Black Country car dealership opened without permission fails in bid for permission
A council has rejected plans that would have allowed a West Bromwich car dealership opened without permission to stay.
Sandwell Council rejected an application by Aram Rasoul of Rydding Lane Auto Sale in Rydding Lane, West Bromwich, to continue using the land for car sales after it opened without planning permission last year.
The council’s planners turned down the retrospective application saying the use of the site for car sales was “inappropriate” and to the detriment of neighbours. The planning application had followed enforcement action by the council.
Rejecting the application, the council said: “The car sales use and associated comings and goings is inappropriate in the locality and has a detrimental impact on the amenity of an otherwise predominantly residential area.
“The retention of the car sales use would impact on the highway network due to visitors to the site and manoeuvring of vehicle stock.”
Rydding Lane Auto Sale opened on ‘overgrown and decaying’ land next to Cagney’s pub and restaurant in April 2025 according to the application.
A plan by UK Wide Real Estate for a two-storey extension to Cagney’s to make way for a new shop was withdrawn in 2020.
A new plan was approved by Sandwell Council nearly a year later that included the same two-storey extension but the new shop plan had been replaced with offices and a flat.
However, barber shop Five Star Barbers opened in the new extension last year.
In a report outlining their objections, the council’s planners said. “This proposal is on unallocated land [in the council’s planning policies] and it is on land partly occupied by domestic garages. It abuts residential gardens on two sides, with a barbers and pub and restaurant to another.
“The proposed use would better located in a local quality employment area."
The council said it had looked at how the plans related to the surrounding area and said the ‘the juxtaposition of a commercial operation adjacent to residential gardens […] should be resisted.
“The proposed use does not represent a substantial investment in the area,” the council’s planners added. “If otherwise considered acceptable a temporary consent to assess issues such as nuisance to adjacent residents and highways issues would not be onerous.”
