More than 19,500 people responded to a major consultation on the future use of housing and employment land across the Black Country.

The 8 week public consultation on the draft Black Country Plan attracted comments, letters and petitions from across the region.

Just over 1,200 of the responses received relate to the City of Wolverhampton, with the vast majority (13,490) related to Dudley.

The plan aims to identify land for housing and employment purposes across the Black Country whilst continuing to protect green belt land.

The bulk of the feedback centred around the potential use of green belt land for development, which people strongly objected to.

There were more than 4,500 letters, 1,390 comments via the online consultation and more than 120 responses from statutory bodies and landowners.

There were also 13,643 responses from groups and a total of 10 petitions.

Councillor Ian Brookfield, City of Wolverhampton Council Leader, said: “I would like to thank everyone who took the time to have their say on this important topic.

“The views of local people are critical to how a new regeneration plan for the Black Country is shaped.

“Our focus remains on selecting sites available within the urban area and minimising the impact on the green belt and the environment.

“Only 11% of land in Wolverhampton is green belt and keeping as much of this green belt as possible is hugely important to our new climate strategy and supporting our carbon neutral challenge.

“As we take the next step in the Black Country Plan process, developing brownfield sites in Wolverhampton is our priority - and we have an excellent track record in doing that when funding is available to remediate the land, such as Bilston Urban Village, Springfield Campus and Canalside.”

The 4 Black Country authorities hope to publish the consultation responses online within the next month. The updated Black Country Plan will be published this summer (2022) when all Black Country authorities will be asked to approve an 8 week consultation on the new plan.