Sandwell Labour’s 2026 Pledge Sheet — The Party That Broke the Windows Now Wants Praise for Buying a Broom

Sandwell Labour’s 2026 Pledge Sheet — The Party That Broke the Windows Now Wants Praise for Buying a Broom

Sandwell Labour has launched its glossy 2026 pledge sheet.

Bright red background. Big yellow promises. CCTV cameras. Fly-tipping teams. Anti-social behaviour officers. More bins. Pop-up recycling centres. Crisis funds. Food banks. Roads. Parks. Play areas.

At first glance, it looks like action.

Look again.

What it really says is this:

After years in charge, Labour has finally discovered the problems residents have been shouting about for years.

Fly-tipping. Anti-social behaviour. filthy streets. Poor enforcement. neglected town centres. residents left battling systems that do not answer, do not explain, and do not learn until election season arrives with a camera, a leaflet and a slogan.

This is not a party of renewal.

This is the management team asking for applause because the building is on fire and they have found a bucket.

The Big Trick: Council Budget Dressed Up as Labour Pledge

The first red flag is the way Labour presents these promises.

The leaflet says “Sandwell Labour Pledges for 2026.”

But many of the headline items are not fresh party promises. They are already part of the council’s 2026/27 budget: 62 new CCTV cameras, 34 pop-up recycling centres, new litter bins, doubled anti-social behaviour funding, £1 million for play areas, extra roads and pavements money, and road safety investment. Sandwell Council itself published those budget priorities after the February 2026 budget decision.

So let us call this what it is.

Taxpayer-funded council decisions are being politically gift-wrapped as Labour election pledges.

Residents pay. The council budgets. Labour campaigns. Then the leaflet arrives pretending it is all a generous party offering from the people who have been running the place for years.

That is not bold leadership.

That is incumbency marketing.

Fly-Tipping: Labour Discovers Rubbish Exists

Labour now promises a new fly-tipping enforcement team, Environmental Enforcement and Rapid Response Officers, and two new vehicles.

The council says it will invest close to £1 million, create eight new posts, buy vehicles and launch a rapid response to fly-tipping incidents.

Fine. Good. Long overdue.

But why now?

Fly-tipping has not suddenly appeared in Sandwell. It has been blighting streets, alleys, entries, green spaces and neighbourhoods for years. Council papers have described fly-tipping as a significant issue, with 8,000 to 10,000 incidents reported each year, and more than 8,000 reports already recorded in the first three quarters of 2025/26.

That is not a minor nuisance.

That is a borough-wide failure of deterrence, prevention and enforcement.

The council has also said that since October 2025 enforcement action led to 20 fixed penalty notices, with several cases pending prosecution.

Twenty fixed penalty notices against thousands of fly-tipping reports is not exactly Judge Dredd in a hi-vis jacket.

Residents should ask:

Where were the enforcement teams before the election year?
Where were the prosecutions?
Where was the prevention strategy?
Where was the ward-by-ward hotspot data?
Where was the grip?

Labour now wants credit for sending a team to clear up a mess that grew under Labour’s watch.

CCTV: Cameras Are Not a Strategy

Labour says it will install over 60 new CCTV cameras, with 30 deployable.

Again, the council budget confirms 62 new CCTV cameras to help tackle fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour.

But CCTV is not magic.

A camera does not issue a fine.
A camera does not knock on a door.
A camera does not prosecute.
A camera does not comfort a resident who has spent two years reporting the same alleyway, the same nuisance neighbour, the same street-corner problems.

CCTV is useful only if it is part of a serious enforcement chain: monitored, reviewed, acted upon, linked to prosecutions and reported back to residents.

Otherwise it becomes the perfect political prop.

Big enough for a leaflet.
Small enough to avoid a proper explanation.

The question is simple: will the council publish where these cameras go, why those locations were chosen, what outcomes they produce, and how many offenders are actually caught?

If not, this is not accountability. It is theatre with a lens.

Anti-Social Behaviour: Doubling Staff After Years of Complaints

Labour says it will create a brand-new Anti-Social Behaviour Team, doubling frontline staff.

The council says its dedicated anti-social behaviour officers will increase from 17 to 39 as part of a £1 million-plus investment.

Again, good.

But again, why did it take this long?

For years residents have complained about nuisance, intimidation, noise, street drinking, drug activity, harassment, repeat offenders, neighbour disputes and people being bounced between housing, police, environmental health, community safety and councillors.

Now, in an all-out election year, Labour has discovered “frontline staff.”

Residents should not be blinded by headcount. They should demand outcomes:

How many ASB cases are opened?
How many are resolved?
How many repeat offenders are dealt with?
How many complainants are satisfied?
How many cases are closed because the council says “no further action”?
How many victims are left feeling abandoned?

A bigger team is only meaningful if it ends the culture of delay, deflection and departmental ping-pong.

Bins, Pop-Up Recycling and the Politics of the Obvious

Labour promises more than 100 new street bins with segregated recycling in high-volume areas.

The council budget also promises new litter bins and 34 pop-up recycling centres across the borough.

Again, this tells us something important.

If Sandwell now needs extra bins, pop-up recycling centres, CCTV and a fly-tipping enforcement squad, then Labour’s own leaflet is basically admitting the current system has not been working well enough.

The borough does not need a photo opportunity next to a bin.

It needs:

proper collection capacity,
clear street cleansing schedules,
real enforcement,
transparent hotspot data,
ward-level reporting,
and proper scrutiny of whether waste policy changes have increased pressure on already struggling communities.

A bin is not a strategy. A pop-up recycling centre is not a waste revolution. And a leaflet is not a clean street.

Cost of Living: Compassion in a Box, Council Tax in the Post

Labour promises a crisis fund, extra council tax support, free welfare advice, and investment in food banks and pantries.

That sounds warm. It also sounds revealing.

If the Labour-run council needs to campaign on food banks, crisis funds and extra welfare support, then it is admitting many Sandwell households are struggling badly.

At the same time, the council has increased council tax for 2026/27, while presenting the increase as modest for Band A and Band B households.

But struggling residents do not live in a press release. They live in weekly budgets.

For some families, a few pounds more is not “modest.” It is another squeeze.

So Labour’s message becomes:

We will take more from you, then campaign on helping you cope with having less.

That is not social justice. That is a political washing machine.

“Protecting Services” — Protected From Whom?

The leaflet lists what Labour claims it has been protecting: libraries, community centres, leisure centres, youth services, green spaces, meals on wheels, public health activity, dementia care, animal welfare, family hubs and more.

Fine. Let us ask the obvious question.

Protected from whom?

Labour runs Sandwell Council.

If services are at risk, residents are entitled to ask who set the budgets, who made the choices, who designed the consultations, who controlled the cabinet reports, who voted the decisions through, and who has been in power while public confidence has eroded.

“Protecting services” is a lovely phrase. But it needs evidence.

Are services protected in budget?
Protected in staff numbers?
Protected in opening hours?
Protected in access?
Protected in quality?
Protected in outcomes?
Or merely protected as a line in a leaflet?

