Black Country council recommends 'eyesore pub' is converted into HMO
A plan to convert an empty pub into an HMO is expected to be approved when councillors meet next week.
Nearly decade-old plans to turn the former Forge Tavern in Wednesbury into an eight-bed house of multiple occupation (HMO) were revived at the start of the year after moves to turn the old watering hole into am Islamic tuition centre were rejected by Sandwell Council.
The local authority’s planners have turned down several moves to bring the old pub back to life in the last eight years including two moves to open an Islamic tuition centre and two seperate bids for a new community centre.
Sandwell Council’s planning committee meets on April 2 in Oldbury and a report by the local authority’s planning officers has recommended the conversion into the HMO is approved.
The plans do not include converting the ground floor – which includes the former pub’s bar – which has been “reserved for future” and which the council says would require a separate planning application to convert.
Ten parking spaces would be provided, which was deemed acceptable by the council.
The council said given its current state, converting the building would in fact “uplift the area.”
The efforts to breathe new life into the boarded-up pub, which closed in 2016, have included two separate applications to convert the building into an Islamic tuition centre.
Sandwell Council rejected those plans in 2018 and again in 2021 over concerns that poor public transport links and its ‘out-of-town-centre’ location could cause “severe” parking problems in the surrounding residential streets.
More plans to convert the pub into a community centre then came forward but were rejected in 2022 and in May 2024.
An earlier plan to convert the former watering hole into a house of multiple occupation (HMO) was approved by the council in 2017 – but the work was never carried out and has now been resubmitted after the three-year planning permission lapsed.
The last rejection from the council was appealed by Birmingham-based charity New Hope Global but thrown out by the government’s planning inspectors.
The application for the boarded-up pub on the corner of Franchise Street and Beebee Road claimed the 15 car parking spaces proposed and surrounding streets were “more than adequate” to meet the need for the listed maximum capacity of 140 people.
But the council disagreed and criticised the application for not providing any information on the number of cars the new community centre would draw or whether there even any demand for a new community centre.
The proposals for the Forge included a number of multi-purpose rooms, a conference room, a dining room and a library as well as first-floor flats.
