Communities and Local Government

• Housing
• Housing supply
• Housing growth
• Growth Points
• Growth Points by location
• West Midlands Growth Points
• Black Country/Sandwell

Housing

Black Country/Sandwell

"The Black Country is a distinctive sub-region of 1.1 million people located in the centre of the country and an integral part of a City Region centred on Birmingham. Renowned as a leader of the industrial revolution and as a heartland of metals based manufacturing, the sub-region has experienced recent economic decline and population loss but is now being re-born as a leader of West Midlands urban renaissance. Led by the Black Country Consortium (the strategic partnership for Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton) the four Black Country local authorities have joined together with business, communities and other public bodies to agree a trail-blazing sub-regional framework for sub-regional growth and competitiveness which integrates economic and spatial strategies (The Black Country Study)."

Steven Hassel, Chair of Black Country Consortium

The Black Country's growth proposals have been prepared by joint planning team drafting the Joint Core Strategy for the sub-region. Based on the emerging Preferred Option of the Joint Core Strategy (which builds on the Spatial Strategy set out in the recently approved RSS Phase One Revision), the Black Country Consortium is leading a sustainable Growth Programme focused on four Strategic Centres and up to 16 Regeneration Corridors which proposes:

• a net increase of 32,850 dwellings between 2007 and 2016 - 19 per cent more than the minimum required by existing RSS
• ninety-seven per cent of new housing to be bulwarking 'Four as One' the Black Country local authorities through our voluntary public/private strategic partnership, the Black Country Consortium, have set radical new aspirations for growth and competitiveness of our sub-region to 2033 through the Black Country Study. We are excited by the prospect of working further with government to deliver accelerated and quality housing growth and choice to bring to life our highly sustainable regeneration and growth strategy based on an integrated network of strategic centres and public built on brownfield land
• creation of new residential environments through the restructuring of former employment land in regeneration corridors served mainly by rail and metro
• maximising the environmental opportunities of the Black Country's 177km of canals and its extensive nature reserves, the legacy of earlier industrial restructuring - creating a new image of 'Black Country as Urban Park'
• co-ordination of housing growth with the provision of new quality employment land in Black Country regeneration corridors
• expansion of four strategic centres - Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Bromwich and Brierley Hill - as foci for jobs, shopping, culture and new homes
• co-ordination with the Black Country Education Challenge programme - another Black Country partnership with government to transform the sub-region

The Growth Points programme will be a major contribution to both Black Country renaissance and to the delivery of sustainable communities and urban renaissance in the West Midlands - a model of sustainable growth and regeneration.

Partnership with Government will enable the Black Country partners to accelerate the delivery of new homes and ensure provision of the quality environment and housing choice through:

• enhanced capacity to accelerate planning for change
• assistance with land assembly, relocations and remediation to create viable sustainable development areas
• infrastructure investment, in particular 'green infrastructure' to enhance the quality of the residential offer