Residents have their say on delays to Sandwell's new super hospital
With the opening of the borough’s new billion-pound Midland Metropolitan Hospital facing yet another frustrating delay – I went to speak to those living by the huge new site to see what they had to say.
Standing at the top of car-crammed Unett Street in Smethwick – a long residential road that slopes down towards the hospital – you can see and hear the work continue as the 760-bed ‘super’ hospital protrudes above the rooftops.
Scaffolding and drilling have been familiar sites and sounds for the diverse street and if all goes to plan, the clatter should have finally stopped by this time next year.
Work on the site has been beset by difficulties, with the collapse of construction firm Carillion in 2018 and the Covid-19 pandemic creating a perfect storm for a project already very late.
The new opening date of autumn 2024 is the latest in a long line of delays, push backs, and catastrophes that have seen changes to already heavily amended deadlines – and is a far cry from the 2018 date that was first proposed.
The residents on the one side of Unett Street have not only seen the hospital grow in size but also seen their number of neighbours increase – with several properties built in recent years almost simultaneously with the work at the hospital.
These new homes extended around the corner to Hamilton Drive where mother-of-two Sarbinder Kaur relocated from West Bromwich to nearly three years ago – fully aware of the issues with the hospital.
I asked what it had been like to live next to a huge building site for so long.
“I think if you have waited this long for it to open, then what difference does another couple of years make,” she joked. “To be honest we’ve just got used to it, it can get a bit noisy but it’s not so bad now. I’ll just be glad to see it finally open.
“We definitely need it and it is going to make a massive difference I think. These things take time I suppose but it’s just really annoying that it has taken so long.”
Not far from the Kaur household is the 57-year-old Sunrise Bakery.
The bright yellow bakery, which you will smell before you see despite its striking exterior, is as close a neighbour as you can get to the new ‘super’ hospital.
While it has been said that traffic and noise have caused issues in the past, the many hungry workers building the hospital have taken advantage of Sunrise’s wares and caused a bit of a boost in trade.
The bakery’s Palm Sidhu hopes the boost in trade during construction will be replicated when the hospital finally opens its doors.
“I personally haven’t noticed [the building site] too much, it’s kind of just there now,” she said. “We’ll see what happens when it opens though.
“We do get some of the builders coming to the shop downstairs so it has been great in that way.”
Thirty-nine- year-old taxi driver Sabir Hussain, who lives in neighbouring Woodland Street, has seen the hospital rise from the rubble to the huge structure that you see today.
“It’s been a long long time,” he said. “A very long time. I’ve lived around here for probably 20 years and it’s been a big change. I couldn’t tell you what it will do for the area but hopefully it will make it better. We’ve needed a new hospital for a long time but you never know do you, we have heard it before and it’s still not open.”
Having seen an opening date pushed further and further back, some of the other residents of Woodland Street remain sceptical.
“I bet if you come back next year it still won’t be open,” one elderly resident tells me. “First it was that year and then it was this year and now it’s next year. It’s hard to know what to say until it opens.”
“It’s definitely a good thing,” he quickly added. “But why does it have to take so long?”