s planners said the proposals were too cramped and would create a “poor living environment” for future residents.

The council also said Brades Road was in one of the borough’s pollution ‘hotspots’ and building homes there would have an “unacceptable negative impact on resident’s health.”

An air quality assessment has been included with SY Homes’ application, carried out by consultants Wardell Armstrong, which said: “The proposed development [would] not lead to an unacceptable risk from air pollution, nor [would] it lead to any breach of national objectives as required by national policy.”

Despite the council’s concerns about air quality, its planners still approved an application in January to build nine flats just 90 metres away on a former car park.

A move to build three houses on the land was approved by Sandwell Council a year earlier but a new plan materialised months later asking to build seven flats instead.

“There are concerns about this development plan, given that it would actively bring in more residents into an area of known poor air quality,” the council said before approving the application.

Brades Road still remains among Sandwell Council’s priority ‘zones’ to improve air quality due to dangerous levels of pollution.

A statement included with the application by SY Homes said: “The reduction in dwellings from six to four allows a far better layout of the site with suitable space around the buildings and an improved living environment for the future residents.

“The air quality assessment provided by Wardell Armstrong demonstrates that the scheme will not lead to an unacceptable risk from air pollution, nor will it lead to any breach of national objectives as required by national policy.”