Councillors praise "sensational" Castle Hill plans

12:00pm Tuesday 12th March 2013 in News

Artist impression of the new Dudley Zoo welcome plaza which was unanimously approved Artist impression of the new Dudley Zoo welcome plaza which was unanimously approved

COUNCILLORS have praised “sensational” multi-million pound plans to regenerate Castle Hill, creating a new joint entrance for the town’s trio of top tourist attractions.

Members of Dudley Council’s Development Control committee unanimously approved the £10.1m plans to provide a single entrance and 600 car parking facility for Dudley Zoo, the Black Country Living Museum and Dudley Canal Trust, as well as a new colourful, welcome plaza entrance, complete with life size animal sculptures for the zoo.

Councillor Qadar Zada, said: “This application puts Dudley at the centre stage and particularly the zoo development.

“I think the gateway to Dudley is the location of the zoo and Black Country Living Museum, so it is nice to see this exciting development happening in this territory.

“This will look sensational, a really good facility and will make Dudley a tourist attraction for the future.”

Work has already got underway on creating the new access roads off Tipton Road, with the work on the joint entrance expected to start in late spring / early summer which will be ready for business towards the end of 2014.

The site, which incorporates Peggy’s Meadow, will be linked by a pedestrian recreational route, complete with sculptures and natural water features and will also include a manned tourist hub in the centre where visitors will be able to gain information on all three attractions.

Committee chairman, cllr Rachel Harris praised the “carefully thought through application” adding: “We want to ensure visitors come in and stay for as long as possible and have a good experience at our tourist attractions. It has been a long time coming.”

Comments(5)

steve Briscoe says...
2:03pm Tue 12 Mar 13

if you look at the plans on face value , it does not do nothing to improve the area or the jobs prospects of the people in the town. it consist of 600 paid parking spaces, a new entrance to the zoo and a visitor centre and road connecting the 3 attractions .. getting a million vistors a year? pie in the sky.
Its a tragady that the Hippodrome Theater was not included in the scheme as it could generate a million pounds extra to the local economy in Dudley town and castlegate. In our view 10 million pounds would have been better spent on Dudley town centre which is in dire need of real regeneration. using words like sensational is abit over the top by our councillors..

Dudley regeneration Group

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Pensnett Wammel says...
7:35am Wed 13 Mar 13

Thanks to the comment above for providing important detail missing from the article.

I would have thought that linking the tourist attractions to the historic centre of the town and Priory ruins would have been considered essential. The zoo is within easy walking distance of the centre of town and the bus station, but this 'main entrance' is miles away off the Tipton Road.

If you want an entrance that far away from the town centre then why not have a free tourist tram from the market place to the attractions?

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Aynuck says...
4:59pm Wed 13 Mar 13

How can something which has access roads off Tipton Road near to the old Guest hospital be considered 'the gateway to Dudley'.
All that will happen will be that visitors will arrive via Tipton Road in cars and buses and will never actually see Dudley except from the top of the castle. They certainly won't spend any money within Dudley town centre and the iconic Hippodrome building, which could have been converted into a great conference centre and concert venue, will be torn down to make way for car parking and silly downmarket fibreglass animals.
I think that it's 'sensational' the way that councillors have been allowed to preside over the sad decline of what was once a town to be proud of.

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chrisabbey says...
5:08pm Fri 15 Mar 13

The people trying to save the hippodrome are wasting there time with this bunch of councillors i'm afraid, anything that the people of dudley REALLY want is ignored by this lot!!!

The Dudley heathens speedway team with their big,big following have asked, begged for help in finding a piece of land for this local institution but nothing but negative comment after negative comment! Bearing in mind that a new multi pupose community stadium will cost the tax payer nothing to fund has plans to finance this venture is well in hand!!!

This £10million project may look neat but what exactly is it going to achieve? A car park,service road and new entrance to an existing attraction! GREAT!

campaign groups like dudley speedway and the hippodrome are nothing but an irritation to DMBC. yet what the groups are sdaying is what the people want! Dudley council wake up and smell the coffee! USELSS!

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Stour Gal says...
4:54am Sat 16 Mar 13

Note to Dudley MBC,

Please change all road signs to:

"Welcome to Dudley, town of empty car parks, have a nice stay".

#anotherwhiteelephan
t,pipedreams,citysta
tus,yeahright.

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