A new Guest Blog from Sandwell Community Activist, Darryl Magher.
Friar Park Urban Village: Sandwell Labour’s Bold Plan to Build a Housing Estate Inside a Pollution Hotspot and Hope Nobody Notices
Because who needs clean air, functioning roads or a flood plan when glossy artist impressions exist?
Welcome back to Sandwell — the borough where “regeneration” seems to mean build something big anywhere you can get away with it, and assume residents will adjust eventually.
And now, the latest addition to the Sandwell Labour Collection of Dubious Masterplans:
Friar Park Urban Village
630 homes;
27 hectares of contaminated land;
No new schools;
No cross-boundary infrastructure planning.
And all neatly tucked beside the M6 at one of the region’s worst pollution hotspots. It’s a bold strategy. Let’s see how it plays out.
Air Quality: It’s Only Nitrogen Dioxide – Not As Though Lungs Are Important
The A4031/M6 Junction 9 corridor is, scientifically speaking, a vast cloud of airborne misery shaped like Wednesbury.
Sandwell’s own data record:
Legal NO₂ limits exceedances;
PM2.5 levels linked to serious illness;
High respiratory and cardiac disease rates.
But the council’s masterplan bravely tackles this with two highly sophisticated interventions:
- A handful of trees (species and maturity unknown, but presumably capable of absorbing pollutants through sheer optimism)
- EV charging points (ideal for all those imaginary Teslas hurtling down the A4031).
So much for the great conservation pioneers. Octavia Hill whispers warnings about the need for quiet and space, Rachel Carson spins in her grave, and Sir John Lawton calls for connected natural corridors.
Sandwell’s response: “We’ll plant two bushes and call it ecological enhancement.”
Traffic: The A4031’s New Career As A Permanent Car Park
The A4031 was already struggling long before Friar Park appeared on the horizon thanks to:
A Lidl supermarket with its own new junction;
Lidl’s regional distribution centre, firing out HGVs day and night;
Tame Bridge Parkway, a railway station so oversubscribed it should be classed as a tourist attraction;
Perpetual motorway works;
More housing than the road could absorb back when buses were still popular.
Now add Friar Park Urban Village [sic], serving-up an extra 400+ peak-hour trips. The council insists the impact is “modest”. Modest — in the same sense that a landslide is “a bit of soil movement.”
Contaminated Land: The EA Says ‘Steady On,’ Sandwell Labour Says ‘Hurry Up’
Friar Park used to be a sewage treatment works. A charming history, complete with:
industrial residues;
contaminated soils;
groundwater pathways.
and a rich cocktail of nasty chemical surprises.
The Environment Agency – whose job it is to prevent toxic disasters – is cautiously reviewing the permits. But Sandwell Labour and regional allies, however, appear increasingly irritated that the EA insists on doing its job rather than rushing to meet a political timeline.
Rachel Carson warned about this sort of arrogance decades ago. But the council seems confident that contaminated land will behave itself. After all, it has a deadline.
Flooding: Zone 1, But Only If You Ignore Everything Else
The strategic flood risk assessment says Zone 1, which apparently concludes the matter in Sandwell.
Never mind:
climate-driven surface flooding;
the River Tame’s impressive ability to distribute water wherever it pleases;
hard surfacing increasing runoff;
uncertainties around ground contamination and drainage;
missing catchment modelling.
If water does start pouring into the wrong place, the council will blame unprecedented rainfall, climate change, or possibly an administrative oversight. But certainly not the decision to build a housing estate on disturbed land in a sensitive catchment.
Green Corridors: Nature Will Work It Out, Apparently
A development of this scale could have formed the backbone of a proper cross-boundary green corridor.
Instead, the design approach appears to be small pockets of green, tokenistic planting, and no semi-mature woodland buffering.
Sandwell Labour has a touching belief that wildlife will simply improvise its migration routes across the motorway, railway and A4031. Yes, in Sandwell, even animals are expected to practice resilience.
Housing Mix: An Olympic-Level Missed Opportunity
Residents across the borough need:
accessible homes,
downsizing options,
bungalows,
and housing that meets demographic reality.
Sandwell’s solution: None of the above. The housing mix at Friar Park offers absolutely nothing for older residents looking to downsize, thereby freeing up family-sized homes elsewhere. It’s almost as if the council prefers keeping waiting lists high enough to justify future press releases.
[Skidder Note: Sandwell Labour styles itself as a "Borough of Sanctuary" for irregular immigrants. These folk also need somewhere to live.]
