Public inquiry to decide fate of former nightclub

A public inquiry to decide the fate of one of Dudley’s most famous buildings is scheduled for this week. JB’s former music venue on Castle Hill will be bought by the local authority and demolished if a planning inspector presiding over the inquiry finds in Dudley Council’s favour.

The council wants to buy the building, which is now a banqueting suite, plus an adjoining martial arts center to make way for a new education centre. Helen Martin, Dudley Council’s director of regeneration and enterprise, said: “It’s important that big projects like this get proper scrutiny and that the people involved have an opportunity to have a say in shaping them.

“The process will be open and transparent and will hopefully maintain the momentum towards creating a first class higher education institution in the heart of Dudley.” The owners of the banquet hall, at 15-21 Castle Hill, were unwilling to do a deal with the authority, so a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) was sent to the site in July 2023.

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A number of relevant objections were raised to the CPO, so a public inquiry was ordered to hear arguments in public. The public inquiry will start at Dudley Council House on May 14 and is expected to last two or three days.

The owners of the neighboring martial arts center also did not want to sell and raised objections to the CPO, which included their premises, however a deal with the council now looks likely after securing a new site at 30 Castle Hill . The council claims that bringing the university to Dudley is in the public interest and the build “more than offsets any interference with the human rights of any of the freehold/leasehold owners and business occupiers”.

The new education center is planned to occupy land stretching from the boundary of Dudley Zoo to the JB Building and includes land previously occupied by the now demolished Hippodrome Theatre. When completed, the council will lease the center to Dudley College which, in partnership with the University of Worcester, will deliver healthcare courses at what will be Dudley’s first higher education college.

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