Plans to demolish Red Cow pub submitted to Dudley Council

The Red Cow, in Edge Street, Coseley, has has been closed for several years. In 2015 armed police were called to the boozer over reports of gunfire.

Developers now want to replace the pub with five homes.

In a design and access statement submitted to Dudley Council by Architecture and Interior Design said: “The proposal is for the erection of one detached dwelling with two sets of semi-detached houses with a total of five dwellings with parking.” and landscaping.

“The proposed units have been sized and arranged to meet planning guidelines and would aesthetically stitch the street scene together. The proposal will regenerate the land and provide much needed family dwellings to the area.” Ten parking spaces would also be included.

It is not the first time the site has been earmarked for development.

A previous application to turn the former pub into a 14-bed HMO was met with an almost 400-signature petition from residents calling for the application to be rejected.

Residents at the time claimed the HMO would lead to an increase in crime and their properties would be overlooked.

The newest application hopes to demolish the existing pub and build two sets of semi-detached houses as well as one detached home, with a total of five dwellings.

According to the design and access statement, the single stand-alone property would include two living rooms, a dining/kitchen, and a toilet on the ground floor, three bedrooms and one bathroom on the first floor, and a bedroom on the second floor.

West Midlands Police has said it does not support the scheme due to parking issues, an increase in vehicle crime in the area and added police demand and a communal pathway at the rear of the site.

A report from a member of the force's crime reduction unit said they had concerns about two parking spaces for each home with Edge Street being "pretty small" and street parking described as "at a premium".

"My other concern is if these four‐bedroom houses are used as HMOs in the future, parking will become impossible with each four‐bedroom house then becoming four separate households which will see an even bigger increase in parking," they added.

"This would see off-road parking out of sight of the household which would then have no natural surveillance which would then see an increase in vehicle crime.

"There is also a rear access pathway between two of the plots, this goes against Secure by Design Homes 2023 guidelines due to 85 per cent of burglaries take place at the rear of a property. These communal pathways are also an area which attracts anti-social behaviour as they are out of sight."

The police said if the scheme is approved, they recommend as series of measures fitting intruder alarms, CCTV in all corridors as well as entrance and exit points on the ground floor and secure perimeter fencing around the property.