Victory for the Black Country!
Victory for the Black Country!
Local MP, Lynda Waltho was celebrating today after the news that the campaign alongside the local Chamber of Commerce to get the Black Country firmly fixed on the Ordnance Survey Map has been a success.
Lynda said: “This is great news for all of us in the Black Country. It’s most frustrating when local businesspeople and politicians are reduced to describing the Black Country as the area between Birmingham and Wolverhampton when we are talking about investment, jobs and innovation. Now at last we can say we’re on the map!”
Lynda took up the Chamber’s case in February last year when she submitted an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons backing the call for recognition on OS Maps. It won the support of West Midlands MPs including all those from the Black Country.
The OS Landranger Map 139 has also been re titled “Birmingham & Wolverhampton including the Black Country”
Lynda continued: “As well as being located on the Map it was important to actually the name the region in the title.
It’s a great victory for the region as the OS does not usually add new areas that are not specifically defined as a geographical area but was persuaded by the strong feeling in the region and the joint action of politicians, business and organisations such as the Black Country Society and Staffs and Worcs Canal Society”
Lynda now embarks on the next stage of the campaign which is to get the official record of ~Parliament, Hansard to recognise the Black Country as an official sub region of the Country.
She concluded: I am hopeful that even Parliament which is notoriously resistant to change will now recognise the Black Country in the official record from now on and give us the courtesy of recording the region with capital letters in its official record when printed. Somehow I think this might be a bigger battle!!”
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