Express & Star

Charlie Chaplin 'birth place' Black Patch Park in line for revamp

A vandal-hit park – which could have been the birthplace place of silent film star Charlie Chaplin – is in line for a major makeover after councillors approved changes to its planning strategy.

Published
Some of the waste which had been dumped on Black Patch Park in Smethwick in February 2017

Scores of new houses and improvements to the park in the rundown Black Patch district in Smethwick can now be put forward after Sandwell Council’s cabinet agreed an interim planning statement at its meeting this week.

The consent means the authority can now accept residential planning applicants for an area previously designated for industrial use.

Charlie Chaplin

Sites at Kitchener Street and the Merry Hill Allotments have been earmarked for homes and improvements in the environmental quality of the areas, which has been in decline in recent years.

The park was once a wintering site for Romany Gypsies and in 1991 Chaplin’s daughter Victoria revealed a secret letter sent to her father that suggested he was born there in 1889, not in London as Chaplin claimed.

Chaplin’s parents were travelling entertainers and often visited the Midlands. Where he was born is disputed because no birth certificate was ever registered.

The claims were given more credence in 2015 when Chaplin’s son, Michael, unveiled a memorial to the gypsy community in the park and suggested his grandmother would have chosen to give birth there rather than in a workhouse where her baby could have been taken away from her.

Councillor Steve Eling

Steve Eling, leader of Sandwell Council, welcoming the change in planning status, said it was needed to bring forward improvements the local community had lobbied for.

He said: “There are some real opportunities to turn round the fortunes of Black Patch and to regenerate the park and to deal with the dereliction issues of the area and to give the area a new lease of life.”