Friar Park: Since the Last Blog, Things Got… Clearer (Just Not Better)

Friar Park: Since the Last Blog, Things Got… Clearer (Just Not Better)

If you thought silence was the problem last time, you’ll be pleased to know we now have responses.

Unfortunately, clarity hasn’t followed.

Since our previous blog — which set out concerns about Friar Park Urban Village, education capacity, infrastructure, air quality and governance — several things have happened. None of them reassuring.

1. The MP Has Finally Responded

And somehow said very little.

After months of chasing, the local MP has now replied. The response can be summarised as:

• happy to correspond, but unsure who the Wednesbury Action Group are
• keen to emphasise housing need
• repeatedly defers responsibility to the planning authority
• relies on secondary school capacity data we’ve already shown to be incomplete
• acknowledges a SEND crisis, but treats it as a future national issue rather than a local planning reality

There is an odd irony here.

The same Action Group she asks about successfully opposed a major industrial proposal on this exact site in the past — a fact well known locally, and to people currently working in her own office.

More troubling is the tone: serious, evidence-based concerns are repeatedly parked as “planning matters”, as though MPs have no role in questioning assumptions, challenging flawed data, or representing communities when the system itself is creaking.

Apparently, housing is the priority. Everything else can follow later.

We’ve heard that before.

2. School Places: The Numbers Still Don’t Stack Up

And nobody is correcting them.

The MP continues to rely on borough-wide capacity figures and selective snapshots from individual schools.

What remains unaddressed:

• Wednesbury-area Year 7 surpluses sit at or below what the DfE considers “functionally full”
• Friar Park was previously identified for a new secondary school under Building Schools for the Future
• That opportunity was lost — and never replaced
• New housing means longer school journeys, more car use, and more pressure on already stretched schools
• There are no school buses
• SEND provision locally is already full, with expensive out-of-borough placements rising

It is difficult to reconcile repeated public statements about joined-up planning with a refusal to look at education need locally and cumulatively.

3. FOIs: Overdue, Refused, or Still “Being Chased”

Two Freedom of Information requests — one to Sandwell Council and one to the Environment Agency — were submitted in November.

What’s happened since?

• Sandwell Council: no substantive response, despite repeated chasers and the statutory deadline passing long ago.
• Environment Agency: refused the request as “manifestly unreasonable”, despite confirming the information exists. An internal review is now underway.

Transparency is often praised in speeches. It is noticeably harder to find in practice.

If this is all routine and robust, disclosure should be straightforward.

4. Planning by Accumulation (Also Known as “Creeping Development”)

While everyone insists that Friar Park should be looked at “when the planning application comes forward”, something else is happening in parallel.

Multiple planning applications in the same corridor — some approved, some awaiting decision — are steadily adding housing, traffic and pressure without any meaningful cumulative assessment.

No single report looks at:

• combined traffic on the A4031
• impact on Tame Bridge Station, already struggling with parking overflow
• cumulative school and SEND demand
• combined air quality exposure along the motorway corridor
• flood risk across the River Tame catchment

Each application is treated as modest. Together, they are not.

5. Even the Press Is Starting to Ask Questions

Recent local press coverage has begun echoing concerns residents have raised for years: infrastructure lagging behind development, environmental constraints being treated as inconveniences, and communities left to deal with the consequences later.

It’s not opposition to regeneration that’s growing.

It’s scepticism.

Where We Are Now

To be clear: this blog is not about stopping development.

It’s about asking why:

• evidence is selectively used
• inconvenient data is waved away
• transparency is delayed or refused
• education and SEND are treated as afterthoughts
• environmental safeguards are something to be “worked out later”

We’ve lodged FOIs.
We’ve written to MPs.
We’ve shared evidence.
We’ve waited.

For now, we’re parking the detailed foundation document and awaiting responses.

But parking an issue doesn’t make it go away.

It just means the clock is still ticking.

Editor’s note

This blog follows our earlier post regarding unanswered correspondence with the local MP on Friar Park Urban Village. That post remains available for context, as do the documents and public records referenced throughout this series.

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