"I rode my railway walk route again today. I'm sorry to report that the Dudley section is now even worse than when we rode it last year. Someone is using the section by the quarry next to the water treatment plant as a 4x4, off-road driving route. It's an absolute mess. Utterly disgraceful."
MORE DETAIL:
This refers to the UK's most important urban-rural-urban Black Country Active Route, aka derisively but accurately, the Mudway and the "Smestow Valley Leisure Route". This title downplays the importance of the route. It wrongly implies that it is a short, insignificant, unimportant route for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. In fact, it is part of the UK's very first cycle-walkway for commuter, business and leisure use that, I believe, beats the more famous and prestigious Bristol to Bath Cycle-Walkway to that distinction.
It proves how our professional transport planners lack vision and are unable to see the bigger picture that is vital to be able to prioritise active travel spending. They prefer fancy road schemes for cyclists rather than properly and professionally maintaining and upgrading the bridleways and cycleways that they already have. They splashed out the money on a new scheme in the 1980s to link Brierley Hill with NW Wolverhampton and then, in the case of Dudley only, didn't bother to maintain and upgrade or, even to link it in to Russells Hall Hospital.
The Black Country Railway has similarly been broken up when it was officially called a railway "of national strategic significance"
because, again, transport planners did have tunnel vision but lacked the rather essential, wider vision.
Your help to correct this misconception and to raise the importance of the 20 Kms route for business, commuting and leisure use is much appreciated. It is one practical, positive way to fight the, equally forgotten, Climate Emergency and to be seen to be actually doing something about it!
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