Walk the Dowery Dell Trail in our Golden Green Triangle!

 USE OUR NEW W MIDLANDS NATIONAL PARK OR, LOSE IT TO CONCRETE, BRICK AND TARMAC

My route for the Dowery Dell unofficial Trail (for the adventurously spirited young at heart) through Doctor’s Coppice, is this.  It is the least well defined/obvious section from Hunnington to Longbridge:

HIGHLIGHTS to tick off as you walk through Doctor’s Coppice - 

• 50-year-old wood with dry streams but one ditch with, surprisingly, a little water;

• a triangular tree formed ‘door’ to go through;

• an enormous, ancient, coppiced oak tree and,

• a great concrete block leftover from the M5 construction.;

THE ROUTE

From the narrow, twisting trail in Round Saw Croft (owned by Gary Colin Mabley who has given permission for walking), you come to Newtown Lane where there is a culverted (dry) stream bed under Newtown Lane near its junction with Yew Tree Lane and the road called Frankley Green (but Oxwood Lane on the OS Standard online map).

At the edge of the tarmac, up the road to your right is the start of a Roadside Verge Nature Reserve marked by a red and white wooden post. On the SE side of the old bridge, drop immediately down into the biggest of three ditches to come before the public footpath through the M5 subway.  Step over two strands of low, loose barbed wire. Climb up the narrow, short but steep ridge-bank that broadens out between two (dry) stream valleys that can be seen either side of you.  Keep to this higher ground, gently uphill and head towards the conifer plantation that you must keep in sight to your right as you walk on.  Cross over a log, then down and up the second ditch followed by walking through a triangle ‘door’ formed by a fallen silver birch tree leaning on a hazel.  One at a time.  Keep in the broadleaf woodland but near to the conifer wood on your right; over the third ditch and immediately walk on top of a low bank, with ditch on right, to take you to the edge of the woodland alongside an open field.  Keep this field in sight to your right but stay in the open wood.  Find a large oak that may have been coppiced over 100 years ago.  Keep straight on.  Then lookout for an isolated short section of old post and rail fencing.  Go to the right of it.  Then head for an enormous block of concrete with, perhaps, a blue engineering brick I placed on it this morning.

You will then see a gap in the old broken fence and the subway straight in front and below you.  Success!  There follows 3.5 Kms of easy walking to Longbridge High Street with its attractive R Rea landscaping where the Austin motor works once stood.  Return home by bus via Selly Oak Triangle for the no 11.  The walk is 8 to 10 Kms from Halesowen town centre to Longbridge shopping centre, depending on how you get to Blue Bird Park to pick up the trail.

WALKING IT FROM HUNNINGTON CRICKET GROUND - park in their car park with permission at the bar in the clubhouse.  There is also a bus service - 147 between Halesowen and Bromsgrove.  Please don’t park in Station Drive.

One route to the Halesowen Railway and our 1883 opened single track railway line is through (permission granted) Hunnington cricket ground opposite the Blue Bird sweet factory in Bromsgrove Road.  KEEP OFF STATION DRIVE.

Walk round the cricket ground boundary, through the attractive open woodland to the public right of way parallel to the caravan storage park that is in the railway cutting, to as far as the Cherry memorial bench. There is no permission to the viaduct on the track bed.  However, we have permission on Gary Mabley’s land from the former Dowery Dell viaduct to the M5 subway.  It is steep and rough at the long since removed viaduct to climb onto Gary’s railway line.  Continue walking to the M5 subway.  You will be maintaining a 137-year-old tradition of walking the railway.  And until the 1960s, risking the 40 shillings fine for trespassing on the railway and being rudely interrupted in your stroll by yelling train drivers to “Get off the bloody line!”

Tim Weller   23 May 2020

Petition for "no built development but paths opened"

Dear Eve and friends, What about this wording for a 38 Degrees petition? We had the August 2019 announcement by the Combined Authority, of the West Midlands National Park.  We are petitioning for: Sign if you agree with: NO BUILT DEVELOPMENT BUT PATHS OPENED - for walking, woodland, farming and fishing in our 32 sq Kms Goldern Green Triangle. Explanation: 1. Our triangle of Halesowen countryside to be the first to be included in the new W Mids National Park. 2. The Clent Hills Country Park to be extended over ALL our 32 sq Kms Golden Green Triangle, which includes the 1,000 feet high Clent Hills and its foothills to the west of M5 between Jcts 3 and 4. 3. This, to stop built development on fresh land that must be dedicated to farming, woodland, fishing ponds and recreation and NOT built development. 4. Also, the National Park triangle has the Halesowen Railway trackbed.  Other footpaths link into the railway path as the Dowery Dell Trail to extend the existing path from Longbridge, via the path subway beneath M5 at Frankley to Illey Lane and Manor Way. 5. The Illey Lane squeeze through and ivy-covered carpet in places, secret passage footpath to be a Public Right of Way (PROW). 6. The Halesowen to M5 subway section of the railway path, already unofficially walked in places, to be also a new PROW. Tim

20.6.19 Everything but the kitchen sink on our urban railway lines!

Hi Andy

Thanks very much for your email.  Much appreciated.