Schools: The Fantasy of Infinite Capacity
Secondary school capacity in the Wednesbury is full. The new SEND school is already full. Out-of-borough SEND placements are rising dramatically.
Under the disastrous Labour "Building Schools for the Future" PFI project, Friar Park was supposed to be the site of a new state-of-the-art school.Today, it’s a housing estate next to a motorway
Sandwell Labour's plan is: “We’ll deal with education after the congestion, after the pollution, after the flooding, after the infrastructure strain… or perhaps never.”
Cross-Boundary Planning: A Concept That Apparently Never Reached Sandwell
Despite the obvious interconnectedness of the A4031/M6 corridor, there is no Sandwell & Walsall -
joint transport assessment;
joint air quality modelling;
joint SEND or education plan;
joint ecological planning;
joint flood or catchment model.
But they do share something: a remarkable talent for blaming one another every time the A4031 gridlocks — which is every day ending in “y.”
Conclusion: Sandwell’s Development Motto Might As Well Be ‘It’ll Probably Be Fine’
Let’s recap the Friar Park proposition:
Build a major housing estate on contaminated land, next to a motorway, on a congested corridor, with no new school.
Add: no SEND relief, no strategic traffic plan, no real green infrastructure, no ecological corridor, and no cross-boundary coordination
And hope nobody reads the documentation too closely! Labour calls this “regeneration.” Residents call it something else.
The Skidder Blog has previously flagged problems with this Friar Park scheme, Junction 9 and the A4301 Corridor - notably during the debacle over the idiotic saga of the proposed Network Rail sleeper at Bescot (heavily backed by Sandwell Labour). The blog once sarcastically described J9 as "an oasis of calm"! And once again, the "behind closed doors" nature of Labour's decision-making was highlighted.
The Skidder encouraged residents to join protest groups because this was not a localised nuisance but another threat to the strategic corridor stretching from West Bromwich to Walsall. This is precisely the same corridor hit today by: Friar Park Urban Village, the Lidl supermarket, The Lidl RDC, the station overspill and the regular motorway works.
Friar Park has a history of being a “staging ground” for unwanted infrastructure — making it even more important that the Urban Village [sic] project is scrutinised properly.
Through an FOI in 2014, the Skidder revealed that Sandwell Council had quietly paid £94,303.59 to consultants ERS and Mott MacDonald for site investigations, ground condition surveys; remediation strategy formulation, and a transport assessment - split between Friar Park (Wednesbury) and Popes Lane (Oldbury).
This shows Friar Park has been earmarked for redevelopment for well over a decade, long before today’s cynical “brownfield-first” narratives. It raises the obvious question: what did those reports reveal — and why are residents only seeing fragments now - more than a decade later?
A4031 congestion and Friar Park consultation failures
Across Facebook and blog cross-posts, the Skidder platform has repeatedly shared and amplified residents’ concerns about congestion on the A4031, inadequate consultation around Friar Park Urban Village, poor engagement from officers, the lack of transparent modelling for Holyhead Road, J9, and Wednesbury gateways and nonexistent democratic participation in major development projects.
Friar Park ward politics are a microcosm of Sandwell Labour’s internal manoeuvring - a place where controversial schemes are waved through with minimal scrutiny. The area is the subject of decisions by Labour that benefit outside interests at residents’ expense.
This historical pattern supports the argument that residents’ concerns about the Urban Village are part of a long-term democratic deficit, not a sudden objection to new homes. The current pressure on regulatory bodies is also inexcusable and yet all we hear from local Labour MP, Sarah Coombes, is about car number plates!
Thank you, Darryl.
The Skidder adds: it should be remembered that this scheme was heavily backed by the Tories too despite the problems Darryl has highlighted. The disastrous former Tory Mayor of the West Midlands, braggart-extraordinaire Andy Street, was all for it as were the clutch of equally hapless Tory Councillors in Sandwell. Indeed, waste of space former Councillor Scott Chapman - aka "The Invisible Man" - regularly spouted Street's bullsh*t and personally claimed to wholeheartedly support the "Village!
And finally,
The forthcoming Council election on 7th May, 2026 covers all 72 Council seats. This is THE great opportunity to destroy the Labour dictatorship which has run Sandwell into the ground over 52 YEARS.
Sandwell - make sure you vote! If you haven't registered to vote here is the link to the Council website. Do it now!
https://www.sandwell.gov.uk/elections-voting/register-vote
And why not make it easier on yourself by getting a postal vote. Again, here is the link for you do apply:
https://www.sandwell.gov.uk/postalvote
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