Final touches being put to much-delayed £24 million Dudley bus station

Dudley’s long-awaited £24 million bus station is now nearing completion, as our drone pictures show.

The building itself is now largely finished, and work has now turned to fitting out the interior and laying out the grounds around the site.

Our pictures show how the eco-friendly ‘living roof’ has now been planted with hardy vegetation, and solar panels installed on the roof to minimise its carbon footprint.

Contractor Taylor Woodrow has now begun installing lighting and passenger lifts, while pits have been dug for tree planting, to create a more welcoming environment for passengers.

Planning permission for the new bus station was first granted in 2019, but that was followed by a lengthy legal wrangle with grocery chain FarmFoods, which had a store on part of the site.

Work eventually began in January 2024 after Dudley Council began compulsory purchase proceedings.

It was originally due to open last year, but the opening date was put back first to spring this year, and then to autumn.

The new station will be 25 per cent smaller than the one it replaces, with just 14 bays, but Transport for West Midlands said it would be able to cope with 156 departures per hour, almost double the current town centre bus service levels.

"Bus-use patterns have changed considerably since the old bus station was built in the 1980s," said a TfWM source. "The new bus station has been designed to meet present needs, and has the capacity to handle far more buses than come into the town at the moment."

The new station also includes platforms for the new West Midlands Metro extension, and last month the first trams ran through the town as part of the testing process.

The tramline, which has also been hit by a number of delays, is expected to open ‘later this year’.

It will link up with the existing Wolverhampton-Birmingham tramline at Wednesbury, connecting with Dudley Port station and passing through Tipton before terminating at Flood Street. Attention will then turn to the next phase of the line, which will continue to the Merry Hill shopping centre.