Because in Sandwell, too often, residents see the brand, the slogan and the press release long before they see the delivery.

The Governance Shadow Labour Wants Everyone to Forget

Sandwell Council was placed under Government intervention in 2022 after serious governance concerns. The Government’s Sandwell intervention collection exists because there was a formal best value intervention into the council.

The intervention ended in March 2024, with ministers saying the council was no longer failing its Best Value Duty, but the ministerial letter still referred to the need to sustain improvement and build further resilience.

That matters.

Because Labour now wants residents to move straight from “intervention ended” to “everything is fixed.”

No.

Ending intervention is not a gold medal. It is not a civic knighthood. It means the council was judged capable of continuing improvement without commissioners breathing down its neck.

The proper question is not: “Did the commissioners leave?”

The proper question is:

Has Sandwell Labour genuinely changed the culture that allowed the intervention to happen in the first place?

Or has it simply learned to write shinier reports?

Complaints: The Public Are Still Telling Them Something Is Wrong

Sandwell’s own Customer Feedback Annual Report for 2024/25 says Stage 2 complaints increased by 75% to 378.

The council’s housing complaints material also refers to 890 housing complaints received in 2024/25.

That is not just noise. That is feedback from the real world.

Behind every complaint is a person, a household, a tenant, a resident, a family, or a councillor enquiry that did not disappear because a corporate strategy said “learning lessons.”

Residents are sick of councils that “learn lessons” with the speed of a glacier and the memory of a goldfish.

Sandwell Labour should stop asking for praise for promising improvements and start explaining why so many improvements are still needed.

The Blackheath Leaflet: Fourteen Years Is Not Just Experience — It Is Evidence

The Blackheath candidate leaflet says Kerrie Carmichael has worked hard for residents for the past 14 years and points to improvements in Britannia Park, Blackheath town centre, Sons of Rest Community Centre and the Lench’s Memorial.

That is the classic incumbent pitch: local, familiar, experienced.

But 14 years cuts both ways.

If you have been there for 14 years, you do not just inherit the record. You are part of the record.

So when the same leaflet talks about fly-tipping, lighting, CCTV, roads, cleaner streets and anti-social behaviour, residents are entitled to ask:

After 14 years, why are these still headline problems?
After 14 years, why is Labour still promising basics?
After 14 years, why does every election leaflet sound like the council has only just found the map?

Experience is only an asset if it produces results. Otherwise it becomes a very long receipt for unfinished work.

The Real Red Flags

This Labour pledge sheet exposes more than it intends.

It shows a party that wants to campaign like an insurgent while governing like an incumbent.

It wants to be thanked for fixing problems it presided over.

It wants to call council spending “Labour pledges.”

It wants to use taxpayer-funded budget choices as political campaign material.

It wants to talk about CCTV without publishing outcomes.

It wants to talk about enforcement without showing years of failure.

It wants to talk about protecting services without explaining who put them under pressure.

It wants residents to forget the governance intervention, the complaints, the consultations, the waste problems, the town-centre decline, the service frustration and the endless culture of “we are learning lessons.”

The problem is not that every pledge is bad.

Some of them are necessary.

That is exactly the point.

They are necessary because the borough has been allowed to get into a state where more enforcement, more cameras, more bins, more crisis support and more basic street-level action are now election material.

Final Word

Sandwell Labour says it is “a caring council that gets things done.”

Residents may have a different version:

A council that waits until the problems are unbearable, packages the obvious as a pledge, spends public money, prints a red leaflet, and asks for gratitude.

The people of Sandwell do not need more slogans.

They need clean streets, safe neighbourhoods, honest consultation, transparent spending, competent services, proper enforcement, open governance and councillors who remember that public office is not a family heirloom, a party entitlement or a four-year photo opportunity.

Sandwell has had years of promises.

Now residents should ask the only question that matters:

If Labour is the answer, why are so many of Sandwell’s problems still the question?

#Sandwell #SandwellCouncil #SandwellLabour #LocalElections2026 #SandwellPolitics #FlyTipping #AntiSocialBehaviour #CouncilTax #WasteManagement #CCTV #Governance #PublicServices #Accountability #Vote2026 #SandwellVotes

Sandwell 2026: stop sleepwalking the same rotten politics back into power

Sandwell 2026: stop sleepwalking the same rotten politics back into power

Sandwell has spent years complaining about its council, its politics, its complacency, its stitched-up culture and its talent for serving up the same tired mess in slightly different packaging. Yet when election time comes, far too many people either cannot be bothered to vote or march into the polling station and obediently slap their votes on the same party slate like trained seals at a seaside show.

Then, a few months later, the moaning starts again.

That is the Sandwell disease: outrage without action, anger without discipline, and “we need change” followed by voting habits that practically guarantee more of the same.

This year’s Sandwell local election is not the normal pattern. It is a one-off all-out election caused by the boundary changes, with all 72 council seats up for grabs across 24 wards on Thursday 7 May 2026. Each ward has three councillors, and voters can cast up to three votes in their ward. After this reset, Sandwell returns to its usual cycle, with the next elections in 2027, 2028 and 2030. (sandwell.gov.uk)

So no, this is not routine. And that is exactly why the usual lazy tribal habits need smashing.

Because let us be honest about how Sandwell has been kept as it is.

The first culprit is voter apathy.

Sandwell’s average turnout was 29.47% in 2021 and 26.12% in 2022. In 2022, Labour won 21 of the 24 seats contested. So while half the borough was muttering that things needed to change, most of the electorate could not even be bothered to leave the house and prove it. (sandwell.gov.uk)

Apathy is not harmless. It is not some neutral fog drifting above politics. In Sandwell, apathy has acted like free private security for the status quo. It has protected incumbents, cushioned incompetence, and allowed stale political habits to survive far longer than they should have done.

People love saying “everybody wants change.” No, not everybody. Not if they stay at home. Not if they do not register. Not if they leave the field clear for the best organised party machine. In the real world, the side that turns votes out wins, while the side that just complains online gets precisely nothing except the warm glow of feeling politically aware.

And yes, the machine matters.

Long incumbency brings advantages: recognised names, reliable ward networks, entrenched loyalties, bloc voting, familiar cliques, dependable postal voters and the sort of get-out-the-vote operation that becomes easier when you have had decades to cultivate it. There is nothing improper about postal voting itself — it is lawful and normal — but in a borough where turnout is chronically weak, the strongest machine benefits most from every banked vote. Sandwell’s own election information confirms postal voting arrangements for this election and the current three-year renewal rules. (sandwell.gov.uk)

That is why low turnout is so politically poisonous. It does not punish entrenched power as much as people imagine. Usually it protects it.

Then there is the second problem: the herd mentality of straight-ticket voting.

This year, because there are three seats in each ward and voters can cast up to three votes, there is a serious danger that people will thoughtlessly bung all three votes onto one party slate just because that is what the tribe expects. The Electoral Reform Society has long noted that bloc-vote arrangements favour disciplined parties and can let one party sweep a ward even without anything like unanimous support. (electoral-reform.org.uk)

In plain English: if you vote like a robot, do not act shocked when you get represented by robots.

