Another First for Sandwell

Sandwell MBC has for some years now been carrying out a dual policy at the Sandwell Valley (so called) Country Park. One is to destroy as much of it as possible (just read my earlier posts) and the other is to urbanise the remainder.

The latest piece of urbanisation (dreadful word, I know, but so is what Sandwell's doing to the Valley, so it seems somehow quite appropriate) is to convert what was once a field into a car park.

The Sandwell Special Car Park Secretariat had planned for the conversion to occupy the three busiest months of the year, ie June to August, but it is isn't finished yet. It looked as though it was, but then it looked as though it wasn't - a bit like the concrete steps which aren't far away from the new concrete car park. Those steps appeared complete, after well over a year's hard toil and graft, but for weeks they remained off limits to would-be users, and then someone started drilling big holes in them and inserting handrails. 

So it is with the new concrete car park. After months of scraping off the grass surface and replacing with a shale and sand base and concrete blocks, all work shuddered to a halt; the chaps and their equipment disappeared, and the thing looked as though it had been finished. 

But, no !! Or, at least, maybe not.

After a couple more weeks, a new fence started to appear down the side of the the internal road about 5 yards away from the old one. 

Then, the old one was removed, thereby making the new car park about 5 yards wider than it was before. 'Laudable' you may say, 'They can get lots more cars in the new car park now.'

Well, no!! At least, not yet.

The problem is that the extra 5 yard strip doesn't have any of the concrete blocks in it - nor the shale and sand base installed. It hasn't even got the grass off it yet.

What it does have is a line of cones where the old fence was, to stop people trying to park on it.

So one is left wondering what, exactly, the Sandwell Special Car Park Secretariat has in mind for this added strip.

Obviously it is not going to become more car park. I was only joking about that. No one, not even Sandwell, would be daft enough (would they? Let's not take a vote on it...) to make a new car park and then start a secondary operation extending it even before the first bit was opened. I mean they would have to get all of the chaps back again with all of their equipment and close the place down again for, maybe, another 3 months, while the extra bit was concreted. No that would be just plain silly.

My thinking, and I don't think it can be too far off the mark, is that the Sandwell Special Car Park Secretariat, and the Sandwell Special Strategic and Forward Planning Secretariat have been liaising on this, and plan for the extra strip to become the Sandwell Valley Country Park Cricketing Centre of Excellence - or cricket pitch, to you and me. 

Now, OK, I'll grant you that some of the boundaries would be a tad short, but, on the plus side, the length would be simply wonderful. 

So, we could be on the brink of yet another first for Sandwell, and a glorious one at that. Remember it wasn't all that long ago that, despite the fact that WBA FC is only just up the road, Sandwell put up a huge coloured sign which proclaimed 'The Home of Football - Here in Sandwell.' And that was only on the back of a part-time 5-a-side football pitch and the adjacent playing fields.

Just think what the Sandwell Special Sign Secretariat could do with this. 

'''Forget Headingley. The Oval?  Nah  ::  The Home of Cricket - Here in Sandwell'''

Hoorah !!!!

That's got to be worth another Green Flag and an OBE for some tired old Councillor who's a friend of someone.

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