CONFIRMATION that money from the sale of land in Lichfield could be used to invest in Burntwood has been welcomed by a local councillor.
Lichfield District Council could pocket almost £5million from the sale of the former Tempest Ford site as part of a redevelopment project.
The site would be used for housing if the plans are approved at a meeting of Lichfield District Council next week.
The money raised from the sale would go towards public realm improvements as well as a £1.7million allocation to attract a food and beverage outlet as part of the new cinema development.
But Burntwood could also benefit with more than £1.25million earmarked for the town.
Cllr Sue Woodward, leader of the Labour opposition group, said the proposal was “a start” to ensuring residents across the whole district were seeing investment.
Cllr Woodward said:
“While I can’t pre-empt the decision by the council next week, I welcome the intention being shown in this recommendation to put aside over £1.25million for capital projects in Burntwood.
“It’s something that I and Labour colleagues have long argued for and has been ignored in the past.”
In 2019, Cllr Woodward’s bid to allocate £1million to Burntwood and £742,000 for the rural villages was rejected by the previous council.
But the Labour group leader said lobbying for her hometown and other areas of the district was now paying off.
“Earlier this year, Labour successfully bid for funding to be made available for a master-planning exercise to be done – which we called the Blueprint for Burntwood – during the budget-setting process and this is now happening.
“I’m grateful to my colleague, Cllr Dave Robertson – now our Lichfield MP – for all his efforts in negotiating to make this happen.
“This is long overdue and is welcome as a real signal of intent this time to start to level up funding across the whole district.”
After all that has been said over many years it has come down to selling Friasgate for house building. The councillors should hang their heads in shame. Once the money is spent there will be nothing left as a legacy for future generations. There will be nothing added to the fabric and culture of Lichfield.
This is not what was promised or the many surveys and plans that we, the citizens, paid for through our rates. The council seems to be in the thrall of the big housing developers. One can only wonder why.
Goodbye Lichfield, you have been sold down the river!
A profitable business was purchased under the pretence of the site becoming something wonderful for Lichfield. Now the site is being sold off and the council want this to be a good news story?
time and time again the people of Lichfield have been let down by their council and MP. It seems even in this new era of Labour not much has changed
Could have put some grass and a few benches here years ago. But then again how often does common sense prevail?
so much for the relaxing space promiste more retirement homes
What sort of housing?
7 Years and this is what is proposed. 7 years of ugly boards and the resulting derelict site.
7 years of failure and false promises, and now land sold for Housing.
Our City,s Heart ripped out.
How about reducing the council tax. How on earth can they keep gambling with our money?
Why is our new MP not asking or demanding levelling up funding for this site ? No need to sell it off Friar’s Gate was a drop in the ocean when it comes to money, get the missing funds and get the original plan built. As a last resort get Friel Hones to build the development they are top notch and make a lovely job, just look at the Angel Croft site for inspiration.
Disgraceful. Lichfield gets more ugly small homes in a prime city centre spot – how does that benefit Lichfield’s residents? Burntwood gets some small change that will make no impact at all – how does that benefit Burntwood? Yet here we have Labour rep Woodward talking it up as a good thing. They should all hang their heads in shame. Absolutely disgraceful. £5m is nothing in today’s world and won’t make a scrap of difference. A decade has passed and this is the best they can do?
Just goes to show what a shower of incompetent councillors we have ,just what skills do you need to be a
Councillor, because our lot are severely lacking in the imagination department
So after all the grand plans and money spent to develop this site into something special, what do we end up with? Retirement homes, more housing, How about a nice concrete multi storey car park we don’t have one of these, or better still why don’t we just leave the site and spend more time just talking about!
The key word in this article is ‘Could’ not ‘Promise to’, ‘Commit to’ or ‘Will’ which means that LDC could plant balls of Swiss cheese on the moon but will choose not to because the journey is a bit umpy bumpy!
We have Mike “what money” Wilcox to thank for this debacle. He created it. There should be an IQ test for would be councillors, there really should .
All these Councillors should be ashamed of what they have done to this once prosperous and lovely city. Cllr Pullen just preciding over desicration of green parkland to build a folley of a leisure centre in a residential area that we said was inappropriate. Yet here on Friarsgate an opportunity to redeem poor leadership and create a centre for sports, leisure and recreation with vision and transport links but alas no. The temptation of a capital receipt to reimburse your bad investment in a questionable upmarket bar and cinema was too good to miss. Never listens, never cares. Time we had independent and long established vetted local residents who work for the good of the city and genuinely consult, listen and act on our wishes.