From what I have seen or not seen in my 71 years, the railway, the transport and the green lobbying groups; plus the railway industry itself and trade unions, have never fought to stop the destruction and selling off of railway lines that Beeching rightly closed as being uneconomic in the 1960s.  Beeching never suggested that they be obliterated in the way that even urban railway lines have been.  I would think that Beeching never wanted the lines sold off to any old Tom, Dick or Harriet.  Unfortunately, I don't think he recommended that they all be mothballed in case of future use.  Hence, over these last fifty years, our councillors have given planning permission for every kind of building imaginable - and roads - to go on the lines.  I have estimated that we must have lost over 100 Kms of railway lines in the West Midlands in this way.  The 6 Kms Halesowen Railway line to Longbridge has been sold off to private individuals that makes it much more difficult to reopen as a cycle-walkway, without compulsory purchase that is unheard of for a cycle-walkway.

" the various ‘rail enthusiast train groups’ " are never campaigning groups in the more assertive, constructive and helpful way that I think I am.  They all seem to be passive, deferential, apathetic and would never dream of vigorously pointing out the error of their ways - ie, the errors of transport professional officers and the councillors.  The councillors, in particular, show very little interest in getting about in ways other than the car.  They all leave transport matters to Transport HQ at 16 Summer Lane.

In addition, the rail enthusiast groups are as equally keen on trams, tram trains and train trams as they are on the more frequently seen, ordinary, trains.  They would not dream of opposing a tram extension, even on a rare, mothballed, the UK's only, mainline, half finished railway.

I WILL VOTE FOR YOU, IF ...

Ray, you can satisfy me over these questions.  Please put your answers under each bullet point in a different colour font: 

• What did you do in the late 80s/90s over the 16 Kms KBH motorway bypass?
• What did you do over opposing the 87 Kms WOM in the 90s?
• Do you have any kind of track record in opposing the obliteration of our Black Country and Birmingham railway lines?
• Did you do anything to oppose the building of roads, homes, trading estates and retail units on these railways?
• Did you do anything to oppose the house being built on the southern side of Manor Way (Halesowen Bypass) on the Halesowen Railway line in 1976 or 1977?
• Have you been a member of the Planning or Development Control Committee when these railway lines came up for new building?
• When you were a councillor in the past, have you ever been a member of the PTA?
• From your recollection, has the PTA ever been active in opposing the obliteration of railway lines in its area?
• Has the PTA ever opposed the building of any road scheme?
• Did you do anything when you saw or were told or found out that the Lapal Canal restoration in Leasowes Park was going wrong?
• What has your Council done about putting the matter right, since your party regained power?
• What are your reasons for supporting the Black Country Tramline going on the Black Country Railway line to mean that half of the 120 Kms will continue to be wasted with it being a test track for Very Light Rail, an innovation centre, a trail of trees, Himalayan Balsam and undergrowth - and a cycle-walkway in south Staffordshire?
• Can you recall anything coming before Dudley Council about the building of roads, homes and businesses on the southern end, in Brierley Hill of the former Brierley Hill, Wombourne, Wolverhampton Railway?
• As a councillor or a Dudley resident, did you do anything about stopping the unnecessary movement of the Grange roundabout two or three metres to the west, last decade?
• Did you approve the loss of the second of the two left turning lanes from into Manor Way to help morning rush hour traffic eastbound to the M5 at Jct 3?
• Have you done anything about the absence of landscaping on this only major, 30 metre diameter roundabout that does not even have a blade of grass or a single weed on it?
• Has there ever been a Cabinet member responsible for watching over and improving bus and train travel and promoting cycling/waking in Dudley MBC?
• Will you ask Cllr Karen to please reinstate the tetra-pak food and drinks recycling bank at the Birmingham Street car park in Halesowen?
• What do you think I mean by the MMA/TfWM/WMCA continuing the tradition of all our eggs in one basket transport policy?
• Would you be prepared to advocate publicly and privately my suggestions, below?:

Please, can our Black Country LEP do anything to further these enterprising ideas of mine?

• 6 Kms Halesowen to Longbridge railway line to be compulsory purchased from the individual landowners to allow a new public right of way to be created on the 4 Kms, former single track, from Manor Way, Halesowen to the M5.  This, to link with the existing right of way in the pedestrian subway under the M5.  The Frankley to Longbridge section is nearly complete, with St Modwen working on the last section to the smart, new Longbridge Shopping Centre.
• 18.5 Kms Black Country Puddle Strewn Mudway to be converted to Black Country Cycle-Walkway by tarmac applied on the full length to make it fit for purpose.  To be used by cycle commuters who have given up on the car and jam packed trains, horse riders, walkers and all others needing non-motorised help to get about.  The OS Explorer map think it is already used as such!
• 6.7 Kms of the Black Country Tramline and 2 Kms for VLR innovation centre and test track to be converted to its former use as a 120 Kms railway "of national strategic significance" (Network Rail and DfT) - and, for the Alstom hydrogen electric train to provide the regional passenger service between Worcester and Derby.  This, to allow us to compete more effectively with the honey pot that is Brum, to help relieve the very long standing train congestion at Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Basement Station and, to give a new direct commuter railway between our four boroughs and Snow Hill via Bescot.  We then have Derby to Devon via Dudley; Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill and the new DY5 Enterprise Zone.   Both Landranger and Explorer OS maps think it is already in use for trains!

These three projects put the Black Country on the UK map for sensible enterprise, initiative and leadership.  They reduce road and railway congestion, obesity and ill health, human induced climate change and resource depletion.

I look forward to much good news over these helpful, constructive and positive suggestions for progress - in the right direction!

Best wishes and many thanks, Ray