MP wants Black Country on the map

3:49pm Tuesday 19th February 2008

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STOURBRIDGE MP Lynda Waltho is backing the Black Country Chamber's campaign to get the Ordnance Survey mapping organisation to recognise the Black Country as a region and to site it officially on their maps.

She said: "The current maps show Dudley, Stourbridge, Halesowen Birmingham and Wolverhampton but not the Black Country.

"The recent campaign to get funding for the Black Country Urban Park put us firmly on the mental map of the funders and we have recently been allocated £25million of Government funds for the Black Country Learning Challenge so the policy makers recognise us, now it's about time the region was recognised officially by the map makers."

As well as tabling an Early Day Motion to push for recognition, the MP is also campaigning to get Hansard' the official record of the proceedings of Parliament to recognise the Black Country as a region in itself rather than as a sub region of the West Midlands.

She continued: "It irritates me intensely that the official record of Parliament always prints the name of the Black Country in lower case alphabet (black country) whenever a member refers to it but the West Midlands gets capital letters.

"I am hoping that as soon as the OS map makers are persuaded to locate the Black Country officially, it can be recognised as such in the official record too!"

Lynda is urging all fellow Black Country and West Midlands MPs to support the campaign.