IT is grossly and ethically wrong to deny the people of Stourbridge the right to their hidden history, when DMBC are pumping millions into the Dudley area especially their cave system as a huge tourist attraction. They have the monopoly of tourism within a mile radius of Dudley Castle.
Concerning the recent statement made by DMBC about the tunnels in Stourbridge ‘flooding for the first time’, these facts are wrong. For many years, parts of the tunnel system flooded due to heavy rain fall and the rise of the River Stour. They have been around for hundreds of years with no adverse effects on their structure and people used them. Just a little care, attention and much needed regeneration money could help turn these tunnels into a glorious attraction for the Black Country.
Instead, Dudley Council propose to fill these tunnels in with concrete which means the historic value of these structures will be lost forever, thus getting rid of another town’s history and heritage making theirs the only one available to visit.
Let me remind you that there have been more cave-ins in Dudley’s cave systems than any of the tunnel systems in and around Stourbridge. This is due to the fact that it is limestone and the entire cave system is on tectonic plates. Remember 2001? The quake we had demolished two of the pillars that made up the Seven Sisters, reducing them to Five Sisters. Maybe these caves should be filled in with concrete, as they are far more dangerous than the sandstone caves and tunnels of Stourbridge.
I have visited another sandstone cave and tunnel system in Nottingham. They are under this heavy city with a huge shopping centre as the entrance point to their amazing subterranean levels that have been there for at least eight hundred years. They are used day in, day out for tourism.
So DMBC, you really are out of order in wanting to destroy someone else’s history especially when it will enhance yours.
Anyone who is as outraged as I am and who feels the same way as I do, please start a campaign to save our town’s underground history from being obliterated without further investigation. Write to your local newspaper and try to get a sympathetic councillor or MP who really cares and has their heart in Stourbridge’s welfare and history to get involved.
Let’s save Stourbridge’s hidden subterranean treasure from vandals.
CR Armfield, Stourbridge
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