Tag: planning

March 24th – I had stuff to do at home, and didn’t get out until after dark, when I nipped down to Stonnall to call at a pal’s house.

Stonnall is an interesting village; it seems to be sprawling and dormitory now, and I caused a bit of a fuss a few years ago on this journal for likening it to Stepford; but the housing here from the postwar decades does seem to have enveloped what must have been quite a characterful place, and I find that the older buildings and their charm only become really evident now after dark.

It’s a nice enough place, for sure, but time hasn’t been kind to it.

September 4th – Returning to Brownhills in the evening, I was pleased to note that the development of new housing seems to have finally started on the site of the old market place off Silver Street, with earthmoving plant commencing operations.

Realistically, we have no chance of ever getting the market back, and the space it occupied has lain idle for five years or more. It’s open, sad and dispiriting and the houses being built here will be a great improvement, and will also mean an end to the serial occupation of the site by travellers.

A good thing, a long time coming.

August 5th – Looping back, still with a heavy heart, I stopped on the Pier Street bridge and noticed that more exploratory groundworks had been taking place on the old market site off Silver Street, clearly in preparation for new housing given permission there.

I’m all for that and hope work starts soon – anything that makes this area look less open and bleak is welcome to me.

That thought, at least, made me somewhat brighter.

January 15th – Intrigued to note that the former Terrace restaurant on the Watling Street at Newtown, in the hinterlands of Brownhills seems finally to be undergoing renovation of some kind.

Following it’s closure 18 months ago, this once very popular venue has been plagued by vandalism, metal thieves and arson, and rumours in the spring of it being host to a new buffet restaurant seemed to come to nothing.

Taking a nose today, new fencing is going up, and the fittings seem to be being cleared out. A licensing application for alcohol dating from July is on a nearby lamp-post.

I hope something does open at this landmark building. Brownhills could do with a decent restaurant.

September 19th – Freewheeling down Shire Oak Hill into Brownhills, I stopped to look at the sad hulk of the Rosa – or ‘Middle’ Oak, closed a couple of years ago, and once a popular, award-winning pub. Sold privately, no planning applications have ever been submitted for another use, and the building continues to fall quite into decay. The only use it sees these days if neighbours using the car park.

Nobody seems to know what, if anything, the owners have planned.

A sad end to a once fine community pub.

August 3rd – Telford on a quick visit midday, and a surprise: I noted evidence of recent exploratory drilling and a planning application to replace the dingy, 80s footbridge over the railway and adjacent main road with a new structure.

The bridge as it is is corroded and not ideal, but it’s a very large structure and it’ll be interesting to look at the plans for a replacement. 

One of the biggest problems with the structure is it’s greatest asset: being enclosed with a roof makes it an excellent sheltering point in bad weather, but makes it dingy, dystopian and unpleasant at night.

I also wonder what they’ll do with the overgrown vegetation that also make the footways here so grim at night.

The times seem to be changing. Let’s hope for the better.

April 5th – I noted from the local news reports today that these old derelict buildings on Park Lane on the Darlaston/Wednesbury border are now scheduled for demolition and replacement with new housing – not before time, either: they’ve been derelict for as long as I can remember; an eyesore, they’re of no historic value whatsoever and in times of a housing shortage, their replacement is long overdue.

What is interesting – and I’d never noticed it before until @thestymaster commented today on Twatter about it – the old garage sign here is a bit of an antique, but it has sadly seen better days.

January 19th – In Darlaston’s Kings Hill, the former Servis domestic appliance factory site is soon to be transformed into housing. Once employing thousands, this ground was cleared after the company went bankrupt and lofty promises of new retail and leisure developments were made. But permission was granted for houses, which in fairness, we do need. 

A few months ago, surveyors marks appeared on the nearby pavements and roads; then ground inspection bores were made. Now the heavy plant and high vis are arriving, ready to move rubble and earth and create a new neighbourhood.

Soon, you’ll never know Servis were ever here.

January 1st – This is… extraordinary. I came upon it out of pure, unbridled nosiness.

As you travel down the Chester Road from Shire Oak towards Stonnall, just within the boundary of Fishpond Wood and the old quarry, there’s a gated track.  

As a kid, I was told there were cottages down there. Having seen a building on Google Earth, and occasionally seeing people pull out of the driveway, I paid it no mind.

But in recent weeks, there has been a pile of flytipped refuse in the track gateway, containing structural asbestos. I was wondering how the people here were accessing their house and if it was still lived in – I could vaguely remember seeing bins out for collection here, but not for a good while.

Passing the drive, I took a dive down there on my bike. It’s long, downhill, maybe ⅓ mile. With a large, derelict house at the end. A house once worth over half a million pounds.

It has clearly only been vacated in recent years, and is a rambling, oddly extended place with a wish-mash of extensions and levels, with one of the most bizarre fireplace arrangements i’ve ever seen. in it’s day it was clearly some place, but not now. Now, just vandalism, decay and eerie loneliness.

It turns out from subsequent research the place is owned by a developer, after the elderly couple who lived here vacated the place. Permission has been granted since 2013 to replace it with a large, new family home. 

You can read about this, and some of the backstory in this Design & Access statement from the Lichfield Planning Department here.

Right now, it’s clearly a vandal magnet, and a target for flytippers. 

A very curious thing indeed.

December 9th – A better day today, for sure. For starters, it was dry, sunny and cooler – it felt like a real winter was coming. We’re getting really close now to the winter solstice and the start of the opening out – yet we’ve barely had a true frosty morning. This year has been odd.

I was further cheered to note that at James Bridge, on the Walsall/Darlaston border, the hard work by planning enforcement officers and the Environment Agency has led to the clearing of the mess here on the field next to the River Tame. It had been in use as a store for general building materials and assorted debris, apparently without planning approval. The whole site looked a mess and seemed to be little more that a glorified fly-tip. 

The site isn’t completely clear yet, although it’s much, much improved. It’s good to see action to remove the blight and a possible source of pollution to the recovering river.

Nice work. Thank you.