THE decision to turn a former vape shop into a new HMO was postponed after neighbours said it would cause a “bedlam.”

Sandwell Council’s planning committee voted to delay the decision on converting an empty, crumbling building in Bloomfield Road, Tipton, into a nine-bed house of multiple occupation (HMO) and three new shops to give councillors a chance to visit the site.

Concerned neighbours said they were worried the new HMO would ‘stop them from feeling safe in their homes.’ The objector said parking issues had been a constant problem when the vape shop was open – saying it was often “bedlam” on that section of the busy Bloomfield Road. 

“I want to still feel safe in the home that I have lived in for 25 years,” the Tipton resident told councillors. 

“I don’t want noise and anti-social behaviour and people parking outside my property.”

Ahead of the meeting, concerned neighbours said seven parking spaces would not be enough for a nine-bed HMO and three new shops. Objections were also raised over the HMO being “out of character” for the area which would also result in a loss of light and privacy and create noise and anti-social behaviour problems. 

Sandwell Council said it would restrict what businesses could open in the three new units – prohibiting a late-night takeaway from opening – and cutting potential opening hours to 6pm during the week and 4pm at weekends. 

The authority’s highways department said the seven parking spaces included in the application by Sandeep Kaur Jawanda were “adequate.”

The original application asked for permission to build a two-storey extension and convert the building into a 12-bed HMO but the plans were later reduced to nine rooms. The council’s planners said the original move would have caused problems for neighbours but the now proposed single-storey would not cause any issues. Highways colleagues at Sandwell Council raised no objections over the number of proposed parking spaces.

Sandwell Council’s planning committee meets in Oldbury on October 23 to make a decision. 

A plan for a 10-bed HMO and new shops in Bloomfield Road was put forward last year but was then replaced with the 12-bed plan – which was then reduced to a nine-bed HMO after talks with the council. The application for the former vape shop included three new retail units, new shop fronts, a single-storey extension, a two-storey rear extension – which has now been scrapped – and a loft conversion to make for the 12 new HMO rooms across three floors. The application had included no parking spaces.

The new flats would be accessed via Hipkins Street off Bloomfield Road.

Before becoming a vape shop, the Bloomfield Road building was home to the Moto X motorcycle shop. A cannabis factory, thought to be worth around £500,000, was discovered by West Midlands Police at the shop following a raid in 2013. It was believed to have been among the biggest discovery of drugs by police in the region that year.

A planning application to build nine new flats on a patch of grass next to the former vape shop was approved by Sandwell Council in 2021 but never carried out. This came just months after the council also approved plans to build 27 homes on the former Roman Mosaic tile factory site.

The landmark Tipton site, with its well-known ‘Roman’ inscribed chimney, had become a target for vandals, arsonists and fly-tippers before the council approved plans to demolish the majority of the former factory site in 2018.

Just last month, Sandwell Council approved a plan by Kevin Parkes from Coseley Properties to build four three-bed houses on the ‘eyesore’ land next to the proposed HMO.