Yahoo News Sandwell College planning extra classrooms for landmark West Bromwich site once mooted for tower block
A plan to build extra classrooms behind a new multi-million-pound college campus has been backed by the council. The ten new classrooms would be built behind the £5 million Central Saint Michael’s Sandwell Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Centre in West Bromwich High Street.
The engineering campus replaced the landmark seven-storey Shaftesbury House after it was demolished in 2018. The land was once earmarked for a nine-storey block with 66 flats, with Sandwell Council’s planners giving their blessing to the planning application six years, but the work never took off. A few years later the council approved plans to build 43 flats on the land before the multi-million-pound training centre was backed.
The extra classrooms would provide space for 250 students. More than 200 students have already used the college since opening last September. The campus received its official opening in March. The state-of-the-art centre offers advanced courses in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for students at both Central Saint Michael’s Sixth Form and Sandwell College.
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Shaftesbury House was demolished in 2018 after the council said the former offices, which had housed its education department, were ‘surplus to requirements’ and ‘unsuitable’ to be refurbished. Black Country Housing Group was given permission from Sandwell Council to build 43 flats on the former Shaftesbury House site in 2021.
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The social housing provider also bought the land that housed the crumbling former gas showroom on the corner of Lombard Street West and West Bromwich High Street, next to the town’s library. It was demolished in 2017 with parts of the building, which had been a fixture of West Bromwich High Street for more than 75 years but later described as a ‘blight’ after years of neglect, relocated to the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley.
Sandwell Council said it accepted a lower offer of £270,000 to have complete control over tenancies for all 27 homes planned for the land.
A higher offer of £427,000 for the land was rejected as it would have only offered nomination rights for six homes, the council said.
