For 200 years boaters lined their barges up at the Hay Basin in Wolverhampton, ready to load it with goods.

But in the 1960s the basin, on the Broad Street canal in the city centre, was filled in to make way for the ring road. 

After an archaeology dig revealed the walls of the Victorian canal basin are still standing, plans are in place to bring it back to life. But the plans to revive the city’s forgotten canal network hinge on whether the project is awarded £50 million in a televised bid next month.

Elizabeth Turner, heritage adviser for British Waterways, says the Hay Basin was created around 1789.

“It was filled in at the end of the 1960s when the ring road was developed and the original bridge was taken to the Black Country Living Museum,” she says.

“When the canals went into decline a lot of basins were filled in but now that the waterways are becoming popular again we have to look at bringing them back.

The plans for the canals area part of a bid to bring £50 million of lottery cash to the West Midlands.

A Million People: Black Country As An Urban Park, has been shortlisted for the vote on ITV along with The Eden Project, a national bike route proposed by Sustrans and protecting the ecology of Nottingham’s Sherwood Forest. If the Black Country is awarded the money it will see the opening of huge limestone mines under Dudley and the creation of a Green Bridge between Walsall and Sandwell.

Improved tow paths, lighting under bridges and tunnels and new paths to link canals to nearby parks and green spaces will all become a reality under the plans.

The package of improvements will affect five canals – Birmingham Canal Navigation, Staffordshire and Worcester, Shropshire Union, Wyrley and Essington, and the Bradley Arm.