And so another chapter begins in the endless cycle of corruption in allowing housing to be built on contaminated land and what little green space is left in this rotten borough. The name has changed, from The Black Country Core Strategy to “THE SANDWELL PLAN” thanks to Dudley Council’s treachery costing the other local borough thousands. 

The essential essence has not changed. Pack as many houses as you can into Labour voting areas which are poorer so that the affluent scum in the “green belt” can live in splendid isolation and keep voting for Mr Street and co. The greed and incompetence of the Labour administrations mean that they require a constant stream of gentrified tax payers to prop up the lazy benefit scrounging scum that keep voting them in. It is therefore a win win for all of them, and a no win for anyone who lives in Sandwell. It is a manifesto for developer land banking  and the destruction of wildlife habitats and green open space. For wildlife, it is the end. 😥

Before I start on this, it is vital that even idiots understand that this “plan” involving the principal land interests of this website is nothing new, but a rehash of something that has been going on for over 60 years when the rattlechain brickworks conman called Sydney Sheldon started to flog off land surrounding the Albright and Wilson owned chemical waste lagoon (rattlechain lagoon) for anything other than brickmaking.

Sheldon was a crooked conman, fake “brickworks” owner and part time “builder” who owned land interests in this area, around Union Road and lately so I have discovered further afield in Romsley. It appears that the opportunity for buying land and former marl holes for tipping purposes was something that similar scum like the Richardson Brothers made a fortune out of from the 1960’s onwards, and then there were later smaller tatter fry who we will get to in this post. Of course it is the politicians who always fete such characters.

Their plan has always been to shit on this area, live comfortable lives abroad and somehow believe they are entitled to do whatever they like through the increasingly bent planning process- fixed for them by corrupt political scum, both “professional” and amateur.

Every ten years some local authority document comes out regards land for future housing and planning use, but in recent times, these plans have greedily extended this time beyond this period, thus giving lying sheisters like those involved in the land ownership around the lagoon to claim that they can deliver said housing within this time period, (right at the end of the plan), and of course this never transpires and so they carry it over into the next hoping everyone has forgotten what went before. Well sorry to disappoint fellas, but I am your fucking nemesis and will spend whatever it takes and give as much of my time as I have to unravel you, it has become a personal quest from which I will not falter, and I will not fail.

So it was in 2011 that the then  “Sandwell Site Allocations and Delivery Development Plan Document” was part of set of planning documents intended to update the previous 2004 SMBC Unitary Development Plan.  According to Sandwell Council at that time, The “(SADDPD) will guide development within the Borough until 2021. It will do this by providing allocations and local policies. “

This saw RPS planning claim that the phantom and non existent “Denver Limited” , their client, registered in Jersey could deliver housing on both the former Duport’s Tip and then Rattlechain lagoon as well. FFS!

The idea that these two separate areas of land (the two tips), could be combined into one was something that the crooked Black Country Development Corporation concluded was a non starter back in 1990, with the cost of clean up then running into several millions. It has obviously now only inflated beyond any sustainable use.

That planning enquiry in 2012 revealed the consultants to be liars, (that this could be delivered within a time period of 8-9 years), and of course we are now some time out from that period where their joke “technical consultants”, who just happened to be the same that Mintworth used throughout the 1990’s when tipping and despoiling the land with black foundry sand. They misled the enquiry and they misled the planning inspector, it is that simple, so fuck off if you want to try and argue otherwise, you have no leg to stand on and you know it. The land remains as it did then- abandoned and “derelict” but now re-wilded “private open space”. 

When during a break in the proceedings at the 2012 inquiry they walked out, the guy from the Environment Agency present actually said “what a load of bollocks” in terms of the claims of Sladen Ass- ociates.

Evidence

The “misery” that Mintworth subjected local residents to in the 1990’s can be read HERE.

The tatting operation for metal after their abandonment of the land can be read HERE.

The former sewage works site, the profitable “quick” win for both Mintworth and Severn Trent Water was described as “a crap site for residential” by the principal former planning officer at Sandwell council, and yet this statement which I only found out later through planning records never made it to the inspectors attention at that enquiry, let alone the one where permission for homes was granted that would become Callaghan and Wilson Drives on the former sewage works. OH IT MOST CERTAINLY WILL AT THE NEXT ONE. 

The apparent subsequent sale of this land post the phantom “Denver” is a little murky, but not as murky as the planning history of this site. We now have a “Rattlechain Redevelopments Limited” based in Malvern claiming ownership of this site, with those environmental terrorists Severn Trent Water having a dodgy charge on the land to bank-role this shite into the 2020’s. Severn Trent largely operate through the bogus “Midlands Land Portfolio” banner, offloading land formerly in public ownership for more housing. Both of course will rely on the public purse to clear up the Mintworth  pile of mess they left behind , and why should WE have to pay for that, when STW have millions in the bank, and land bank said land hoping that they will never have to clean it up themselves?

