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The Black Country is unique amongst LEPs in having a unified, endorsed Core Strategy. It is also the single largest (area and population) shared, statutory development plan in England.

The adoption of The Black Country Core Strategy in 2011 (agreed across all four Black Country Local Authority areas) will achieve growth and economic transformation, setting out the scale and form of development to create jobs, homes and an improved transport network – based on focusing jobs growth on a network of four Strategic Centres (Brierley Hill, West Bromwich, Walsall and Wolverhampton) linked together by high quality public transport; employment land led regeneration corridors for manufacturing and logistics served by road and rail connections to the national network; and regeneration corridors for new high quality residential environments served by public transport, replacing non-viable industrial areas.

The strategy provides immediate planning policy and infrastructure provision ‘certainty’ for private sector investment and for prioritisation of infrastructure investment that is directly linked to the Black Country’s economic growth ambitions.

The Black Country has a challenging image based on historical notions of industrial Britain dominated by smoking chimneys, grime and unhealthy living and working conditions. The reality is that that is long gone.

‘Black Country as Urban Park’ is the strategy and programme for the transformation of the Black Country environment.

At its heart lies the creation of a physical framework for rediscovering the distinctive settlement form of the Black Country (based on towns, villages and communities), integrating natural and urban environments and realising the potential of the sub-region’s natural, built and historical assets for living, for business and as a tourist destination. This will require a Landscape/ Green Infrastructure Plan putting the environment at the heart of defining the future urban form of the Black Country. However, the concept ‘Urban Park’ is more than its physical component – it is also about building greater choice and opportunity for a rich variety of healthy and fulfilling living styles in the Black Country and of a culture of sustainable living.