Black Country Living Museum expansion back on track

The Black Country Living Museum gives visitors a taste of ordinary life in Victorian England

A stalled £30m project to expand the Black Country Living Museum is back on track after a promise of investment.

The West Midlands Combined Authority has said it will support ambitions the Dudley site which hopes to grow in size by a third.

Proposed new attractions will show visitors what life in the area was like in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

The first phase of the project includes 22 buildings.

The expansion plan has been called Forging Ahead and has been described as the biggest development at the site since it opened in 1978.

It involves a new visitor centre, teaching areas, an industrial area and new town, which will include a recreation of Wolverhampton's Elephant and Castle pub.

Dudley's Woodside Library will also be transported to the museum and rebuilt there, brick-by-brick.

The project had come to a halt because of the cost of cleaning up derelict land needed for the expansion, but the combined authority said it would cover funds for the work with a sum yet to be agreed.

West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, said: "The museum is right to be ambitious because it has the potential to create a real jewel in the Black Country's crown as well as exciting opportunities for new jobs, volunteering and skills development."