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\n A move to demolish an ageing sports pavilion to make for \u00a31m new changing rooms has received the backing of a council\u2019s planners.\n <\/p>\n
The 70-year-old pavilion at the Hydes Road playing fields in Wednesbury will be demolished and replaced by Sandwell Council as part of plans to improve facilities.<\/p>\n
The plans for Hydes Road now approved by the Black Country local authority include a new pavilion with changing rooms, showers, toilets, a community room and a kitchen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The project was expected to have been completed by March 2025 but the deadline was then pushed back to January 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the latest update on the \u2018levelling up\u2019 project shows the council expects the work to be \u2018mostly\u2019 finished by March 2026 \u2013 a full year later than planned \u2013 and the new changing rooms would still remain out of use.<\/p>\n
The demolition and rebuild is currently expected to cost at least \u00a31.1million.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ageing building, which is only now used on Sunday mornings by local football teams, has become damaged by rot and rainwater and requires \u201csignificant investment\u201d according to the council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The football pitches would be improved by the summer, the council also said, with the car park not resurfaced until next year when most of the pavilion work has finished.<\/p>\n
Sandwell Council said last year that the pavilion rebuild would be the most expensive option and take the longest \u2013 with the new pavilion even smaller than the current one \u2013 but the building would have a lifespan of 30 years rather than between five and 10 years.<\/p>\n
The original Hydes Road scheme included a complete refurbishment of the pavilion, creating FA-compliant changing facilities, new toilets, showers and a community space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These plans were approved but later surveys found \u201csignificant issues\u201d with the integrity of the pavilion\u2019s walls and said the building had only a \u201climited\u201d lifespan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The original scheme, which included refurbishing the existing dilapidated building rather than demolishing and rebuilding it, would still have cost \u00a31million.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hydes Road is one of four green spaces earmarked for improvements in the council\u2019s \u2018levelling up\u2019 work which also includes the open spaces at Balls Hill, Wyntor Lane and Lakeside and Norbury Road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The project also includes the 600-home Friar Park \u2018urban village\u2019 and improvements to Wednesbury town centre and the Millennium Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A move to demolish an ageing sports pavilion to make for \u00a31m new changing rooms has received the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[22440,22441,855,9163,22439,748,9444,1354,393,9453,4884,14987,269,12,3669,9440,93,16823,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-78058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-102-5","9":"tag-102-5-fm","10":"tag-birmingham","11":"tag-black-country","12":"tag-brierley-hill","13":"tag-britain","14":"tag-dab","15":"tag-dudley","16":"tag-england","17":"tag-fm","18":"tag-great-britain","19":"tag-halesowen","20":"tag-music","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-online","23":"tag-radio","24":"tag-sport","25":"tag-stourbridge","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}