Monday, 9 December 2024

Merry Hill visit highlights

VISIT:

  • Dudley's premier, No 1 Canal, with magnificent views from Netherton Hill to the Clent Hills and Wychbury Hill - spoiled by the planned but still unbuilt tram viaduct.

  • View the possible site of Great Crested newts and therefore, perhaps, SSSI - planners want to build on this undoubted nature paradise, untouched by human hand or foot for decades.  A very important wetland habitat, even if there are no newts.

  • Inspect my vertical guerrilla garden that hides the rusty metal sheet piling holding up High Plateau - complete obliteration by the viaduct that thunders over the top.

  • View from the towpath the massive 23,000 sq metres of housing land, called highly forgotten High Plateau.  The tramway cuts through a corner, as in this plan:​
    WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

  • Mark the contrast between my efforts to hide the corroded looking iron wall and the site owner’s attempt round the corner.

  • Visit the Waterfront Marina and then on to view, from the road bridge, the mighty wasted and forgotten 120 Kms Black Country Railway and Round Oak Steel railway freight terminal in the near distance.  This section is freight only from Port Talbot but should have the Dudley Tram in the daytime to avoid the massive destruction of nature and housing land at Merry Hill.

  • View part of the route of the 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Super Highway that goes through Merry Hill from Saltwells NNR on its way to NW Wolverhampton.

  • View one station and the route of the 1990s magnificent monorail, built privately by the Richardson brothers but, possibly, snookered/sabotaged by Centro which only wanted the Dudley Tram/WBHE at Merry Hill.

  • Centro (now TfWM) wanted their tram alongside Dudley’s premier No 1 Canal.  It seems, they did not want the upstart, Richardson monorail to spoil things for the tram, if it had been connected to a newly re-opened London to Edinburgh railway in the Black Country.

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