The chances are if you do not live within the West Midlands County you would never have heard of the Metropolitan borough of “Sandwell”. The neologism was coined in 1974 by joining smaller borough towns with more famous names together into one central area, located somewhere to the North of Birmingham.
I recently chanced on a copy of what can best be described as the PR spin piece put out at this time by the newly formed council as a would be prospectus for trying to attract outside interest in what was a fairly run down industrial wasteland, even back then. Unfortunately industrial “heritage” is often somehow mixed with the political classes pomp for civic pride, and so a forward in typical pompous prose describes the coat of arms. Somehow the new borough with its made up name strived to have “Unity and Progress”.
Can ya tell where it is yet?
This 162 page dinosaur of a read mainly consists of adverts of some of the “local” business enterprises at the time. Who knows how much they had paid to be included in the piece, which appears devoid of any human character whatsoever. It isn’t until page 21 that you get to “the official guide”.
“With an estimated population of 324,000 and a total area of 21,150 acres, the borough is urban in character and highly industrialised and includes the districts of Oldbury, Rowley Regis, Smethwick, Tipton, Wednesbury and West Bromwich.”
The argument put forward is of Sandwell being at “the centre” of things or even preposterously “at the heart of Britain”, and somehow being the cog that drives all of the other wheels. If the new borough was so significant in this claimed chain, then why the need to invent a new name that no-one would recognise? Industrial cogs and gears may well turn wheels, but who the hell would want to live in such a greasy grimy place? It’s not clear if they are talking to potential residents when stating “you could make your future here”.
Indeed, with the proven industrial polluters contributing to this propaganda manual who appear to get “centre” stage, who on earth would want to live in such a place? On page 18 we have another cog image of the dirtiest players in the game, based in what would become Sandwell’s capital- Oldbury.
Just down the road, another cowboy operation who liked to dump large quantities of waste into used pits.
And so to the biggest grime hole in Tipton with the Triplex foundry. For years this metal bashing mongrel covered peoples’ homes with all types of air borne shite right under the noses of Sandwell’s environmental health until they finally packed up and went in the last decade. Unfortunately like most of these companies who were central to Sandwell back then, their place has been taken by row upon row of new houses, to the point now where there is almost no green left and no industry left there either.
It is quite bizarre to read about new schemes of creation boast in 1974 which in very recent times in 2016 have themselves been replaced with other new schemes of which the local politicians like to brag.
West Bromwich town centre 1974 for example
“In high Street West Bromwich, the Sandwell centre provides approximately 120,000 sq. ft. of shopping, all services from the rear, (wtf?) a central bus station, a multi-storey car park for 840 cars, public conveniences and a new public house……”
Today we have seen the demolition of almost everything boasted about in this guide, as the local council in its 40 year rule played lego land , adding buildings designed by cloudy colourful characters without any grounded black and white business acumen that cost the taxpayer millions, only then later to be sold off conspicuously under the guise of “learning.” Gone are the Kings cinema, the Gala baths, the old bus station, and even the multi-storey car park now destined to be turned into some on/off bizarre ice skating rink. How long will the belated replacements last before undergoing yet more regeneration schemes?
It’s also best not to mention the sale of public conveniences in the borough- there’s something very smelly about that indeed!
In the changing face of this borough with the silent “n”, the scepticism was there from the start. Take for example what residents in Oldbury made of the new borough at its Alpha.
Unfortunately the rubbish is something that has not gone away. Industrial estate scrap yard fires blaze in the night sky replacing the blowing of glass and the forging of chains. The area is disappearing under new housing, as the schools they were built on and the ones remaining are unable to cope with overpopulated numbers. But this is the very curious thing. Sandwell’s population is now estimated at 316, 700 in 2014 according to a recent FOI request. It seems hard to believe that the number of people estimated living in the borough in 1974 has actually fallen over 40 years later, yet we are supposed to believe that the demand for new housing is what is promoting them being built. Clearly there is something very wrong about this claim from these statistics. But what exactly is going on here? Who is benefitting from new houses being built?
One can only suppose that those who can do move away from the rotten borough, not because it has anything to offer (except to housing developers), but because it increasingly has little to keep them there.
The political classes failure to inspire stems from its failed leadership. One only has to join the dots to see that one political party has been in control for so long, since the conception, and has utterly failed to make Sandwell a better place to live for its existing residents and fails to attract anyone to better it because of its soiled preceding reputation. There is only one word that describes the 40 years of durge that has followed. Perhaps the sheep truly graze on the crud they deserve when putting a cross in the same place.
