£200m tram plans put before Government

Midland Metro

Plans for a seven-mile extension of the Midland Metro to the new DY5 Enterprise Zone have been presented to Transport Secretary Chris Grayling.

The £200m project would see the tram line extended from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill town centre, taking in Dudley Port, Dudley town centre and Merry Hill along the way.

The work was originally authorised in 2005 but a revised case has been presented to Grayling by new West Midlands Mayor Andy Street and Laura Shoaf, managing director of Transport for West Midlands.

Street said: “It is hard to overstate just how important this project is to the Black Country”.

Around £1.3bn is being invested in extending the tram system across the West Midlands over the next decade. The extension is one of several new spurs planned, including lines to the HS2 station at Eastside, and through Centenary Square to Edgbaston.

The Wednesbury-Brierley Hill extension will run along part of the former South Staffordshire railway with 17 proposed stops.

It will provide a direct rail link to Wolverhampton and Birmingham and – assuming other planned extensions are built – links to HS2 and Birmingham International Airport. Ultimately, plans are for the journey from Dudley town centre to the HS2 terminal to take 40 minutes.

The investment in transport, if approved, would be a boost to the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership’s plan to create 113,000 jobs by 2033.

Street added: “The business case shows that for every pound invested in this project, it will return £2.50 for the local economy.

“It will align employment, education, health and tourism along the corridor, stimulating investment in the Black Country and enabling the building of 50,000 homes and bringing 170 hectares of brownfield land.”

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