Waterfront, Brierley Hill
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Black Country Urban Park
Black Country as an Urban Park is about the one million people who live there and their brave ambition to radically change the environment in which they live to enrich their lives and that of future generations.
Project Background
The Black Country has a radical agenda for change over the next 30 years, aimed at making it a dynamic and desirable place in which to live, work, invest and visit. Focused on sweeping environmental transformation, it integrates natural and urban environments and will realise the potential of the area’s natural, built and historic assets. Community involvement will be integral to our success.
- Strata Project video which forms part of the Black Country Urban Park bid (.WMV format 18.5Mb)
(please note the start and end of this video is intentionally silent)
Project Areas
‘Strata’: Major visitor and education attractions at Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve, Dudley, including stabilising and refurbishing the Seven Sisters limestone mines and subterranean canal basin. Visitors will travel underground by boat and rise to the surface by an inclined lift. A new interpretation centre will explain how 420 million years of geology led to the Black Country becoming the ‘workshop of the world’.
‘Canals and Waterways’: This will create new moorings, education and interpretation facilities along City Canals in Wolverhampton; improvements to open space and wildlife habitats, and making the canals safe and accessible to communities.
‘Green Bridge Park’: One of the largest urban open spaces in the region between West Bromwich and Walsall, including a new low carbon footprint visitor centre at Barr Beacon and expansion of the existing RSPB visitor centre in Sandwell Valley; also an inspiring new pedestrian bridge across the A41.
‘Living Landscape’: Enhanced and increased access to natural areas around the black country; involvement of over three-quarters of the one million population.
Workshop of the world
Investment in the Black Country will transform places and people, bring prosperity, and provide employment and learning opportunities: a better quality of life and lifestyle.
Our canals provide the backbone of our communities, interlinked by our network of natural green space borne from former pits, quarries and furnaces of the industrial revolution. Vast underground man-made limestone caverns and canals, which are potentially lost forever, will be opened up to create an amazing new visitor experience where you will travel by boat and rise to the surface by a funicular train. A new interpretation centre will explain how 420 million years of geology led to the Black Country becoming the ‘workshop of the world’.
Access for all
A ‘green bridge park’ will bring the countryside into our town centres – comprising of a 12-mile pedestrian, cycleway and bridleway with a visitor centre at the RSPB Reserve in the middle, linked by a new landmark bridge over the A41 and a low carbon footprint visitor centre at Barr Beacon offering fantastic views across the Midlands to Wales.
A million people are ready to lead the way on opening up these hidden assets for everyone to enjoy and learn from and create the Black Country as an urban park.
Key Links
© 2005 - 2008 Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, Council House, Priory Road, Dudley, West Midlands, DY1 1HF