Tag: planning

October 13th – Passing through Kings Hill, Darlaston today I noted activity on the site of the old Servis washing machine factory. This site – derelict for years, and once posited as the site of a new retail and leisure park by a prominent, diminutive Walsall Councillor – last year had a new housing estate approved for it. Like the Exidoor factory nearby, industry is being replaced in this area by houses.

I’m sure they’ll be nice, but it’s hard not to lament the loss of jobs and occupation.

Still, the drilling rigs are on site, and a surveyor has clearly been very thorough in marking out the subterranean hazards that lie beneath, judging by the spray-paint hieroglyphics all over the paths and road nearby.

October 12th – I note with interest that the Four Crosses at Sheffield – suddenly closed a while ago and up for sale for a few months – appears to have been sold.

Clearly the sale must have been to a commercial entity rather than the community, as the ACV deadline was January, this suggests that probably no ACV interest was received. Since the pub was priced well above it’s face value due too the vacant land behind, it’ll be interesting to watch what happens next.

People have clearly been in there as the windowsills have been cleared of ornaments left by the precious occupants.

I really hope it opens as a pub again. 

May 22nd – I’d been planning a long ride the following day for a good couple of weeks. Up until today, the weather forecast had been excellent. As I returned from Lichfield, I was having doubts. It was warm enough, but the sky was threatening all sorts, and the wind seemed quite bullish.

At the optimistically named Summerhill, found myself praying for a break in the clouds.

April 29th – To my surprise, I noted on my way home that local real ale Mecca the Four Crosses in Shelfield had closed, and was boarded up. With a planning application granted in 2012 to build a nursing home attached to it, despite the best efforts of the community, I guess it was always living on borrowed time.

With the Spring Cottage and Four Seasons gone, I don’t think there are any pubs now left in Shelfield, are there? A great sadness.

February 11th – I noticed back in the summer that the old Pleck Working Mens Club was empty and derelict. I find it sad, as I went here once or twice, years ago, for parties and even a wedding. Like all such clubs, beer was cheep and the comfort basic, but there was real community here and the atmosphere was relaxed.

Sadly, like so many clubs, it’s fallen victim to social change, member numbers dwindled and now there’s a planning application for 11 dwellings on this site.

This will never be a club again, I guess, so any re-use of the land is good; but anything built here will be haunted, I hope, by late night shouts of ‘Pint of the usual Alec!’ and ‘Soon be time for the bingo!’

How times change.

January 26th – Passing through Kings Hill in Darlaston whilst nipping into Wednesbury, I noted that the former Servis factory site – nothing but a pile of rubble for a few years now – was subject of a planning application for 250 homes. 

Which is good, really, because we need them. But…

Servis was a big employer in Darlaston for many years, and was originally part of Wilkins & Mitchell, who made power presses and other machines. Servis stuff wasn’t great quality, and they didn’t modernise, despite pioneering electronically controlled washing machines. In the 1990s the company ran into trouble, and was bought by Italian white-goods giant Merloni, themselves crashing in 2008. Since then, the brand has re-emerged under a Turkish badge-engineering parent company.

The factory was razed, and lay pulverised as a testament to the economic rough seas Darlaston was enduring; as the factory was carried to dust, Councillors and regeneration wonks pronounced this site would very soon see a retail and leisure renaissance. 

There was soon to be an election, and one must suspect this was the usual electorate-buttering bullshit; the rebirth never came, and like the Exidor factory up the road, it’ll now become homes. 

Kings Hill – once the beating industrial heart between Darlaston and Wednesbury – is slowly becoming reclaimed by housing.

January 12th – I had stuff to do in Burntwood at lunchtime, and returned late afternoon via Chasetown High Street. It was a squally, warm but rather wet day, and not a good one to be out; but once again I was reminded of just how busy Chasetown looks even at quiet times.

Chastown is not bigger, or particularly more economically vibrant than Brownhills; but the High Street here retained most of it’s original buildings, and the ratio of business premises to to dwellings at street level is about 50:50, which always makes the place look more occupied and buzzing than it really is.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – a mix of retail, leisure and dwellings like this could well be the saviour of many dying High Streets – it makes them more welcoming by day, and after dark when the lights and reassuring presence of others makes the place seem warmer and less desolate.

Something to ponder on…

January 11th – The former Focus DIY store continues to fall prey to flytipping, antisocial behaviour and vandalism. Empty for a number of years now since the chain of shops went bust, there was an application back in the summer to turn this into a B&M discount store, which seems like a good idea to me. On the planning system at Walsall Council, the application is still listed and ‘no decision’ – wonder what the holdup is?

September 9th – This is bothering me. On the border between Darlaston and Walsall at Bentley Bridge, there’s a field of meadow-scrub next to the nascent River Tame. There has been planning permission granted here for a warehouse and new driveways and drainage which have never been built – instead, the land is being used ostensibly as storage, but is more akin to a flytip.

Building materials, old pallets and scrap, including a couple of portable site toilets are strewn around, and the water that must run off this site into the Tame is more than likely contaminated by the waste here.

I have mentioned this to Walsall Council, who assured me something was being done, although I’m not sure they understood the location or where I was referring to.

This can’t be allowable, surely?

June 23rd – Been meaning to point this out for a while. On the Chester Road at Stonnall, there’s a set of abandoned steel gates to the old lower quarry that operated here for a while, a few decades ago. Both the gates, and the land they provide access to have been overgrown for years – but recently, someone has cleared the area of scrub, and the tyre tracks of heavy machinery can be seen.

Can’t find a planning application anywhere, and I’m interested to see what becomes of this…