A Million People: 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.
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.
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 400 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