I will look in more depth at this entity in a future post and what they have so far done on this site. It was all documented, it was all recorded, I’ve just been saving it for the right time. 😛

So it is the case that we now have this bollocks regurgitated again, only this time, they now appear to claim that 518 houses could be created on the two tips! Perhaps they believe that they can accommodate the extra capacity by floating a Bibby Stockholm barge on the lagoon itself, that after all would make it affordable though none the less absolute bollocks!

 

In terms of the adjacent landowners- Rhodia Solvay, in 2011 they made a belated statement only after I had drawn them out to conclude that their technical consultants did not believe the lagoon infill for housing to be technically feasible. It should be remembered that this site has not even been remediated fully either- and that the “remediation” that was carried out involved only hiding the waste and not treating it.

We then have them also attempt to build housing proposals on land embankments bordering the River Tame. They are not in this world these people! Do they want to infill the River as well and create a foundry sandwell?

 

Of Course, these have been objected to already by myself and The Friends of Sheepwash Nature Reserve, but it is important that as many people as possible know the score here and do the same. The area is built on unstable foundry sand, dumped by a known company and known individuals in charge of that company. The polluter has never paid and the taxpayer should not pay to decant foundry sand from one pile into a void to then leave it there for another 50 years, which is the obvious aim of the dickheads proposing this shite. The planners may be thick, but I am not.

“Regeneration Areas in Sandwell”

At 3.34 within the Sandwell plan, we get this…..

“3.34 The funding is intended to be the catalyst for wider investment opportunities within this regeneration corridor. Further employment development should be directed towards Coneygre and Vaughan Trading Estate. Whilst these sites were identified for residential development in the last Local Plan, this has not occurred. Both sites have instead delivered further employment development, indicating a need for further investment in this sector. Residential development is anticipated at Rattlechain, south of Sheepwash Nature Reserve. This would see the remediation of a long-standing problematic and heavily contaminated site, with it brought back into more efficient use and being able to assist in meeting the shortfall in housing numbers. The vision for the Dudley Port area is directed by a Garden City approach and principles, working with the area’s existing attributes, namely the green space, canals and linkages.”

How do an extra 518 plus 36 houses create a “garden city” approach? The concept is one created by thick twats in planning to assist developers with no links to Sandwell at all in the case of Rattlechain Redevelopments Limited, whose directors are in fact Irish Nationals and not even British FFS! 

The area is already swamped with housing, cannot possibly sustain this extra capacity and will destroy the only remaining green wild space up to the border of the Sheepwash Nature Reserve, In that case, it will no longer be a nature reserve, but a dog walking anti social behaviour magnet shithole.

As for the former Mintworth owned and abandoned and not remediated Coneygre site, it was RPS planning in tandem with Sladen Ass-ociates via not skintworth who proposed housing could be met on that site as well! Once again the public purse was drained with these jokers taking the residential proposals to a planning inquiry when SMBC refused permission. They even played for extra time and of course failed to ever do anything with the site, before selling it to “Coneygree Redevelopments Limited”- whose directors are the same as at Rattlechain Redevelopments Limited, and part of the wider “Corbally” group. They have been given a wedge by Andy Street’s mob at the combined authority – (our money) to now pursue business development. Name the site “CON- A -TREE” and it would be more apt.

That site within the last few weeks has started the destruction of trees in the area- so much for Mintworth’s legacy- as usual the abandonment cost is left to the public purse.

 

GOWER TIP

Not content with flooding Lower Tividale with extra housing, some bright spark has also proposed more housing on the border of this Albright and Wilson/Rhoda contaminated land site that was never officially remediated.

The last disgracefully passed planning proposals at this site that I reported have yet to materialise.

A recent trip has shown that more trees have been cut down around the fake perimeter of the site, with a borehole located just feet away from housing in George Wood Avenue.

I’m not sure how a fence and a wall stop pollution, though maybe the residents in the road named after the Oldbury brickmaker Wood will be able to play toxic volleyball with their new “neighbours” in Lower City Road over it. 😛

Object, I have already to this crap. 

Commenting and objecting.

As usual, SMBC make it difficult and off-putting for members of the public to comment on this rambling document officially known as, click on the link below

“Draft Regulation 18 Sandwell Local Plan”

There is a short timescale in which to make comments.

Ends on 18 December 2023

The best way is to create and register an account and comment using the speech bubble opportunities at the beginning of the paragraphs. In this way you should get an email back with the comments that you make, though it would be wise as I have to take screenshots of comments as you go for your own records.

The planners and the developers work side by side and are hoping that this will be the usual closed shop exercise of ticking off another stage. Please do not leave it to a few like myself to defend the little wildlife habitat that we have left. Housing is only the priority for avarice developers who are not from our area. The area has a history of cuckooing from outside agents , their legacy is one of pure greed and abandoned land banking. It’s time the polluter paid; lay your garden city eggs somewhere else!