It has recently been announced that this useless document which sets out proposals for building yet more houses over the next several years to 2039 attracted thousands of comments- most I would imagine in objection. It was also revealed that most of these came from within the borough of Dudley itself!
This is perhaps not a surprise when this council itself was responsible for the publication and processing of said useless plan. It is clear to me that the fact that they put out a flyer to every household in their borough, whereas at least with Sandwell, this council did not, that the councillors in Dudley were intent on ensuring maximum vocal opposition to proposals so that they could then turn round at a later date to remove “controversial” proposals from within their own back yard. It is playing to the gallery, and there were no shortage of moments throughout the process where Dudley councillors were whipping up public opinion to make this happen.
Indeed, the latest stop press headline sees this council removing two such sites from the plan, before this even happens. I would imagine that this was the plan all along, conveniently timed just two months before local elections, where they can claim to have “listened to the people” etc. 😡
The plan is therefore to not build houses in Dudley, and fuck the rest of the Black Country and West Midlands; they can have them there.
I have looked before at the statistics regards land areas in the four black country boroughs and populations from the last census in 2011, and I doubt that these will have changed much when the 2021 census becomes available in terms of the dire population density compared with other areas in the West Midlands and the country.
Source: office of national statistics
Source: office of national statistics
2011 census figures
Sandwell has the highest density of population living in any of the Black country boroughs and the highest density per hectare. This is demonstrated by the 2011 census figures – Sandwell has 36 people per hectare compared with the West Midlands and National figure of just 4. Nature conservation it seems is also shrinking as more so called “brownfield land” , that has re-wilded is usurped for this purpose.
The Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust did an excellent response to this nonsense, and I will be looking more at this, including their objections to land around rattlechain in another post.
Draft Black County Plan Full Consultation Response – WTBBC_6 (1)
Sandwell council appears intent on destroying green space and building houses, such as the bent deal at Friar park with the former Severn Stench land. They want more council tax as they hike up the bill by 4.99% per household, and the crumbs from Government, (sorry our tax payers money) , only becomes music to their ears when getting hand outs from Tonka’s combined authority for so called “clean up”.
I have taken one aspect of Street’s hand outs to The Information commissioner regards land at Shidas Lane, where a proxy appears to have facilitated money being given by grant for land owned by a Jersey Registered company which was formerly the Accles and Pollock waste lagoon. This is deeply suspicious and goes against Mayor Street’s own claims about not approving of tax avoidance schemes. We shall see if his office are forced to reveal how much was paid out, but be in no doubt, I will take this all the way to reveal what has gone on here, and also ask questions as to why Walsall council appear to have a stake in the land in Sandwell.
Come the summer when the next stage of this “plan” comes out, it is your duty if you do not live in Dudley to ensure that your voice is heard. Bone idleness and leave it to someone else is not an option here in Sandwell. The councillors are not on your side, they are on their own side and will not speak out for you. Prove me wrong, but we shall see…..