Sandwell does not need another batch of party-approved seat fillers who can clap on cue, read out the official line and disappear when residents actually need something done. It needs councillors with a spine, a brain and enough independence to occasionally tell their own side to get stuffed.

That should not be a controversial ask in a borough with Sandwell’s history.

This is a council area where Labour has held majority control since 1979. It is also a council area that was serious enough in governance terms to end up under central government intervention from March 2022 until March 2024. That is not a badge of honour. It is not a minor blip. It is a giant warning siren bolted to the roof of local politics. (en.wikipedia.org)

So forgive me if I am not persuaded by arguments that Sandwell now needs less challenge, less scrutiny or another easy ride for a dominant machine. Quite the opposite. After that history, Sandwell should be desperate for stronger opposition, tougher questioning and councillors who are capable of more than loyally occupying a chair.

But there is another trap here too.

Sandwell should not swap one lazy party machine for another shiny nuisance that talks a big game and delivers very little. Not all change is improvement. Not every anti-establishment poseur is a serious local representative. Not every angry leaflet is evidence of competence.

Too much of this election already feels infected by national politics pretending to be local. Westminster slogans. Imported grievance. Party-brand theatre. National noise drowning out local need. Meanwhile the actual job of a Sandwell councillor remains stubbornly boring and important: sorting casework, understanding reports, questioning decisions, speaking for residents, knowing the ward, and being more useful than a laminated manifesto.

That is why voters need to be wary of the old boots on new ground syndrome too. Some candidates and parties are trying to pass themselves off as fresh simply because they have changed colour, changed logo or found a new script. But a recycled operator in a different rosette is still a recycled operator. Sandwell does not need cosmetic renewal. It needs people with genuine roots in their communities and enough backbone to put the borough before the badge.

And yes, there is a serious question about whether every candidate asking for office is genuinely capable of doing the job. Being a councillor is not a vanity project. It is not a title for the Facebook bio. It is not a reward for party loyalty or friendship circles. It is work. Real work. Reading papers, attending meetings, helping residents, asking questions, understanding policy, challenging nonsense, and sticking at it. Voters are entitled to ask whether the people put before them can actually carry that weight.

So here is my view.

Sandwell has had nearly half a century of Labour dominance. It has had scandal, intervention, chronic public frustration and years of resident complaints. Yet parts of the electorate still behave as if the safest thing to do is vote like nothing has happened, or not vote at all.

That is madness.

If you want change, vote like you mean it. Don't hand all three votes to the same party out of lazy tribal instinct. Stop confusing party branding with local merit. Stop rewarding people just because they have the right logo on the leaflet. Judge the candidate. Judge the record. Judge the seriousness. Judge who will actually work and who is just there to make up the numbers.

Because Sandwell does not need another landslide for a machine.

It needs scrutiny. It needs independence. It needs disruption of the old habits. It needs councillors who can think for themselves and who understand that representing residents is not the same as obeying a party line.

Most of all, it needs an electorate that stops acting surprised when it keeps recreating the same mess.

My personal selections for the Sandwell Local Elections - In alphabetical order

Bearwood
Leon Barnfield
Paul Bithell
Jane Grandey

Blackheath
Bhapinder Singh Bains
Deborah White
Dave Williams

Bristnall
Ellen Fenton
Jonathan James Fox
Louise Pearson

Charlemont & Grove Vale
Amrita Jasmine Dunn
David Dean Fisher
Rachael Michelle Mitchell

Cradley Heath & Old Hill
Satinder Dunn
Craig Morris
Julie Webb

Friar Park & Stone Cross
Simon Hackett
Amy Pittaway
Lisa Jane Weaver

Great Barr, Tamebridge & Yew Tree
Darren Harding
Debi Haywards
Connor Lee Horton

Great Bridge
Joe Cogavin
Keith Stephen Edge
Brad Steven Simms

Greets Green & Lyng
Laura Curtis
Paul Green
Mike Stanyer

Hateley Heath
Dave Moore
Doug Perry
Ram Sarup

Hill Top
Dean Adam Hollywood
Olivia Emily Shaw
Steve Simon

Langley
Sandra Colling
James Deans
Tuli Zefi

Newton & Valley
Tarjinder Singh Bassi
Kenny Jinks
Tiffany Sims

Old Warley
Connor Marshall
Tanisha Reid
Baljinder Singh

Oldbury
Andy Dangerfield
Stuart Hill
Rita Randell

Princes End
Kelly Cranston
Justyna Kordala
Geoffrey Lionel Sutton

Rowley
Ritchie Colin Massey
Benjamin James Morris
Paul Tromans

Smethwick
Simran Kaur
Ash Lewis
Mark Redding

Soho & Victoria
Andrea Melissa Boxall
David Michael Jones
Susan Neale

St Paul’s
Steven Finch
Kenan Taylor
Lynne Tomkinson

Tipton Green
Tim Hordley
Richard James Jeffcoat
Tom Lewandowski

Tividale
Maria Crompton
Robin Sarah Diver
Coleen Sheehan

Wednesbury
Jeremy John Handley
Richard Daniel Jones
Michael Owen Nelson

West Bromwich
Tirath Singh Dhatt
Kristopher Sarasadu
Sue Taylor

#Sandwell #SandwellCouncil #SandwellElections #LocalElections #Election2026 #SandwellVotes #VoteForChange #Democracy #LocalPolitics #WestMidlands #BlackCountry #PoliticalAccountability #OppositionMatters #TurnoutMatters #UseYourVote #ResidentsFirst #SandwellWards #CouncilElections #OnePartyState #MachinePolitics

“No Records. No Decisions. No Problem.” – Sandwell’s Invisible Governance Model

“No Records. No Decisions. No Problem.” – Sandwell’s Invisible Governance Model

There’s a phrase often used in public life:

“If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen.”

Well, according to Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, the opposite now appears to be true:

If it isn’t written down… it’s probably how we run things.

Let’s start with the basics: fishing

Fishing on Sandwell Council land is technically controlled by byelaws.

Those byelaws clearly say:
👉 Fishing is prohibited unless authorised by the Council

So naturally, you’d expect:

• A policy

• A decision

• A record

• A system

Something… anything… that shows how that authorisation actually works

Instead, after months of FOIs, Internal Reviews, and chasing:

There is no documented authorisation framework.

No policy.
No decision notice.
No delegated authority.
No site-level approvals.

Just this:

“It’s generally authorised.”

Ah yes. The “trust us, it’s fine” model of governance.

The policy that disappeared into thin air

It gets better.

The Council:

• Drafted a Fishing Policy

• Consulted on it

• Then… quietly dropped it

So naturally, you’d expect:

• A report explaining why

• A decision record

• A consultation outcome

Nope.

None exist.

Not “withheld.”
Not “exempt.”

Just… not held.

So we now have a public consultation process that:

• started

• ran

• and then apparently vanished without a single recorded conclusion

That’s not policy-making.

