4 - Top professor backs the Black Country

Archived news release from 2007

 

Professor John Burland has backed the Black Country Urban Park bid to win The People’s £50 million contest. Professor Burland, who has worked as an advisor to engineers and geologists in Dudley throughout the bid, has expressed his excitement around the project in an area he calls the “mecca of limestones and fossils.”

 

The Black Country Urban Park bid includes the creation of a major visitor and education attraction at Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve. The work would include 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’.

 

And Professor Burland, of Imperial College, London, has explained why he feels the Black Country bid deserves to claim the money.

 

 

“I am very, very excited about this scheme because there are so many different aspects. The Black Country is where the industrial revolution began and this is where the wealth of Britain started.

 

“This scheme would educate people about this history and of course the geological aspects which are fascinating. Geologically Dudley has been the mecca of limestone and in a 200 yard walk through the mine you can walk through 400 million years of time.”

 

Professor Burland claimed the proposed visitors attraction would attract civil engineers from across the world as well as being an education for youngsters of all ages.

 

“It would provide not only fantastic educational facilities for school children it would also be wonderful to train civil engineers because it will all be preserved. I would certainly use it at Imperial College in London and as there is nowhere else in the world that this could be done I would expect visitors to come from overseas. The work in Dudley would be equally significant and iconic to other landmarks I have worked on.”

 

The professor is now hoping the bid, which will be featured on ITV at 11pm on Thursday night will be successful in the public vote which will determine where the £50 million goes. And he urged people to get behind the Black Country bid, adding:

 

“The competition is about regeneration and if people want to see regeneration then they must vote for the Black Country. If successful, cutting edge engineering will be used that will rank with any of the great projects taking place anywhere in the world.”

 

Professor Burland oversaw an 11 year project to carefully excavate 30 tonnes of soil from the foundations under the Leaning Tower of Pisa’s northern side. The Tower, which now stands at a 5 degree tilt and should remain standing for another 400 years, was straightened by a full 45 centimetres. Meanwhile Professor Burland was also involved in the extension of the London Underground Jubilee line, ensuring that the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben were unharmed by the tunnelling taking place underneath them.

 

People are urged to get behind the Black Country bid to win the £50 million from the Big Lottery Fund. If successful in the ITV vote, the exciting environmental project will reopen the vast caverns and underground canals in Dudley to create one of Europe’s largest underground attractions.

 

Voting on-line is now open at www.thepeoples50million.org.uk while telephone voting lines will open from December 7 to 10, following the ITV programmes.