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A council is expecting to make £625,000 less from planning applications this year because of a drop in ‘large’ housing developments.

Sandwell Council said the plunge in income was because of a lack of developers coming forward to build across the Black Country borough since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Labour-run council also blamed the lack of available land across the borough as well as the amount of contaminated land that was putting off developers.

Cllr Peter Hughes, cabinet member for regeneration and infrastructure, told a council scrutiny meeting the significant drop in income was due to an “ongoing dearth of larger planning applications” since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

“A few years ago, pre-pandemic, we would have got larger planning applications ta

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