That’s policy evaporating.

Wildlife protection? Don’t be silly

Now here’s the bit that should genuinely concern people.

The Council has confirmed:

There are no ecological assessments,
no wildlife risk analyses,
and no site evaluations
relating to angling activity.

Let that sink in.

Activities affecting:

• fish

• birds

• habitats

• water quality

…are taking place on public land without any recorded environmental assessment.

Not “we did one but can’t share it.”

Just:

“We don’t have any.”

Enforcement: if you don’t record it, it didn’t happen

Want to know how many incidents linked to fishing have been recorded?

👉 One.

Across years.

And enforcement action?

👉 Zero.

But here’s the catch (no pun intended):

The Council only records incidents via its online portal.

So:

• Ranger observations? ❌ Not recorded

• Officer notes? ❌ Not recorded

• Verbal reports? ❌ Not recorded

Which means:

If it wasn’t logged online… it effectively never existed.

A perfect system — if your goal is not finding problems.

Pollution, water quality, and “case-by-case” everything

Water quality monitoring?

Not really done.

Formal protocols?

Don’t exist.

Environmental incidents?

Minimal records.

Instead, the approach appears to be:

“We’ll deal with it when it happens.”

Which is comforting… right up until something actually goes wrong.

And the grand finale…

After all of this — every question, every challenge, every Internal Review — the Council has now formally confirmed:

This is their final position
and no further records exist

Not delayed.
Not pending.
Not being reviewed.

Finished.

Locked in.

So what are we left with?

Let’s summarise the “Sandwell Model”:

• Policies started but never concluded

• Activities authorised without documentation

• Environmental safeguards not recorded

• Enforcement not meaningfully tracked

• Governance decisions with no audit trail

All confirmed. In writing.

This isn’t about fishing

This is about something much bigger:

👉 How decisions are made
👉 What gets recorded (and what doesn’t)
👉 Whether public assets are properly governed

Because if this is how one area operates…

where else is the same thing happening?

Next steps

This matter has now been formally referred to the
Information Commissioner's Office.

Not out of choice — but because:

You cannot have transparency without records
and you cannot have accountability without transparency

Final thought

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

But in Sandwell right now…

There’s not much to shine it on.

#Sandwell #FOI #Transparency #Accountability #LocalGovernment #Governance #WildlifeProtection #EnvironmentalProtection #PublicAccountability #OpenGovernment #FOIUK #ICO #Byelaws #FishingPolicy #CouncilFail #TruthMatters #FollowTheEvidence #RecordKeeping #Scrutiny #PublicInterest

BWA: Follow the Money. Follow the Power. Follow the Silence… Now Follow the Network

Follow the Money. Follow the Power. Follow the Silence… Now Follow the Network

(Or: How many red flags does it take before someone actually answers a question?)

Let’s take a step back.

This started simply enough:

💷 Follow the Money – unexplained reserves, rising costs, missing detail
🏛  Follow the Power – overlapping roles, influence, governance gaps
🔇 Follow the Silence – unanswered emails, ignored questions
⚖️ Follow the Escalation – regulators now involved

And now?

🗳 Follow the Network

Because with local elections looming, everything has suddenly come into focus.

The Bit They Don’t Want to Talk About

Here’s what we know — not rumours, not speculation — just plain, observable facts:

• The CEO of a publicly funded charity is also a serving councillor

• That same organisation operates out of council-owned community centres

• The charity is connected into funding structures like Sandwell Consortium

• Multiple individuals connected to that ecosystem are now:
  👉 standing as political candidates

Let’s list it plainly:

• Syeda Khatun – Councillor & CEO – standing in Tipton Green

• Khurshid Haque – candidate in Tipton Green

• Nahid Iqbal – candidate

  • proposed by Khatun

  • seconded by Haque

Elsewhere:

• Suzanne Hartwell – Cabinet Member – standing again in Oldbury, employed by BWA

• Geoff Deakin – candidate in Princes End – reported links to BWA and long term partner of Suzanne Hartwell.

Now ask yourself:

👉 Does that look like coincidence?
👉 Or does that look like a network?

Let’s Talk About Governance (Or the Lack of It)

Because while all this is happening…

• Trustees haven’t responded to a single email

• Not one

• Not even an acknowledgement

Deadlines came and went:

📅 December – ignored
📅 January – ignored
📅 February – still nothing

At this point, we’re not dealing with oversight.

👉 We’re dealing with deliberate silence

And for a charity handling:

• public money

• public assets

• community services

That’s not just poor governance…

👉 that is the governance issue.

The Money Still Doesn’t Add Up

Let’s not forget where this began.

The numbers:

• ~£318,000 in reserves

• ~£177,000 unrestricted

• ~£344,000 sitting in the bank

• Staffing costs up by ~£63,000

• Now moving into deficit

👉 And still taking public money.

Simple question:

👉 Why?

Still no answer.

The Stuff We Haven’t Been Shown

Despite repeated requests:

• No centre-level accounts

• No asset registers

• No breakdown of funding

• No clarity on IT suite spending

• No explanation of staffing increases

👉 Nothing.

Apparently, the easiest way to deal with questions…

…is not to answer them.

And Then There’s the Safeguarding Question

Now this is where things get serious.

It is publicly reported that Khurshid Haque:

• was suspended as a social worker

• in relation to an unapproved boarding arrangement for boys

• where findings referenced risk of serious harm to children

Let’s be clear:

⚖️ This is public record
⚖️ This blog is not adding to it
⚖️ It is simply asking:

👉 What due diligence has been carried out?

Because when someone with that background is:

• standing for election

• connected to community structures

• linked to organisations serving the public

👉 The bar for transparency goes up, not down.

The FOI Farce

Meanwhile, over at the Council:

• They admit they hold the information

• Then refuse to provide it

• Then uphold their own refusal

And helpfully add:

“There is no reporting mechanism”

So let’s get this straight:

👉 Public money is being spent
👉 But there’s no central way to track it

Nothing to see here…

The Bigger Picture

Individually, each issue might be explained.

Together?

You get a pattern:

• no answers

• no transparency

• no engagement

• growing political overlap

• safeguarding questions

• regulators now involved

👉 That’s not noise.

👉 That’s a problem.

The Question That Won’t Go Away

At this point, it’s not complicated.

The public is asking:

👉 Who is overseeing this?
👉 Who is accountable?
👉 Who is making sure this is being run properly?

And the answer so far has been:

🔇 Silence
📭 No response
🚫 Avoidance

Final Thought

This didn’t need to go this far.

At any point, someone could have:

✔ answered
✔ explained
✔ clarified

Instead, we’ve had:

• silence

• escalation

• and now… scrutiny from all angles

Because in the end:

👉 If you don’t answer questions…
👉 the questions don’t go away

They get louder.

And right now?

A lot of people are getting seriously…

👉 Haqued Off.

