The underrated region hoping to become England’s next national park

Consider a typical domestic holiday – whether it’s a day out, weekend break or longer trip. You pack the car (and fill the tank) or lug a bag to the railway station (there to fret over cancellations). You travel an hour or three to your destination. You check in, or unscramble the combination lock on your cottage, see if the pubs are any good, and set off on a walk to see a heritage site or have a meal. Previously, you have had to plan around school holidays, book time off work, and arrange for the dog or cat to be fed and housed. On arrival, you find the place you have chosen is expensive, somewhat overrated and most certainly overtouristed.

Admittedly, that’s a gloomy account, but it helps set the scene for a really hopeful suggestion, ideal to start off 2025. What if the area you lived in was a national park? What if the historic site or green space you most wanted to visit was right on your doorstep? What if your home was your favourite hotel?

This provocative idea is taking form in one of the least likely regions of England – the West Midlands. Yes, that oft-bypassed sprawl between Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton.

The notion that it could be a place for nature, leisure and recreation has come out of the West Midlands National Park (WMNP) Lab, based at Birmingham City University. Professor Kathryn Moore, who leads the project, says she wants people to get away from the idea of only appreciating the “green and blue bits” of the map, and to consider the sense of place in a radical and holistic way.

“This is all about how identity and culture are shaped by landscape,” she says. “This approach, this idea of a ‘national park’, is not just about the natural environment. It’s about the topography and the geology and everything in between, including what humans have done to the West Midlands over the millennia, including the Industrial Revolution.”

The Lab’s maps remind us that, between residential, commercial and industrial zones are urban parks, waterways and a rich patchwork of environments – from heathland to pastoral settings to wooded areas, including Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden. Around the margins are areas evocative of the ancient shires absorbed by the West Midlands in 1965. Beneath the tons of asphalt, concrete and steel are the contours of river valleys and hill ranges, overlooked when we speed through in a car.

“I am interested in conceiving the whole area as a rolling upland plateau, watershed and river basin,” says Moore.

“It was only when I began to draw the maps that I realised that there is an immense river valley between Birmingham and the fringes of Coventry, where the River Blythe runs before joining the Tame along with the tributaries of the Rea and Cole before flowing into the Trent, which goes to the North Sea. It’s such a vast landscape that has been hidden away and largely ignored for so long you just don’t notice it.”

On a recent visit to the West Midlands, I got a taste of its unsung potential. On walks along towpaths there was birdlife, a healthy tangle of vegetation and, though I was never more than a few hundred metres from busy roads, a feeling of stolen peace. I was surprised at how few people seemed to be out and about. Along the way I visited a Hindu temple – where I ate delicious Indian food – and spent a few hours in the Black Country Living Museum, one of the UK’s finest family-friendly visitor experiences.

On another day, in Wolverhampton, I met up with two members of Walkspace, a local organisation that organises everything from “gentle strolls to hardcore psychogeography” in a bid to transform the way West Midlanders look at their surroundings. We went to see an erratic in a nearby park; the glacial boulders, scattered across the region, inspire the group to drift and lose themselves in their surroundings.

I also saw promising spaces spoiled by littering, poorly signposted or underused. The canals were in need of a serious dredging and clean-up. National park status would focus minds and resources.

Turning the West Midlands into an official national park would be problematic. Consider the divided opinions generated by Wales’ plans for a new park in the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 wasn’t designed for urban areas. But establishing a national park around the country’s second city, while a bold move, needn’t be costly nor disruptive.

“It’s not about land ownership or repurposing land, or the other issues that come up when you talk about a traditional national park. It’s all about changing perceptions,” says Moore.

“We’re never going to make the West Midlands like the Peak District. This is about history, culture, geography and giving the value afforded to a national park to an urban area – and of course it’s providing people with a healthy space to live and work and visit, where they can go out and be active and, just as importantly, proud of their local area.

“It’s a strategic spatial vision to deal with the challenges we face.”

Ultimately, it is up to the Combined Authority and other local stakeholders to take forward the big idea. But the WNMP Lab’s work has been gestating for two decades and has already influenced decision-making in urban park and forest schemes in the Black Country and is evident in projects like the Birmingham City of Nature Plan. The Lab is also spreading the message through annual awards, which have been given to local and international projects.

“This approach could be applied anywhere,” says Moore. “I’ve already had lots of interest from places like Nottingham and Derby, and from abroad.”

The mantra that nature and exercise are good for our mental health is universally preached. But perhaps it’s time to scrutinise not only the practicalities (including the dysfunctional national rail system) and the costs, but the underlying philosophy. Walking in urban and suburban settings is more social, less dependent on the weather, and far easier to arrange – and, if you do it locally, it’s about as green as a leisure activity can be. Every year contains 104 day trips if you holiday close to home.

I see great potential in the vision of a West Midlands super-park – a “Brumbria” or a “Peaky District”, if you like, for the 21st century. The region is currently the third most populous in the UK; it is also relatively far from the 15 national parks of England, Scotland and Wales. Some of that throbbing traffic at weekends is locals heading off to the Brecon Beacons or Cotswolds. One day soon, they could be waving at the stressed passengers stuck in cars on the M5, M42 and M6, or else welcoming them to explore their novel urban wilderness.