The National Park would stretch from boroughs such as Dudley and Sandwell to Walsall and Wolverhampton and would be the UK’s 16th official national park alongside others such as the Lake District and Snowdonia.
A proposal that may once have seemed out of reach is now being spoken into existence after plea’s for a new, urban National Park in the West Midlands region has been welcomed by a government commissioned report.
The interim findings of the Government’s Landscapes Review has welcomed the vision to boost green spaces in the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) area, which was first unveiled last year.
If the concept comes into the play then the national park will span across seven cities, creating hundreds of miles of green space, conservation areas and new cycle roots.
Landscapes working on the vision suggest that there would be a region of a thousand cycle paths, footpaths and a thousand parks and lakes.
The proposal was drawn up by Kathryn Moore, Professor of Landscape Architecture at Birmingham City University, Julian Glover, who lead the independent review, said support for the West Midlands scheme would back up a desire for “the encouragement of a wider range of non-designated systems of landscape protection.
“A West Midlands National Park would be a vehicle to help drive social, economic and environmental change in the region, profoundly changing its identity.
“It is a vision of what the West Midlands can become when the significance of its landscape is properly realised and celebrated. Above all, this proposal’s central purpose is real transformation.”
The plans were showcased last week in front of delegates from across the globe during the two-day ‘SATURN’ event held at Birmingham City University.
Not the obvious choice…
West Midlands being the home to the next national park seems a bit out of reach in most peoples opinions, a region associated with city buildings and industry could surely never have the scope for such a project…
This is the land of the blast furnace, the seat of the industrial revolution where the smokestacks rise high and the wheels of heavy industry grind and clatter.
So it is hardly surprising that in some quarters, Professor Kathryn Moore’s plan to plonk the UK’s 16th national park here has been met with a mixture of mockery and disdain.
The landscape architect wants us to take a step back and reconsider how we view the region, arguing that the cities and towns of the future will be far better places to live and work if they are given an altogether greener outlook.
Her proposals are undoubtedly ambitious, but perhaps not as far fetched as some may suggest.
Birmingham has more than 8,000 acres of green spaces and parks – more than any other city in Europe – and has more miles of canals than Venice.
Travel a few miles out of any of our town or city centres and you are in England’s green and pleasant land.
Yet all too often these places are overlooked, almost as if they are overshadowed by the tangled road networks and the remnants of our industrial past.
Prof Moore’s says the benefits to her plan are many, with new green spaces serving as a driving force for social, economic and environmental change in the region.
Forests, orchards, lakes and conservation areas?
These are not the first things that spring to mind when most people think of the West Midlands, the sprawling conurbation that for years, spread itself across the centre of the country under a giant cloud of factory smoke.
This is the land of the blast furnace, the seat of the industrial revolution where the smokestacks rise high and the wheels of heavy industry grind and clatter.
So it is hardly surprising that in some quarters, Professor Kathryn Moore’s plan to plonk the UK’s 16th national park here has been met with a mixture of mockery and disdain.
The landscape architect wants us to take a step back and reconsider how we view the region, arguing that the cities and towns of the future will be far better places to live and work if they are given an altogether greener outlook.
Her proposals are undoubtedly ambitious, but perhaps not as far fetched as some may suggest.
