Swimming baths demolition approved in housing plan

Langley Swimming Centre closed in July

Long-standing plans to demolish a former swimming baths and replace them with council housing have been approved.

Langley Swimming Centre in Oldbury will be knocked down to make way for the homes.

The centre closed alongside Smethwick Swimming Centre in July, days before the £73m Sandwell Aquatics Centre opened to the public.

The Sandwell centre, built for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, has one of two of the West Midlands' Olympic-sized swimming pools.

A separate planning application for the proposed homes on the Langley site would have to be prepared and approved before any building work can take place.

Earlier this year, Sandwell Council voted to push ahead with demolishing the two pools after it admitted it could no longer afford to keep hold of them.

Campaign fails to save mural

A petition was set up calling for a mural at Langley Swimming Centre to be protected.

Campaigners said the artwork was a “monument to the people of Sandwell who made it”.

The mural, made of 30,000 tiles and depicting fish, mermaids and the Greek god of the ocean, Poseidon, was unveiled in 1969 to coincide with the reopening of the baths after repair work.

More than 300 pupils from Albright High School were involved in its creation.

Sandwell Council said it would be impossible to save the artwork as it was built into the wall but a smaller mural would be saved and possibly displayed at the new aquatics centre.

A photographer would also be hired to document the mural before it is torn down, the council added.