Grey area of Black Country

Indeed, the "Black Country sub-region" is becoming an increasingly important part of local government vocabulary. Twenty years after the abolition of the former West Midlands County Council, central government says local authorities must club together to produce regional plans. Reports about "Black Country-wide strategies" on everything from social care to recycling are creeping into council agendas.

The decision to axe the West Midlands County was largely cost-driven, to streamline local government by devolving power to towns and cities. But few mourned its passing because people never identified with the newly-created county.

The term West Midlands has long been used as a vague term for Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Shropshire, but as an artificial county, drawn up by politicians and government officials in 1974, it was never accepted.

But is defining the Black Country any easier? Ask four people where it is, and you'll get five answers.

Yet the authors of the study seem to have found it remarkably simple. Just one paragraph of the hefty document is devoted to the matter: "The Black Country covers the local authority areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton."

But is it really that easy? In a recent interview Black Country Living Museum director Ian Walden said even after 30 years he had never found a definition which people agreed on.

The Chambers Encyclopedic Dictionary describes the Black Country as "An industrial area of the English Midlands during and after the Industrial Revolution, centred on the counties of Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire." But which part of Warwickshire is in the Black Country? Warwick? Leamington Spa?

Or are the authors, hundreds of miles away in Scotland, suggesting the second city, the one whose name begins with 'B', is part of the Black Country? More to the point, where does the Industrial Revolution come into it? Sure, the Black Country was at its forefront - Ironbridge builder Abraham Darby was from Dudley - and industry is a vital part of its heritage.

But when Henry VIII gave Rowley Regis its Royal Charter in 1528, he referred to it as "Rowley Regis in the Black Country" - and there weren't many foundries back then. Industry sprang out of the Black Country, not the other way round.

Traditionalists define the Black Country as the area covered by the South Staffordshire coalfield bounded by its faults. This is the definition adopted by the Express & Star's style book, but presents difficulties for our civic leaders as it follows no clear local authority boundaries.

For example, Bilston is included, but central Wolverhampton is not; Willenhall, Darlaston and Bloxwich are in the Black Country, but Walsall is not. Dudley may be the Capital of the Black Country, but Stourbridge and Halesowen fall outside the coalfield. Smethwick, part of Sandwell since 1974, is definitely excluded.

With refreshing honesty, former Black Country Tourism chief Keith Cheetham cleared the matter up in 1996, when he explained in a radio interview why the term was used to refer to the four local authority areas: "It is the Black Country because it is the area we have chosen to market as such."

Fair point. If four local authorities wish to get together as a group, they are entitled to call themselves pretty much what they like. As long nobody is misled, there is no need for people in Tipton to worry about the geology of Smethwick or Walsall.

The problem is, this creates two Black Countries: the one, difficult-to-define area based on centuries of history, industrial heritage and civic pride; the other a Black Country of 1970s local government boundaries and spatial strategies.

Time will tell whether the new Black Country sub-region will be just as unloved as the old West Midlands County Council.

By Mark Andrews