Faculty planning additional classrooms for landmark site once proposed for huge apartment block

Ten new classrooms are to be built behind the £5m Sandwell Central Saint Michael Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Center in West Bromwich High Street.

The engineering campus replaced the iconic seven-storey Shaftesbury House, which was demolished in 2018.

The land was once earmarked for a nine-storey block of flats with 66 flats, with Sandwell Council planners giving the planning application their blessing, but work never got off the ground.

A few years later, the council approved plans to build 43 flats on the land before the multi-million pound training center was backed up.

The additional classrooms would provide space for 250 students. More than 200 students have already used the college since it opened last September. The campus was officially opened in March.

The state-of-the-art center offers advanced science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) courses for students at Central Saint Michael’s Sixth Form and Sandwell College.

Shaftesbury House was demolished after the council said the former offices, which had housed its education department, were “surplus to requirements” and “unsuitable” to be renovated.

Black Country Housing Group has received permission from Sandwell Council to build 43 flats on the former Shaftesbury House site in 2021.

The social housing provider has also bought the land which 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 “dilapidated” after years of neglect, moved to Black Country Living Dudley Museum.

Sandwell Council said it had accepted a lower offer of £270,000 to have full control over rents for all 27 homes planned for the land.

A higher offer of £427,000 for the land was rejected because it would only have offered nomination rights for six homes, the council said.