#FollowTheMoney #FollowThePower #FollowTheSilence #FollowTheNetwork #LocalElections #Sandwell #BWA #Governance #Accountability #Transparency #PublicMoney #FOI #ICO #CharityCommission #Safeguarding #ConflictsOfInterest #Politics #PublicTrust #QuestionsRemain #HaquedOff

They said it wasn’t available. Now they admit it is — they just won’t give it to you. Child Abuse

They said it wasn’t available. Now they admit it is — they just won’t give it to you.

Let’s strip this right back.

For months, the line from West Midlands Police was simple:

Child abuse data for Sandwell prior to 2021?
“Not available due to system changes/issues.”

That’s now been formally corrected.

Because following further FOI requests and an internal review, the truth is this:

• The data is held

• It is archived in a central database

• The police have access to individual data lines

• And it can be retrieved

So no — it wasn’t missing.
It wasn’t lost.
It wasn’t unavailable.

👉 It was there all along.

The shift: from “not available” to “too difficult”

Now the position has changed.

The data isn’t being refused because it doesn’t exist.

It’s being refused because:

it would take more than 18 hours to extract

That’s Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act — the cost limit.

So let’s be clear about what that means in practice:

• They can get the data

• They know where it is

• They just won’t retrieve it within FOI limits

That’s not a system failure.
That’s a decision.

And here’s where it starts to unravel

During the internal review, more historic data suddenly appeared.

Additional figures for 2018–2021 were extracted and disclosed from the same system.

So the obvious question is:

👉 If it’s too difficult to retrieve — how has more of it just been retrieved?

You can’t have it both ways.

Either:

• the system can be queried
  or

• it can’t

Right now, we’re being told both.

The missing help they’re supposed to give

FOI law is very clear on this.

If a request is too large, the authority must help you narrow it.

That could mean:

• fewer years

• one offence category

• aggregated totals

• force-wide data instead of local breakdowns

Instead, the response says:

no reasonable suggestion can be provided

That’s not assistance.
That’s avoidance.

Meanwhile in Sandwell: numbers without clarity

Separate FOI responses from the safeguarding side show:

• thousands of referrals alleging abuse or neglect each year

• significant peaks between 2017–2019

• ongoing Section 47 investigations into child protection concerns

But here’s the problem:

👉 None of it clearly explains the headline figure everyone keeps coming back to:

6,226 child abuse allegations (2012–2016)

We still don’t know:

• exactly what was counted

• how it was defined

• or how it compares to what came after

And when asked for definitions?

We’re pointed to generic GOV.UK pages.

That’s not transparency.
That’s deflection.

And the documents that might explain it?

Refused.

Requests for:

• Partnership Board minutes

• dashboards

• briefing papers

…have been blocked under exemptions.

No redaction.
No summary.
No attempt to release high-level information.

Just a blanket refusal.

The bit that really matters

This isn’t about technicalities.

It’s about this:

• Data exists

• Data is accessible

• Data has been partially extracted

But full disclosure?

👉 Still not happening.

And while all this is going on…

Police data shows hundreds of sexual offences against children every year.

Yet at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, safeguarding language remains broad and carefully worded.

Child abuse is mentioned.

But Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) — one of the most serious and historically sensitive forms — isn’t explicitly named.

That’s not a legal point.

That’s a political one.

Where this goes next

This is now with the Information Commissioner's Office.

Because the issues are clear:

• “Not available” has become “held but inconvenient”

• Data has been partially retrieved, undermining the refusal

• No meaningful assistance has been provided to narrow the request

• Key context remains withheld

Final word

If a public authority says:

• “We hold the data”

• “We can access it”

• “We’ve already extracted some of it”

Then the question isn’t whether the data exists.

👉 The question is:
Why are you still not being allowed to see it properly?

Because when it comes to child abuse,
“too difficult to retrieve” isn’t an answer.

#Sandwell #ChildProtection #Safeguarding #CSE #ChildSexualExploitation #FOI #Transparency #Accountability #WestMidlandsPolice #ICO #PublicInterest #DataMatters

DC/25/71072 – Friar Park: Approval Despite Red Flags, Missing Information and Weak Scrutiny

Email sent to members of planning committee: 

I'm writing this to you all just to put in writing serious concerns about this application, the cumulative issues and decision making. 

At the meeting we had a Cllr clearly out of her depth, a poor gent that was half asleep throughout and had to be prompted to vote, we had officers that gave nervous responses some incoherent and not relative (charging points), a lead officer relying on "conditions" and frankly poor scrutiny of the application and applicant/developer. There are some very serious matters that have arisen over time that give rise to further scrutiny on the effectiveness of this committee and decisions made. 

I'm aware some of you may not be in office after the local elections in some cases that will be a relief in others a shame as they may have found an opportunity to be less political and focus on community representation and be a true voice for them rather than a political flag waver. Encouraging to hear that Cllr Piper when out of office will be putting in FOIs and I hope that he uses WhatDoTheyKnow so we can all view them.

DC/25/71072 – Friar Park: Approval Despite Red Flags, Missing Information and Weak Scrutiny

1. Purpose of this briefing

This note records serious concerns arising from the Planning Committee’s decision to approve DC/25/71072 on 1 April 2026.

This was not a routine or well-resolved application. It was a proposal to add 18 more dwellings onto land previously reserved for open space / play provision within the wider Friar Park development context, despite:

• policy conflict,
• unresolved technical matters,
• heavy dependence on conditions,
• weak treatment of cumulative impact,
• live resident concerns about site works,
• and a wider pattern of missing information and unanswered Freedom of Information requests.

The application was nevertheless approved by 7 votes to 1.

This briefing is intended to make clear that:

• the committee did not receive, test or expose enough hard information to justify real confidence in the decision;
• the concerns raised by residents were not meaningfully addressed;
• and the meeting itself displayed troubling signs of weak grasp, deflection and over-reliance on stock planning phrases.

2. Executive summary

The Planning Committee approved DC/25/71072 in circumstances where:

• key matters remained unresolved and were pushed into conditions;
• the application was wrongly minimised as “only 18 houses”;
• cumulative effect was not properly understood or engaged with;
• officer responses to direct questions were sketchy, hesitant and often evasive;
• members appeared content to rely on generic planning language rather than tested facts;
• and live concerns from residents about mud, dust, habitat loss, communication failures and weak enforcement were brushed aside with superficial assurances.

The result is a decision that looks less like robust development management and more like:

approve now, patch later, explain little.

3. The committee’s central failure: treating this as “just 18 houses”

One of the most revealing moments of the meeting was the repeated reduction of the issue to “it’s only 18 houses.”

That line is not merely simplistic. It is planning nonsense.

This is not 18 houses in isolation.

It is:

• 18 more dwellings
• on land previously reserved for open space / play provision
• within the same wider site context as DC/23/68742
• following the boundary / phasing changes under DC/25/71065
• in the same Friar Park area where other applications have already raised serious concerns:
  • DC/25/70154
  • DC/24/69650
  • DC/23/68742

To describe this as “only 18 houses” is to erase the very thing members were supposed to be considering: cumulative effect.

That phrase was plainly not understood by some councillors and was not seriously grappled with by the committee as a whole.

