'Wednesbury deserves answers, not planning deflections' - your letters, plus a silent snapshot of mining life near the end

• You can enjoy other pictures from the past and more with our weekly FREE Nostalgia Newsletter - with scores of archive pictures and exclusive features on the history of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire and the Black Country - all sent to your inbox every Friday. Sign up here

Important issues around planning

Recent coverage of development pressures in and around Wednesbury echoes concerns many local residents have been raising for some time.

They are particularly in relation to the proposed Friar Park Urban Village and a cluster of associated schemes in the same corridor.

What troubles residents is not the principle of regeneration.

But there is growing sense that major decisions are being advanced without proper cumulative assessment of their impacts.

These include the challenges faced by schools, SEND provision, transport, air quality, flood risk and already-stretched infrastructure such as Tame Bridge Station.

Despite repeated requests, key Freedom of Information responses from Sandwell Council remain long overdue, while the Environment Agency has declined to disclose important environmental information, now subject to internal review.

Transparency matters, especially when development sits alongside a motorway, rail infrastructure and a contaminated brownfield site.

There is also frustration that legitimate questions are repeatedly deflected as “planning matters”.

This is wrong when MPs and public bodies clearly have a role in scrutinising evidence, challenging flawed assumptions and ensuring national policy is applied locally — not selectively.

Residents are not anti-housing. What they are asking for is simple.

They want decisions based on full evidence, honest data on school and SEND capacity, proper infrastructure planning.