Plans for 400 homes in Walsall revived
Plans for more than 400 new homes in Walsall have been resurrected after a previous application was scrapped.
Planning bosses gave Keepmoat Homes and Walsall Housing Group the green light to built 426 houses on land at Goscote Lane in April last year, but no work began and now a fresh application for 407 homes has been submitted.
The 407 total number of units includes 281 dwellings for private sale, 126 for affordable general needs which compromise of bungalows and houses.
In the application, agent Konstantina Zannetaki says: "The development is part of the wider Goscote Lane Corridor Regeneration scheme, which is part of Walsall Council’s Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF) initiative.
"The aim of the initiative is to regenerate the wider area with new, high quality housing and attractive, usable open spaces.
"The aim of this scheme is to create a safe, secure and desirable place to live in. It is vital that the proposals are influenced by and respond sensitively to the site’s context and surrounding buildings."
The main entrance onto the site would be along the western boundary at the junction with Goscote Lane and Goscote Lane Crescent. A secondary entrance would run parallel to this, further south.
There would also be 714 car parking spaces if the plans are approved.
The plans add: "The site was previously an area of social housing known as Goscote Estate, which was demolished over a period between 2007 and 2011.
"The 281 dwellings that formed Goscote Estate were mainly semi-detached interwar houses of brick construction.
"Since demolition the site has become vacant brownfield land comprising grassland and scrubland over previously disturbed ground, several overgrown hedged areas and a number of individual mature trees scattered across the site.
"The scrubland becomes denser towards the site’s Eastern and Northern boundaries. Since demolition, the vacant site has become a target for vandalism and fly-tipping."
Councillor Ian Robertson, who represents the Blakenall ward, said: "We hoped that it would have started by now, but we welcome the fact that it's moving forward and a new community can grow where the old one failed."
The plan will go before Walsall Council's planning bosses on Thursday.