4. Poor understanding of cumulative effect

The committee’s handling of cumulative effect was one of its clearest failures.

There was no serious attempt to assess this application in the context of:

• the already approved 105 dwellings nearby,
• the relocation and effective loss of previously planned open/play land,
• the wider Friar Park growth pattern,
• the traffic and parking pressures already visible,
• the broader strain on schools, SEND provision, GP services and local amenity,
• and the pattern of repeated condition-heavy approvals in the same area.

Instead, the matter was reduced to whether this single application, viewed artificially on its own, could be tolerated.

That is not how cumulative planning impact works.

If members cannot or will not engage with cumulative effect, they are not properly assessing real-world planning consequences.

5. Housing need used as a lazy override

The committee repeatedly fell back on housing need.

Nobody disputes that housing is needed.

But housing need does not:

• cancel out the need for evidence,
• remove the need for proper scrutiny,
• erase policy conflict,
• justify vague and incomplete answers,
• or allow members to ignore unresolved technical matters.

The local plan also identifies shortages and strategic pressures in other areas too — including employment land, schools and open spaces.

So the idea that “we need more houses” is, on its own, a sufficient answer to every objection is profoundly weak.

Housing need is one material consideration.
It is not a universal planning solvent.

6. Far too many conditions — and far too much faith in them

A major reason this approval is so concerning is the extraordinary dependence on planning conditions.

The recommendation was approval subject to conditions relating to, among other things:

• finished floor levels,
• boundary treatment,
• landscaping,
• drainage and SuDS,
• waste storage,
• renewable energy,
• external lighting,
• parking,
• construction management,
• ecological management,
• contaminated land,
• external materials,
• BNG.

That is an enormous amount of unresolved or partly unresolved material being carried forward.

At committee, there was far too much reliance on the stock response that: “this can be conditioned” and that this is “common place in planning.”

That misses the point.

The problem is not that conditions exist.
The problem is that there are too many of them doing too much of the real work.

This committee was effectively asked to vote without full and settled knowledge of:

• drainage performance,
• detailed flood response,
• contaminated land investigation outcomes,
• long-term ecological management,
• construction dust and dirt control,
• and other matters central to whether the scheme is genuinely acceptable.

A committee cannot claim to be fully informed if its answer to repeated uncertainty is simply that it will all be sorted out later.

7. Sketchy, hesitant and evasive officer responses

Another serious concern from the meeting was the quality of the officer responses when matters were raised from the floor.

The officers asked to comment on concerns appeared:

• nervous,
• hesitant,
• sketchy,
• and in some cases plainly deflective.

The answers often did not actually answer the questions being asked.

Instead, there was a repeated tendency to:

• drift into generic reassurance,
• fall back on process language,
• mention conditions,
• or move sideways into irrelevant comfort points.

In one especially telling example, an officer effectively waffled on about electric vehicle charging points when air quality and wider environmental concerns were raised.

That was not a serious answer. It was a distraction.

When officers cannot provide clear, direct and coherent answers under questioning, committee members should be pausing — not waving the application through.

8. Residents’ concerns were minimised, not tested

Residents’ live concerns include:

• mud and dirt being dragged onto roads and pavements,
• dirt entering homes,
• considerable dust,
• ongoing habitat, shrub and tree loss,
• concern about the nature of disturbed soils and dust,
• weak communication with officers,
• weak confidence in developer / contractor control,
• poor confidence in enforcement.

These are not speculative anxieties. They are grounded concerns arising from what residents say they are already experiencing in the area.

Yet the response at committee was little more than:

• vague references to monitoring,
• road cleaning,
• and generic condition-based management.

There was no serious scrutiny of:

• what is in the dust,
• whether disturbed soils have been properly characterised,
• how quickly complaints are actioned,
• what enforcement has actually occurred,
• or whether current site management gives any real confidence for further works.

This was a major failure of the meeting.

9. The policy conflict was admitted — then waved away

The report itself accepts:

• the site falls outside the current residential allocation,
• it affects the Manor High School SLINC,
• and therefore there is conflict with policy, particularly around nature conservation.

Yet this was effectively neutralised at committee by:

• housing need,
• the tilted balance,
• and the claim that harm is “mitigated.”

That is not a convincing rebuttal.

Mitigation is not the same as absence of harm.
Nor is policy conflict made trivial simply because a shortfall exists elsewhere.

This was a weak and overly convenient treatment of a serious policy issue.

10. The open space issue was not seriously confronted

This application only exists in its present form because land previously reserved for open space / play has been repurposed for housing.

The report says the LAP has been moved and the remaining provision is “arguably better situated.”

That is a strikingly weak phrase for such an important planning shift.

“Arguably better situated” is not a rigorous evidence base.

It does not answer:

• whether it is equivalent in size,
• whether it is equivalent in play value,
• whether it is equivalent in accessibility,
• whether residents are losing the landscape and amenity value of what was previously promised,
• or whether this is simply a net loss dressed up as redesign.

11. Councillor conduct and deflection

There was also troubling conduct in the meeting itself.

Rather than staying focused on the planning substance, councillors Chidley and Piper chose to question where I live.

That was irrelevant to the application and plainly deflective.

I was there speaking on behalf of the Wednesbury Action Group.
The issues raised concerned:

• the application,
• the wider Friar Park context,
• cumulative impacts,
• resident concerns,
• and governance failings.

The speaker’s postcode does not answer any of those points.

That line of questioning appeared more political than planning-based, and the Chair should not have allowed the discussion to drift into that territory.

12. The Chair’s remarks and the issue of scrutiny

The Chair referred to the many pages in the report pack and asked whether I had read them.

Yes — I had.

The more relevant question is: how many members had read and understood them properly?

Because the quality of the debate strongly suggested that some members had not fully grasped:

• cumulative effect,
• the scale of condition reliance,
• the significance of unresolved matters,
• or the wider Friar Park pattern.

The committee cannot claim strong scrutiny if:

• hard questions are not answered,
• cumulative issues are not engaged with,
• and members fall back on slogans like “only 18 houses.”

13. Timing and unanswered FOIs

At the time of the meeting, many relevant FOIs remained:

• unanswered,
• overdue,
• or inadequately answered.

This includes FOIs relating to:

• DC/25/70154
• DC/24/69650
• DC/23/68742
• the wider Friar Park Urban Village
• and parallel requests to the WMCA and Environment Agency

This is not a side issue. It goes directly to confidence in the evidential basis and internal decision-making surrounding Friar Park.

The public still does not have clear disclosure on:

• internal concerns,
• risk reasoning,
• cumulative treatment,
• remediation oversight,
• and environmental transparency.

Members therefore voted in a context where important background information remained missing or unresolved.

That matters.

14. The vote itself

The committee voted:

• 7 in favour
• 1 against

That means all but one councillor were content for the application to proceed despite:

• unresolved matters,
• very heavy condition reliance,
• policy conflict,
• open space loss,
• weak treatment of cumulative effect,
• resident concerns about current works,
• poor quality answers in the meeting,
• and outstanding FOI opacity.

