Decision over 69-bed HMO taken out of council’s hands

A controversial plan to convert a former police training centre into a 69-bed HMO will be decided again by a government inspector after an appeal was launched.

Sandwell Council has already rejected plans to convert the former West Midlands Police training centre Windmill House in Windmill Lane, Smethwick, into a huge 69-bed HMO after turning down a move for a 76-bed shared building earlier this year.

The government’s planning inspector previously threw out an appeal for a 76-bed HMO.

The latest application for the empty building, opposite St Matthew’s CE Primary School, received 823 objections alongside petitions totalling more than 1,100 signatures.

The appeal means the final decision is taken out of the council’s hands and will be decided by a government inspector.

Sandwell Council’s planners have twice said the HMO’s tiny rooms would fail to provide an acceptable standard of living and would provide “significantly less” outdoor space and “constrained and inaccessible” shared indoor space.

The council’s planners added the HMO would be “intrusive” for neighbours and lead to a loss of privacy – with some rooms looking directly into private gardens.

The three-storey building, which dates back to the 1970s, had been used by the region’s police force as a training centre and accommodation until it closed last year.

The empty building would have been converted into a house of multiple occupation (HMO) under plans by Kamraan Ahmed of Meizon.

The council called the original 76-bed plan “oppressive” and “substandard” with ground floor rooms greeted with “unacceptable” views of warehouses, boundary treatments and cycle storage.

Planners also said the conversion would be unacceptable for neighbours leading to “direct and intrusive overlooking” and a loss of privacy and called the building’s communal facilities “inadequate.”

Windmill House was sold to MNP Investment Holdings in June last year as one of several West Midlands Police properties deemed ‘surplus to requirements.’

By Christian Barnett | Local Democracy Reporting Service