Open letter to Black Country football fans from Bishop of Wolverhampton

Dear Fellow Football-Fans,

|PIC1|I know full-well the depth of passion which lies behind your support for your club. And I also know of the infamous rivalry which exists between fans of the three professional Black Country clubs.

But today I want to ask you to put your rivalries to one side - only temporarily - and to urge the supporters of the three Ws (Walsall, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers) to unite behind another W - Winning the Bid!

The four Black Country local authorities - Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton - have devised an ambitious plan to create a Black Country Urban Park which will not only open up an historic network of caverns and canals; but will also create major new attractions.

It will involve 300,000 children and 3,000 local groups in transforming their environment, provide 60,000 volunteer opportunities, deliver 500 local projects and open up 3,700 acres of green space - as well as save one of the world's most important geological features, the limestone caverns at Wren's Nest.

And the Black Country Urban Park is in line for a £50 million cash windfall - if the people of the Black Country get behind the project when it hits our television screens next month.

The project Black Country Urban Park is one of four across the country taking part in a national television and website vote called the Big Lottery Fund's: The People's £50 million Contest.

If successful in the December ITV bid, money will help reopen the vast caverns and underground canals in Dudley to create one of Europe's largest underground attractions and create a 12-mile green bridge linking Walsall and West Bromwich town centres. The Black Country Urban Park will also see the widespread regeneration of Wolverhampton's canal network and improved access to green places, all achieved with an unparalleled programme of community involvement.

So, let the football rivalries continue in earnest - but let us get behind this exciting development with united pride for the Black Country, its heritage and its future.

More details about the project, and online voting from November 26th, can be found at www.thepeoples50million.org.uk. If you don't want to vote online then listen out for details of the telephone numbers to call when telephone voting starts on December 7.

+Clive Wulfrun
The Right Reverend Clive Gregory
Bishop of Wolverhampton
26 November 2007