Demolition of former industrial estate in Smethwick will cost £1.3 million

The demolition of a former industrial estate in Smethwick to make way for new housing will cost £1.3m.

Sandwell Council has awarded the contract for the demolition of the old Smethwick Enterprise Centre, in Rolfe Street, to AR Demolition in a move that will see the land prepared for around 115 new homes.

The demolition work is expected to be finished by February next year.

Two blocks would be spared from demolition and the front Rolfe Street facade of the industrial estate would be kept, as would the former fire station training tower.

A planning application for the demolition was approved in November 2025 but had received objections from Historic England, the Canal & River Trust and the Victorian Society over the potential harm it could cause to the surrounding conservation area.

While the individual buildings were judged to have “little or no significance” in heritage reports, the site as a whole had a “high degree of local significance” because of its location within the conservation area and its position next to two listed buildings. However, the architectural quality of the building was “generally low,” the council added.

The council revealed in 2022 it was planning to demolish all of the buildings on the council-owned industrial estate – giving some of the remaining 35 businesses, which included a homeless charity, a long-standing engineering firm, a dairy company, and a flooring business, just months to leave and find a new home.

Sandwell Council said repairing and refurbishing the site would cost more than £3m but could not guarantee the units would be occupied if the work was carried out.

Knocking the buildings down to use the site for housing in the future was “deemed the most cost-effective and land-efficient option in the long term,” the council said.

A ‘masterplan’ for the regeneration of Rolfe Street, dubbed the “biggest brownfield site in Europe”, was also backed by councillors in 2023.

As well as hundreds of new homes, the masterplan includes a public square, green spaces linking up existing canals in the area, and new connecting points between the train station and the Midlands Metropolitan University Hospital.

In all, Smethwick was given £23.5 million in government Towns Fund money with £2 million going towards demolishing Smethwick Enterprise Centre.

The former industrial estate is a main location in the council’s regeneration plans for the key “Smethwick to Birmingham corridor”.

Before being kicked out by Sandwell Council, traders had complained about asbestos, rotting doors and rat infestations and claimed to have witnessed dogging and ducks being shot.

Because of this, two-thirds of the industrial estate was lying empty by 2019.

Sandwell Council said some of the units had not been “appropriately maintained” and had “fallen below the standard considered suitable for rental.”

The council said it was not receiving enough rent money to cover costs and “over time the buildings became dilapidated and the maintenance budget was not sufficient to make the necessary repairs”.