Darlaston enterprise zone open for business
WALSALL Council will today endorse a new enterprise zone for Darlaston, which will be one of the largest and most extensive issued to date in the UK.
The authority retained Birmingham-based Brooke Smith Planning to prepare the local development order, which introduces a simplified, streamlined planning regime to the greater part of Darlaston. Now its cabinet is likely to approve the order.
Brooke Smith Planning led a consortium of consultants and legal advisers, including WSP and Gateley, working closely with officers at Walsall Council, to prepare the order, which grants automatic planning permission for certain kinds of industrial, storage, distribution and waste management development.
Developers, landowners and investors can use the order to obtain permission to erect new buildings or change the use of existing property within 28 days, subject to environmental provisions.
Andrea Caplan, principal planner at Brooke Smith Planning, said: “Darlaston has in the past been an important industrial area but in recent years it has been held back by poor highway links and environmental issues. New highway improvements have recently been approved and together with the LDO, we hope to see far more development coming forward in the area – and that will mean more jobs and boost the local economy.”
The Darlaston LDO area contains 15 specific sites, which together with the i54 site in Wolverhampton make up the enterprise zone. This area, endorsed by the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership, will also benefit from business rate discounts of to 100 per cent for five years for new businesses coming to the area for five years.
