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Council to use compulsory purchase powers for plans to regenerate 'eyesore' sites with new homes in Smethwick

A council will use compulsory purchase powers as part of plans to regenerate several eyesore sites around a new hospital.

By Christian Barnett
Published

Sandwell Council will use a compulsory purchase order (CPO) to buy eight-and-a-half acres of land around the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in Smethwick to make way for new housing.

A number of crumbling units and former factories would be demolished as part of the work before being handed over to developers.

Cranford Street in Smethwick. Sandwell Council is planning to buy the land and demolish the old industrial units to make way for new homes. Pic: Google Maps. Permission for reuse for all LDRS partners.
Cranford Street in Smethwick. Sandwell Council is planning to buy the land and demolish the old industrial units to make way for new homes. Pic: Google Maps. Permission for reuse for all LDRS partners.

The sites include old units and a bus depot in Grove Street and a former factory in nearby Cranford Street.

The site in Grove Street would favour between 70 and 85 flats – rather than homes – according to the council’s 2022 Grove Lane ‘masterplan, with a five-storey block facing the new hospital and homes facing Halberton Street.

The ‘masterplan’ also includes a new school on the same site.

Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in Smethwick will finally open to the public this weekend - six years after it was originally due to open. Photo: LDRS. Permission for reuse for all LDRS partners.
Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in Smethwick will finally open to the public this weekend - six years after it was originally due to open. Photo: LDRS. Permission for reuse for all LDRS partners.

The borough was awarded £18m by the government in levelling up funding in 2024 which, after a range of delays and talks, can now be spent by March 2028 – two years after the original deadline. Sandwell Council will also be spending £2m towards the work.

The huge £750m Midland Metropolitan University Hospital on the border of the Black Country and Birmingham opened last October after years of delays.

The huge site will include a new teaching campus and is expected to include a new urgent treatment centre (UTC) but those plans are also delayed.

Up to 800 houses and flats are expected to be built around the hospital as part of the regeneration plans.

Sandwell Council has already agreed to use compulsory purchase powers to buy another empty factory in Cranford Street to make way for new housing.

The entrance to the Midland Metropolitan Hospital. Pic: LDRS. Permission for reuse for all LDRS partners.
The entrance to the Midland Metropolitan Hospital. Pic: LDRS. Permission for reuse for all LDRS partners.

Early plans said the site would be used for up to 170 homes but that has now been cut by more than a third to 100 units. This includes a ten-storey block of flats and four and five-storey blocks.

The abandoned factory in Cranford Street, which has been empty since the 1980s, was home to a go-kart track for a month in 2005 before burning down. It has since been used for parking by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.

Another site in Abberley Street, which is owned by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), is also due to be used for around 200 new homes.

The council was unsuccessful in 2022 in its first bid for £18m of levelling up funding for Grove Lane. Sandwell Council was then ‘verbally’ awarded the money in May 2024 after losing bids were re-assessed but was forced to wait until October for confirmation after July’s general election and another review of funding agreements by the new Labour government.

Ministers had initially agreed the work should be carried out by March 2026 but earlier this year agreed to extend the deadline by two years.