West Bromwich: Top Town
These are exciting times for West Bromwich as it becomes one of the top towns in the West Midlands - a better place for people to shop, work, live, learn and spend their leisure time. Improved roads and public spaces will make it easier and more attractive for local people and visitors to get around the town.
A new shopping centre - roughly the size of ten football pitches - is set to open for business. It's a multi-million pounds investment, complete with Tesco Extra, which will dramatically boost the range of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars around a new town square. Creating over 2,000 new jobs and including plans for a new hotel and cinema, this will bring people back to the town centre to enjoy their leisure time. Already completed is a new police station, officially opened in September 2011.
The brand new Tesco Extra and shopping centre will link to existing shops in Queen's Square, refreshed with a new glass entrance, escalators and re-modelled shop fronts.
Hundreds more jobs will flow from state-of-the-art new offices at Providence Place (the former council depot in West Bromwich, opposite the fire station) which will bring up to £80 million in new investment.
Close to the town centre on the corner of Moor Street and Barton Street, a new leisure centre will bring back swimming to West Bromwich.
Up to 10,000 young people and adults will study at Sandwell College's new campus in Spon Lane, an eye-catching addition to West Bromwich's skyline. Modern facilities - motor workshops, beauty and hairdressing salons, computer suites, engineering labs and fashion and photography studios etc - will train tomorrow's skilled workforce. The town centre economy will get a boost from so many students.
Good roads are vital to a strong economy. The £25 million improvement to the A41 Expressway and All Saints Way junction will:
- improve access to the town centre
- cut congestion and business transport costs
- boost links to the nearby M5
- make bus services more reliable
- create safer and more convenient routes for pedestrians and cyclists.
New public footways, squares and boulevards - with better paving, landscaping and planting, art work and lighting - will make the town centre an attractive place to walk around.
The new YMCA building in West Bromwich will provide apartments, a day nursery, a fitness suite, a pavement cafe, meeting rooms and a pedestrianised square. It will also be a landmark building at the Carters Green entrance to the town centre.
What will we do?
We have clear plans for the future in this area. Our aim is to continue to develop the things that we do on your behalf so that you, as residents, feel the benefit. Find out more about what we will do.
Join us on Facebook
On Facebook, you can be more involved with us. You can give us your views on services and what we are doing. You can also check out what's happening in Sandwell and get important updates.
Follow us on Twitter
If you're looking for the latest information or want to find out what's happening in Sandwell then follow @sandwellcouncil on Twitter. You can tweet us with your views and questions about what we are doing.
