'A section fell off during inspection': Dudley MP blasts house builder over 'danger' wall

A crumbling wall built as part of a Dudley housing development is a danger to the public and needs urgent work to stop it falling on people’s homes, an independent inspection has found.

A section of timber fell off the retaining wall behind Goodrich Mews in Upper Gornal during the inspection, said Dudley MP Sonia Kumar, adding that the experts concluded it was a danger to the public which needed urgent repairs to make it safe.

Miss Kumar revealed last year that more than 100 residents were told to find £6,000 each to make the wall safe after it suffered its second collapse since the development was completed, just 13 years ago.

She asked the British Board of Agrément (BBA) to assess the wall, and its report highlighted a series of serious failings.

“It concluded that the installation and maintenance of the wall did not appear to meet the requirements of the Agrément Certificate and would therefore not have met the criteria for its stated service life,” she said.

“Inspectors also found that the infill material used within the wall did not appear to be suitably free draining, containing significant quantities of local material and fine particles.

“During the inspection itself, a section of timber detached from the wall without warning. The BBA concluded that the structure presents a danger to the public and requires interim propping while a permanent remediation solution is organised.”

The report also examined the repairs already carried out near residents' parking spaces, lengths of mild steel channel fixed to the face of the wall, and found them to be a temporary measure only, with corrosion already evident and unsuitable for anything other than an emergency repair.

Taylor Wimpey said it commissioned the construction of the wall in 2007, before handing responsibility over to management company EPM in 2010. Construction work on the estate was completed in 2013, and three years later the wall suffered its first collapse.

The wall was repaired following the 2016 incident, which damaged a resident’s car, but the wall began to fail a second time last year.

Taylor Wimpey says it is EPM’s responsibility, but Miss Kumar said the inspection showed that the problems can be traced back to the construction of the wall, and that the company

Miss Kumar said: "An independent inspection has found that this wall is a danger to the public and needs propping up urgently. My constituents did not need to be told to go and speak to somebody else: they needed a plan, and they needed it months ago."

"Residents at Goodrich Mews have been passed from one party to another since 2016 while the wall behind their homes, gardens and parking spaces has continued to fail. I have spent almost two years on this, meeting residents, writing letters, chasing answers, and the response I have now received amounts to being told it is somebody else's problem."

"Whoever holds the contract for the communal areas today, these homes were built and sold by Taylor Wimpey, and the BBA's findings go directly to how this wall was installed in the first place."

"I am repeating my request for an urgent meeting, and I want the managing agent in the room as well. I will keep pressing until residents have a clear answer on responsibility, a funded plan for permanent repair, and confidence that they and their families are safe."

A spokeswoman for Taylor Wimpey said: “We sympathise with residents and understand their concerns about the retaining wall at Goodrich Mews.

“While we commissioned the wall to be built back in 2007, the estate’s managing agent, EPM, has been responsible for managing and maintaining the wall since 2010.

“We encourage EPM to take the necessary steps to address residents’ concerns as quickly as possible.”