Friar Park: No Records. No Answers. No Accountability. And 600 Homes Anyway.

Friar Park: No Records. No Answers. No Accountability. And 600 Homes Anyway.

Let’s strip this right back.

Sandwell Council is pushing forward a development of 600+ homes on a former sewage works, next to the M6 motorway, inside a borough-wide Air Quality Management Area, with known risks around:

• contamination
• flooding
• air quality
• infrastructure
• school capacity

Fine. Development happens.

But here’s the problem.

👉 There is no recorded evidence showing how these risks were actually assessed internally.

None.

📂 I asked for the evidence. Here’s what came back:

Through multiple Freedom of Information requests, I asked a very simple thing:

Show me the internal thinking.

Emails. Risk logs. Officer discussions. Draft reports. Concerns raised. Decisions justified.

What did Sandwell Council say?

👉 “NIL”
👉 “No records held”
👉 “Nothing recorded”

Let that sink in.

A multi-million pound development on contaminated land…

…and apparently:

• no internal risk discussions
• no documented concerns
• no debate
• no justification for decisions

Either:

1. The records exist and aren’t being disclosed
or
2. The decisions were made without being properly recorded

Pick your poison — neither is acceptable.

🧱 Build first. Explain later.

The pattern is now obvious.

Instead of resolving risks upfront, the approach is:

👉 “Grant permission — deal with it later through conditions.”

But here’s the catch:

There is no recorded explanation for why that approach was considered acceptable.

No paper trail. No rationale. No accountability.

Just trust us.

🌫 Air quality? Apparently not discussed.

This site sits next to one of the busiest motorway corridors in the country.

Sandwell is already an Air Quality Management Area.

So naturally, you’d expect:

• internal discussions
• health impact considerations
• cumulative exposure analysis

Nope.

👉 FOI response: nothing held

Nothing.

☣️ Contamination and flood risk? Also “nothing”.

We’re talking about a former sewage works in a flood catchment.

So where are the internal discussions about:

• contaminant movement
• groundwater risk
• flood mobilisation
• long-term monitoring

Again:

👉 “NIL”

🚗 Transport, schools, SEND?

Same story.

Residents can already see:

• A4031 congestion
• Tame Bridge station overflowing
• school places stretched
• SEND provision already under pressure

So where is the modelling?

Where is the joined-up thinking?

Where is the cumulative impact assessment?

👉 Nowhere.

🧾 Consultation: box ticked, move on

Let’s talk about consultation.

Residents were consulted. Scrutiny raised concerns. Cabinet discussed it.

But here’s the key question:

👉 What actually changed as a result?

There is:

• no documented feedback loop
• no recorded influence
• no evidence decisions were altered

That’s not consultation.

That’s going through the motions.

🧵 Engagement: delay, deflect, disappear

When residents tried to engage directly?

• 6-week silence from officers
• no answers to detailed questions
• last-minute meeting offers
• then… silence again

Meanwhile, MPs?

• one response repeating the council line
• others not responding at all

👉 Everyone points somewhere else
👉 No one owns the answer

🏛 And the regulators?

Environment Agency?

👉 Refused to provide information — “manifestly unreasonable”

WMCA?

👉 Refused disclosure — no meaningful breakdown

Sandwell?

👉 “Nothing recorded”

🔁 Spot the pattern yet?

This is how it works:

1. Fragment the system
2. Limit what’s recorded
3. Delay what’s disclosed
4. Push everything into “conditions”
5. Keep moving forward

⚠️ And here’s the real risk

This isn’t just about Friar Park.

This is about a system where:

• decisions are made
• risks are known
• but no one formally records, owns or explains them

🧠 Final thought

If this development is safe, sustainable, and properly planned…

👉 Where is the evidence?

Because right now, the official position appears to be:

“Trust us — we’ve thought about it… we just didn’t write it down.”

🔥 Final line

A major housing scheme. On contaminated land. In an AQMA. With no recorded internal risk analysis, no cumulative assessment, and no meaningful engagement.

That’s not planning.

👉 That’s systemic failure.

#Sandwell #FriarPark #PlanningScandal #LocalGovernment #Accountability #FOI #Transparency #HousingCrisis #EnvironmentalRisk #AirQuality #GovernanceFailure #Wednesbury #BlackCountry