Walsall will benefit from a share of a £350 million deal to speed up house building in the West Midlands. The deal was announced in yesterday’s Spring Statement in the House of Commons.

The deal for the region includes a Land Fund of up to £100 million to buy and clean up brown field land identified by Walsall’s development pipeline of priority sites which includes what is known as the Walsall to Wolverhampton growth corridor. Here new homes are proposed along with new train stations in Darlaston and Willenhall.

The announcement has been welcomed as an opportunity to build on work already announced to bring investment to our centres across the borough. A report is due to go to the next cabinet that will outline how the Council will refresh its established economic growth strategies for Walsall Town Centre and the five district centres of Aldridge, Bloxwich, Brownhills, Darlaston and Willenhall.

The Cabinet Member for Communities on Walsall Council, Cllr Ian Shires said:

“This is really good news. A great deal of work has been done over the last couple of years at the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) working with Local Councils to put forward bold strategies to secure future growth.

“In Walsall we have said that not only is it important land for new housing land to be identified, but also we need to create communities that are well served by public transport and have adequate local services such as good quality schools, children’s and adult social care. We need to make sure that everyone benefits, that’s the existing communities as well as the new developments from this once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The West Midlands is the first region to agree a housing deal of this kind with central government which includes a government commitment to find new ways to finance and build a mix of housing including affordable housing to rent or buy.