Plans to build 100 flats and homes as part of huge regeneration plans for former factory sites around a Midlands hospital have been approved. Sandwell Council plans to build 74 new flats and 26 homes on the abandoned former GKN Factory in Cranford Street, Smethwick, next to the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital.
The new housing is the latest part of huge multi-million-pound regeneration plans around the Smethwick hospital. Sandwell Council’s planning committee approved the council’s own application at a meeting on June 10.
Background of the Development
The huge £750m Midland Metropolitan University Hospital on the border of the Black Country and Birmingham opened in 2024 after years of delays and nine years after work began. Up to 800 houses and flats are expected to be built around the hospital as part of the council’s regeneration plans.
The borough was awarded £18m by the government in levelling up funding in 2024 which, after a range of delays and talks, can now be spent by March 2028 – two years after the original deadline. Sandwell Council will also be contributing £2m towards the work.
Compulsory Purchase and Site History
Sandwell Council agreed to use compulsory purchase powers to buy the empty and abandoned GKN factory in Cranford Street to make way for new housing as well as other surrounding factories and crumbling units. The abandoned factory, which has been empty since the 1980s, was home to a go-kart track for a month in 2005 before burning down. It has since been used for parking and as a site office by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.
Another site in Abberley Street, which is owned by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), is to be used for around 200 new homes. Permission was eventually given in 2023 for 392 flats in a seven-to-fourteen-storey building but work has yet to start.
