Council housing plan for towerblock site

The first new council houses in a Black Country borough for three decades are set to be built on the site of a former towerblock, with a planning application expected within weeks.

Under the plans the site, on Bearwood Road in Smethwick, will be redeveloped as 28 two, three and four bedroomed homes, funded by the Government. Crumbling 16-storey high rise Bearwood House, built in 1966, was demolished in August last year, and the site close to Victoria Park has been empty ever since.

Council chiefs lobbied West Midlands minister Ian Austin on Friday to try to secure millions of pounds from a new £1.5 billion pot announced by the Prime Minister to kickstart Sandwell's council house building programme. In total up to 1,000 new homes could be built at a cost of around £50m in a drive to tackle the housing slump, if they get the cash.

Sandwell housing chief, Councillor Mahboob Hussain, said the council will be applying for £1.5 million for the Bearwood Road site alone. He said other potential sites are also being investigated and revealed he is "more than confident" that the council will be given a share of the cash.

"The minister was very positive and said that Sandwell is ticking all the boxes when it comes to its housing", he said.

"Although there is a bidding process in place I am more than confident we will be successful. On this basis we will be submitting a planning application for Bearwood Road in the next three to four weeks.

"By October we expect to have the resources for 100 to 200 homes.

"We hope that building will be completed on these by March 2011."

Council finance chief Councillor Steve Eling said the authority is were keen to get started on building as soon as possible.

He said: "We can bring forward housing sites pretty quickly and we wouldn't be looking for a long planning period."

Latest figures, released in February, showed that 8,847 people were on the waiting list for a council home in Sandwell.

The number of council houses has fallen from 35,400 to 29,000 since 2004 under the right-to-buy scheme. It led to 22 people being made redundant by Sandwell Homes.