That should be stated plainly.

The approval was not a cautious, evidence-rich endorsement.
It was a vote to proceed in the face of substantial uncertainty.

15. What this decision says about Friar Park planning culture

This decision reinforces an increasingly obvious pattern in the Friar Park area:

• more housing can always be found room for,
• open space can be moved if needed,
• policy conflict can be softened by the tilted balance,
• technical detail can be pushed into conditions,
• resident concerns can be minimised,
• and transparency can wait.

This is not robust planning.

It is a culture of: incremental intensification, condition-heavy approval and thin accountability.

16. Key conclusions

A. The committee did not meaningfully engage with cumulative effect

The phrase was raised, but the substance was not understood or addressed.

B. The application was wrongly minimised

“Only 18 houses” was used to avoid the wider picture.

C. Housing need was overused as a rebuttal

Housing need became a substitute for planning judgment.

D. Conditions were relied on far too heavily

The committee approved without full and settled knowledge of critical matters.

E. Officer answers were weak

Responses were hesitant, generic and often evasive.

F. Residents were not taken seriously enough

Dust, mud, habitat loss, enforcement confidence and communication failures were all minimised.

G. The meeting allowed political deflection

Questioning where the speaker lives was improper and irrelevant.

H. The decision was made despite missing information and unanswered FOIs

That significantly undermines confidence in the scrutiny process.

17. Questions councillors should now reflect on

1. Did members really understand the cumulative context of this application?
2. Were members genuinely satisfied with the volume and significance of matters left to condition?
3. Did officer answers fully and coherently address the questions asked?
4. Was enough weight given to current resident experience of dust, dirt, habitat loss and poor enforcement confidence?
5. Should members have been asked to defer until more information and FOI transparency were available?
6. Are committees in Friar Park now becoming too comfortable approving on incomplete knowledge?

18. Final position

This decision should concern anyone who cares about planning standards in Sandwell.

It shows a committee willing to:

• minimise the scale of concern,
• accept incomplete answers,
• defer key matters to conditions,
• ignore cumulative context,
• and approve despite significant uncertainty.

The message sent to residents was unmistakable:

your concerns can be heard, but they do not have to be seriously tested.

That is not good planning.
That is not good governance.
And it is not good enough.

DC/25/71072 was not approved because the hard questions were convincingly answered. It was approved because the committee was willing to proceed without them.

Further info not included in email: 

Don’t take my word for it. Watch Sandwell’s own webcast of Planning Committee. Agenda item 6 covers DC/25/71072 and starts at around 15:28 in the recording. Judge for yourself how well the questions were answered. 

Planning Committee VideobStream

#SandwellCouncil #PlanningCommittee #Wednesbury #FriarParkRoad #HighPointAcademy #Planning #LocalGovernment #Governance #Accountability #Transparency #OpenSpace #PlayProvision #SLINC #AirQuality #Dust #Mud #ContaminatedLand #FloodRisk #SuDS #Housing #CumulativeImpact #ResidentConcerns #Enforcement #BlackCountry

2026: The System, The Slate, and Why Independents Are Fighting Uphill

2026: The System, The Slate, and Why Independents Are Fighting Uphill

Let’s cut through the polite explanations and get to what’s actually happening with the Sandwell Local Elections on 7 May 2026.

Yes — there’s been a boundary review.
Yes — it’s an all-out election.
Yes — you can vote for up to three candidates.

All true.

But that’s the mechanics.

This is about the reality.

The Ballot Paper Tells the Real Story

Now the official candidate list is out, and it confirms exactly what many suspected.

Across ward after ward, the same pattern:

• Labour – 3 candidates
• Conservative – 3 candidates
• Reform – 3 candidates
• Green – multiple candidates

And then… the odd independent, here and there, trying to break through.

That’s not a level playing field.
That’s a stacked deck.

“You Can Vote for Three” — Yes, But…

You’ll be told:

“You can vote for one, two or three candidates.”

Sounds fair, doesn’t it?

But here’s what actually happens:

• Parties run full slates of three
• They tell supporters: “Vote for all three”
• Their votes are organised, stacked, and efficient

Meanwhile:

• independents stand alone
• local voices get diluted
• and the system quietly does the rest

So yes — you’ve got choice.

Just not equal choice.

This Is Machine Politics — Not Local Democracy

Look at the candidate list properly.

What do you see?

Not:

• who’s been fighting bad planning decisions
• who’s been calling out the council
• who’s been standing up for residents

What you see is:

Party labels. Party blocks. Party control.

This isn’t about your street, your park, your area.

It’s about:

• party structure
• party discipline
• party strategy

And Then There’s the Big One — The System Itself

This election isn’t just unusual — it’s unstable by design.

Because:

• 1st place = 4 years
• 2nd place = 2 years
• 3rd place = 1 year

That means:

👉 24 councillors will be back up for election in 2027
👉 Another cycle in 2028
👉 Then a fallow year in 2029

So we could see:

• control change
• leadership change
• policy change

…all in quick succession.

That’s not stability.

That’s controlled chaos baked into the system.

Why So Few Independents? Let’s Be Honest

Some people will look at the ballot and think:

“Where are all the independents?”

Here’s your answer.

Because standing as an independent means:

• funding your own campaign
• doing everything yourself
• no party machine
• no leaflet army
• no safety net

And here’s the killer:

👉 If you don’t come first, you could be back campaigning again within 1–2 years

So:

• more cost
• more time
• more pressure

All without backing.

That’s not a lack of good local people.

That’s a system that makes it incredibly hard for them to stand — and even harder to stay.

Let’s Talk About “Stability”

We keep hearing that stability matters.

Fine.

But Sandwell has had decades of one-party dominance.

Ask yourself honestly:

Has that delivered:

• strong scrutiny?
• transparency?
• better outcomes?

Or has it created:

• complacency
• weak challenge
• decisions made behind closed doors

Because “stability” without accountability isn’t strength.

It’s stagnation.

What This Election Should Actually Be About

This shouldn’t be about:

• national politics
• party messaging
• political branding

It should be about:

• your roads
• your housing
• your green spaces
• your safety
• your voice

And that’s where independents matter.

Because independents:

• don’t answer to party whips
• don’t follow national scripts
• don’t need permission to speak up

They answer to one thing:

👉 You

What Happens Next — This Is Just the Start

This is the first stage of analysis.

Over the coming days and weeks:

👉 We will publish ward-by-ward breakdowns
👉 We will highlight key battleground areas
👉 We will examine candidate backgrounds and track records
👉 And where possible, we will carry out direct interviews with candidates in key wards

Because voters deserve more than:

• a name on a ballot
• a party logo
• a leaflet through the door

They deserve:

• scrutiny
• transparency
• and real information before they vote

Final Thought

This election isn’t just another cycle.

It’s a reset.

And the real question isn’t:

“Which party do I vote for?”

It’s:

“Who is actually going to fight for this area when it matters?”

