Express & Star

LETTER: Dudley Hippodrome deserves a future

Dudley Hippodrome is a major part of Dudley’s heritage and it deserves a future.

Published
Dudley Hippodrome

Dudley Council’s first plan was to create a temporary car park on the land. Dudley Council’s second plan was to create an education and conference centre known as ‘The Dudley Bug’. Dudley Council’s third plan was an open green space and square to replace the building. I wonder what is next?

Dudley College has revealed its interest in the Castle Hill site. Now there’s a recommended proposal to use the land as a control centre for high-tech driverless vehicles.

My plan would be to remove the Hippodrome brick by brick and move it to the new street on the Black Country Museum site, whatever the cost.

The Hippodrome was built by a local building company from Dudley, A J Crump in 1938. Dudley Council will come up with all sorts of reasons about such a project – namely being too large a building, money, asbestos and so on. But if they already have plans for the site, what better way is there to please one and all, and then the council can do whatever they want with the land?

As a person born and bred in the Black Country, aged 83, I just wonder what all these proposals have cost us, the tax-payers, over the years.

Please note Dudley Council – the Wordsley School of Art was destroyed and removed, gone forever, because it was an eyesore, but look at it today.

Firstly – wooden hoarding double gates, locks, etc, were put up to hide the overgrown weeds. Secondly the hoarding was taken down for whatever reason, all at what cost? But believe it or not what are we left with? An eyesore.

Mr T Cadman, Wordsley