NCR number is still missing - famous John Grimshaw told me on 24.3.25!

Can you, please, help with funding to allow our 18 Kms Black Country Active Travel Route to be used in its entirety, please?  Only 5 Kms in Dudley borough is a dirt bikers, quad bikers, 4x4 paradise!  3 metre wide and tarmac would help to make all the difference - but only you lovely Londoners have the money!  And, our influential West Midlands Mayor, Richard Parker.

MORE DETAILS:

1. An NCR number is needed for the cycle-walkway from Fens Pool Avenue, Brierley Hill to NW Wolverhampton.  For many years the Ordnance Survey, on their Explorer map, has it down as a "Traffic-free cycle route".  Other names are Valley Parkway,  Monarch's Way, Smestow Valley Walk, Kingswinford Railway Walk, S Staffordshire Railway Path and The Mudway (my name for Dudley's 5 Kms section!).
2. Please Alice, do get the funds to widen the full length to the three metres width, Sustran standard and tarmacked, too.  We must go on asking for it to be accessible to all self-powered trikes, bikes, unicycles and horses.  Share with care with cyclists always slowing and giving way to walkers and horses.
3. Only constant, intermittent requests and reminders to the decision makers will ever get the full 18 Kms upgraded to a usable standard for all fossil-fuel free users, including horse riders.
4. Councillors, who I thought are meant to set policy for the officers to implement, must ensure that their decisions are carried out.
5. It is 18 Kms from Fens Pool Avenue/A461 to Aldersley Jct canal towpath.  Former councillor Chris Barnett and I are asking for the full length to be seen as so important for commuting, leisure and travel because of its strategic position, connecting two halves of the Black Country via South Staffordshire.
6. It seems to have been in use since the 1980s for active travel but neglected by Dudley MBC for their 5 Kms.
7. South Staffs DC were magnificent in tarmacking their section.  The smallest council has set the two big boys a superb example.
8. Active Travel England and Beccy Marston who is Active Travel Commissioner, WMCA are crucial players to be influenced, reminded over what has to be done and kept up to the mark!
9. The route goes through three nature reserves: Smestow Valley Nature Reserve, Barrow Hill NR and Pensnett NR.; two former railway station cafes and one Woodland Trust property called Himley Plantation at Wombourne.

Part of the Dudley section is through the middle, below.  It is OS Explorer map marked as 'traffic-free cycle route':

Best wishes and thanks for any funding, PLEASE!  40 years have shot by so far, and my legs are weller wearing out!!