‘Temporary’ traveller site in Smethwick renewed for third time

Sandwell Council’s planning committee approved extending the ‘temporary’ permission for the 34-plot ‘transit’ site in Wellington Street, Smethwick.

It is the third time that planning permission has been extended until 2026 after similar plans were backed in 2020.

Planners at Sandwell Council said they did not have any figures available showing how many times the site had been used.

The traveller site opened on council-owned land opposite Black Patch Park in 2017.

The ‘transit’ site gave West Midlands Police and Sandwell Council powers to ‘move on’ travellers that have illegally set up camp on public land when it opened in 2017.

Travellers are told to move to the ‘transit’ site within 24 hours, where they must pay rent, or face being arrested or banned from the borough for three months.

Rent on the site is currently £100 per week per caravan – on top of a £270 deposit.

Travellers can stay for up to 28 days.

Ahead of the meeting, Sandwell Council said policy showed that granting ‘temporary’ permission for a second time was “rarely justifiable” but went ahead and recommended that the traveller site should remain open for at least another three years.

A report outlining the council’s recommendation said: “Given that no immediate redevelopment of the site is proposed and taking into account the changing aspirations for the site – from employment use to residential – a change approved by cabinet in November 2018 and carried forward to the Black Country Plan – and the benefits that the transit site provides … a further temporary use is appropriate in this instance.”

Conservative councillor Scott Chapman, who represents Friar Park, said he had been “completely opposed” to any traveller site being built in Sandwell in the past but admitted he was “holding up his hands and saying he was wrong.”

“No matter how many times it has been used, and it’s not many, it’s a fantastic deterrent and it has prevented many travelling occursions across Sandwell because it’s an option there,” he said at the planning meeting in Oldbury on November 29.

“Obviously, if they refuse [the transit site] it allows them to be moved on.

“I’m completely in favour of the extension and I think it’s a good thing.”