Images taken last weekend.
Lots of you have contacted me asking about the works currently ongoing at the former Focus DIY store on the corner of Coppice Lane and Northgate, Walsall Wood.
Local gossip had it for a long time that the former Focus store on the corner of Coppice Lane and Northgate on the Walsall Wood/Aldridge border was to be taken over by Asda. This wasn’t true, but in August 2014, B&M Retail applied for a variation in planning conditions to convert the derelict building into another branch – permission which they recently gained, and now work has started on the derelict site, as many have noted and contacted me about.
The application is reference 14/1090/FL ‘Variation of condition 2 of permission BC27983P (as previously varied by permission BC57615P) to vary the range of goods sold from the premises.’
The planning application form detailing this change can be seen here; note that they try to mask who the applicant is under the name ‘Berkeley Leisure’ but fail to notice the B&M reference in item 6. One must assume that that’s who the work is being undertaken for.
B&M are very popular in Brownhills and Lichfield, and this would remove a derelict eyesore from the local environment, so I’m all for it to be honest. They seem to have employed a local construction company, too, which can’t be bad.
Best of luck to them, and I hope they do well.