Trams could be extended to Wolverhampton’s suburbs under new plans.

People living in Tettenhall, Penn and along the A449 Stafford Road would all eventually be able to hop on a Midland Metro near their homes under the scheme.

City council leader Neville Patten today revealed that talk of extending the Midland Metro has explored taking it far beyond the city’s new multi-million pound bus and railway station.

But hopes of extending it at all are still hanging by a thread after the only guaranteed source of funding was denied.

Read the full story in today’s Express & Star.

Trams could be extended to Wolverhampton’s suburbs under new plans.

People living in Tettenhall, Penn and along the A449 Stafford Road would all eventually be able to hop on a Midland Metro near their homes under the scheme.

City council leader Neville Patten today revealed that talk of extending the Midland Metro has explored taking it far beyond the city’s new multi-million pound bus and railway station.

But hopes of extending it at all are still hanging by a thread after the only guaranteed source of funding was denied.

In March, council leaders refused to force drivers to pay a form of congestion charging in exchange for almost £400 million of Government funding.

The plan is to take the tram further into Birmingham from Snow Hill to New Street stations and to build a line from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill.

A second phase would take the tracks from Wolverhampton St George’s to the new £189 million railway interchange.

Councillor Patten, who took over as leader of Wolverhampton City Council under the new Tory-Lib Dem Alliance, said today: “There is talk of branch lines coming in from Wolverhampton down to Tettenhall, Penn and even down the Stafford Road.

“Of course this is a very long way off and until we get the funding for the Birmingham part of the expansion, none of this can happen.”

Other ideas for keeping the tram expansion dream alive include running them along disused freight rail tracks through Wednesbury.

It is still hoped that 5,000 jobs could be brought to the region by extending the tram system into Brierley Hill and further into Wolverhampton.

Since the decision not to trial congestion charging, leaders of Wolverhampton, Walsall, Sandwell and Dudley councils have joined Birmingham City Council in looking for alternative sources of funding.

The councils might be able to raise some of the money themselves by selling vacant land which would be worth more to developers if it had Metro tracks running alongside it.

By Transport Reporter Daniel Wainwright