Plans have been revealed to spruce up empty shops in Wednesbury town centre

Two empty town center shops could be developed as part of plans to build new flats in Wednesbury. Planning applications have been submitted to Sandwell Council which would see the former Rajpoot Discount Warehouse in Market Place, Wednesbury and the former Barclays Bank in the town’s Lower High Street refurbished and reopened.

If approved, the work would also include a new 11-bed HMO built in Market Place with four flats built above the now empty bank. The first application would see the building in Market Place, Wednesbury – which housed the Rajpoot discount warehouse – refurbished with the tired shopfront spruced up. The building’s crumbling masonry would also be replaced.

Shokat Ali’s application would see new ground, first and second floor extensions built with the building’s attic converted to another floor to make way for an 11-bed house in multiple occupation (HMO).

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The former shop, described as a “landmark” in Wednesbury town center in the application, has become a mess with the building’s back yard covered in bricks. A statement included in the application said: “The application proposal would result in an improved standard of accommodation for future occupiers and an acceptable impact on occupiers of neighboring properties.

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“The level of accommodation now proposed would be appropriate for the size and scale of Square 16 and would be compatible and consistent with many other recent permits that have been granted in the immediate locality. The property is situated in a highly sustainable location in an established city center location.”

A separate planning application would turn the empty former Barclays bank in the town’s Lower High Street into new shops and flats. Sandwell Council approved an application in 2020 to convert the former bank into a new shop and three flats, but the work was never carried out.

The latest application now seeks permission to build the same shop on the ground floor, but to build four flats.