Huge cavern to be filled in
A world-famous cavern beneath the Black Country is to be filled in with hundreds of tons of sand and may be lost forever.
The cathedral-sized Step Shaft Mine at Dudley lost out on a bid for £50 million Lottery cash to make it one the world's biggest underground attractions.
Experts now say the cave beneath the internationally-renowned Wrens Nest National Nature Reserve is in danger of collapse.
Officials say the failure to get lottery cash means the chance to open it up and create a major visitor and education attraction is now a distant dream.
The mine dug out by hand by miners 200 years ago could collapse within the next two to five years.
If this happens, concerned engineers say it will damage the space known locally as the Cathedral Cavern and swallow up land above on the nature reserve.
Before it is filled in with vast quantities of sand it will be opened up for 10 days in May for scientists, engineers and archaeologists to explore it.
It will become an international spotlight for experts desperate to capture as much data and information from the site as possible before stabilisation gets under way.
Today, keeper of geology Graham Worton vowed that Dudley Council would fight to attract the millions of pounds needed to reopen the cavern in the future.
"This cavern is of global significance. It is the jewel in the crown and for as long as we have breath in our body we will fight to reopen it," he said.