Useful Links

Local Election General Information:
www.sandwell.gov.uk/elections2026

Candidate List:
www.sandwell.gov.uk/downloads/file/5544/statement-of-persons-nominated-7-may-2026

#Sandwell #LocalElections2026 #SandwellCouncil #VoteLocal #IndependentVoices #Democracy #Wednesbury #Tipton #WestBromwich #Oldbury #Smethwick #Accountability #LocalPolitics

Friar Park Again: Approved on Conditions, Excuses and Thin Answers

Friar Park Again: Approved on Conditions, Excuses and Thin Answers

Well, there we have it.

DC/25/71072 was approved by 7 votes to 1.

Another Friar Park application waved through. Another set of resident concerns brushed aside. Another committee performance where the hard questions were not really answered — just managed.

And if anyone is wondering what the argument for approval boiled down to, it was the now painfully familiar Sandwell planning hymn sheet:

• “it’s only 18 dwellings”
• “there is a housing need”
• “the harm is mitigated”
• “it can be conditioned”

That, apparently, is now enough.

Never mind that the site was previously reserved for open space and play provision.
Never mind that the report itself accepts conflict with the SLINC / nature conservation policy.
Never mind that drainage information is still incomplete.
Never mind that contaminated land work is still being left to condition.
Never mind that air quality is handled with the usual hand-wave and fallback to future management plans.
Never mind that residents are already raising serious concerns about mud, dirt, dust, habitat loss and poor communication linked to current site works.

No, no. It’s all fine.

Stick a condition on it.
Mention EV charging points.
Say “housing need” three times.
Job done.

The absurd “it’s only 18 dwellings” line

This was one of the most revealing parts of the meeting.

The attempt was made to reduce the issue to “just” 18 dwellings. As though objectors are supposed to smile politely and accept that as some sort of killer rebuttal.

But it is not just 18 dwellings.

It is 18 more dwellings on top of an already approved wider site. It is 18 more on land previously treated as needed for recreation. It is 18 more in a part of Friar Park already under strain. It is 18 more added through the now standard local planning trick of pretending each piece of the jigsaw exists in splendid isolation.

That is not cumulative assessment. That is cumulative denial.

Housing need: the great universal excuse

Nobody sensible denies housing need.

But what committee did was not weigh housing need properly against the weaknesses in the application. They used housing need as a blunt instrument to flatten almost every other concern in sight.

Conflict with policy? Housing need.
Loss of open space? Housing need.
Incomplete technical matters? Housing need.
Resident concerns? Housing need.
Weak confidence in enforcement? Housing need.

Housing need is now being treated less as one material consideration and more as a sort of planning amnesty.

Apparently once it is spoken aloud, all other problems are expected to shuffle off quietly and stop being inconvenient.

That is not balanced decision-making. That is lazy decision-making.

Conditions, conditions, conditions

The meeting once again exposed the disease running through Friar Park planning:

approve first, sort it later by condition.

That was the answer to almost everything.

Drainage? Condition.
Contaminated land? Condition.
Dust and emissions? Condition.
Construction management? Condition.
Ecology? Condition.
BNG? Condition.

This is becoming a pattern so obvious it is almost comic — except of course it is not funny when you are the one living beside it.

A condition is not a magic spell. It does not make missing evidence appear. It does not make unresolved risks disappear. And it certainly does not give residents confidence where confidence has already been damaged by what they are seeing on the ground now.

Residents’ concerns were not seriously tested

This is perhaps the most galling part.

Residents are already reporting:

• mud and dirt being dragged onto roads and pavements
• dirt being carried into homes
• considerable dust
• habitat, trees and shrubs being lost
• weak communication from officers and developers
• and little confidence that enforcement is strong enough to protect them

Those are not fantasy complaints. Those are lived impacts.

And yet the response was little more than a glib mutter about road cleaning, monitoring and conditions.

That is not scrutiny. That is bureaucratic sedation.

Residents did not get a serious engagement with:

• what is in the disturbed soil and dust
• how it is being monitored
• what action has been taken
• whether contractors are operating within proper permissions and controls
• or why people should believe enforcement will suddenly improve tomorrow when it seems weak today

In short, the committee did not really test the assurances. It accepted them.

The cumulative point was ducked

This was perhaps the central failure.

No serious answer was given on cumulative effect.

The committee wanted to look at this as a neat little 18-unit box. That is convenient. It is also wrong.

This scheme sits with:

• DC/23/68742
• DC/25/71065
• and the wider Friar Park pattern

And in the same area we already have major concerns around:

• DC/25/70154
• DC/24/69650
• DC/23/68742

Across those cases, the same themes keep recurring:

• incomplete evidence at determination stage
• difficult matters pushed into conditions
• no convincing cumulative picture
• weak transparency
• FOI responses from the council saying “Nil” to internal concerns, briefings and reasoning

The committee tonight did not meaningfully engage with that pattern.

Because if they had, they would have had to confront an uncomfortable truth:

this is not one application. It is a planning culture.

The “where do you live?” nonsense

And then, of course, there was the absurdity of interest in where I live.

Always a revealing moment.

When the argument gets too awkward, when the substance becomes harder to knock down, the attention shifts from:

• the site
• the evidence
• the conditions
• the cumulative impacts

to the speaker.

It is a weak tactic and an embarrassing one.

Where I live does not alter:

• the loss of open space,
• the policy conflict with the SLINC,
• the unresolved drainage matters,
• the contaminated land concerns,
• the resident reports of mud and dust,
• or the committee’s failure to engage properly with cumulative effects.

The facts do not become less true based on someone’s postcode.

What tonight really showed

Tonight’s committee did not demonstrate confidence built on a strong evidence base.

It demonstrated confidence built on a willingness to defer.

That is the real problem.

Not that every single issue was ignored.
Not that every single councillor acted in bad faith.
But that the institutional habit is now obvious:

• minimise the scale of the scheme
• invoke housing need
• rely on conditions
• downplay residents’ concerns
• and move on

That is exactly how bad planning decisions happen.

Not with a grand villain speech.
Not with a dramatic collapse of standards all at once.
But with a steady drip of lowered expectations and borrowed reassurance.

Friar Park is becoming a pattern, not an exception

This is why I keep saying that Friar Park is no longer just a planning issue.

It is now a governance issue.

Because the same things keep happening:

• evidence gaps
• thin reasoning
• delayed or unanswered FOIs
• weak cumulative treatment
• heavy reliance on conditions
• residents left feeling unheard
• and public trust steadily being burned away

This decision does not close that story.

It adds to it.

Final word

Tonight, committee approved DC/25/71072.

But they did not really answer the objections.

They did not really grapple with the cumulative picture.

They did not really address the weak confidence residents now have in monitoring, communication and enforcement.

What they did was what Friar Park planning increasingly seems to do best:

prefer reassurance over rigour, conditions over certainty, and momentum over scrutiny.

And that is exactly why people are losing trust.

#FriarPark #DC2571072 #Sandwell #PlanningCommittee #Wednesbury #Governance #Transparency #OpenSpace #SLINC #AirQuality #ContaminatedLand #FloodRisk #PlanningScandal