Nobody knows what the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is, according to the organisation's new portfolio lead for housing.

Councillor Mike Bird, leader of Walsall Council and the WMCA's portfolio holder for housing and land delivery, led his first meeting of the board on Monday.

Amongst the items on the agenda were social housing and the latest update to the Spatial Investment and Delivery Plan, as well as the potential of abandoned retail outlets to ease housing pressures.

However, making an overarching point toward the end of the meeting, Cllr Bird said that people need to know what the WMCA is before they can really start working toward their goal of 215,000 houses by 2031.

Walsall Council leader Mike Bird
Walsall Council leader Mike Bird

“That’s our task. To build 215,000 houses," he said to the board.

"And what I want to see is pace. I want to see pace with bulk. And at the end of the day in two months’ time we can have our meeting and say ‘right, since we last met we’ve done this, this, this and this', and get some good news out there.

“And also, I think it’s important that the branding is done properly.

"That if we get a site where the combined authority have assisted, we need to have a sign that says ‘in conjunction with the combined authority’.

"Because who the bloody hell knows who the combined authority are, apart from the people sitting around here? Nobody. Nobody.

"We did this with city challenge, we’ve done this with other economical developments, and we need to make sure that we’re promoting our cause.

"Because it’s silent advertising. Somebody will then knock on our door, a developer, and say ‘oh, hang on a minute, if they can do that then we might be able to get some help’.

"Then all of a sudden it’s not just one-way traffic, we can actually do something from them coming to us, rather than us just going to them."