West Midlands ‘urban national park’ would have a rich story to tell
THIS year is the seventieth anniversary of the act allowing the establishment of national parks in England.
There are now ten of them, mainly in the uplands and moorlands, but also including the Broads and the New Forest.
There are also two in Scotland and three in Wales.
There are none in the West Midlands, the nearest to us being the Peak District National Park, lying mainly between Manchester and Sheffield, but just making it into
North Staffordshire.
If landscape architect Kathryn Moore, of Birmingham City University, has her way all that could change.
For some time she has been promoting her vision of a West Midlands National Park encompassing the Black Country, Birmingham and Coventry.
The Forest of Arden could also be included.
Personally, I would also want to encompass the area to the west of the Black Country, out towards, and perhaps including, the Severn Valley and Wyre Forest.
The idea is not as outlandish as it may first appear.
In recent years, we have had the Black Country as Urban Park initiative, as well as the possibility of an international geopark based in Dudley. The Wren’s Nest is an internationally important geological site and a National Nature Reserve.
Birmingham has another National Nature Reserve, Sutton Park.
The rivers Rea, Cole, Tame and Stour meander through Birmingham and the Black Country, and the Blyth flows out of Solihull.
These, and other natural features, are masked by urban development, but can be revealed by sympathetic landscaping and management.
Kathryn Moore is quoted as saying: “Everybody talks about how this landscape is ugly or whatever, but we can give it a new identity, and in so doing re-imagine what it is to live in cities in a way that lives up to UN sustainable development goals.”
As well as revealing the landscape and natural history of the area, a national park would have rich historical and cultural stories to tell.
From the Industrial Revolution and the Lunar Society, to the power of the Dudley family in Tudor times, and from Symphony Hall symbolising a musical heritage from Mendelssohn to Black Sabbath, and to Birmingham Jazz festival, there are many good reasons for people to visit the West Midlands.
The proponents will have to act quickly though to have the first urban national park: London is already taking forward the same idea.
The idea of a national park is not as outlandish as it may first appear
Peter Shirley
Peter Shirley is a West Midlandsbased conservationist