Plans for a new visitor centre, café and play area at The Leasowes have been submitted, in a move aimed at enhancing the visitor experience at one of the region’s most important historic landscapes.

Dudley Council, supported by the Friends of the Leasowes, has lodged proposals for a single-storey visitor, education and café building on the site of the current play area. A new natural play space featuring wooden equipment would be created nearby in the existing picnic area.

The proposed facility would include a café, meeting room, office space for the senior warden, toilet facilities and outdoor seating, topped with a green roof designed to blend into the surrounding landscape. The existing Portacabin would be removed and the area returned to parking.

The plans have been shaped by feedback from visitors, with a recent survey highlighting a lack of family-friendly facilities and play provision as a barrier to longer visits. The proposals have also been developed with input from the Friends of the Leasowes and members of the Leasowes Green Gateway Group.

Councillor Damian Corfield said the scheme would help more people enjoy the Grade I listed park, while providing families with better facilities, community space and a new play area that complements the character of the site.

If planning permission is granted, the council and Friends group will seek external funding to deliver the project.

Designed by poet William Shenstone between 1743 and 1763, The Leasowes is regarded as one of England’s earliest natural landscape gardens. Today, the site is both a Grade I listed landscape and a Site of Special Scientific Interest, attracting visitors with its woodland valleys, lakes, streams and historic features.

Councillor Simon Phipps said approval of the plans would strengthen efforts to secure funding, while Friends of the Leasowes chair David Chaffey described the submission as a significant milestone that would improve accessibility, visitor facilities and opportunities to showcase the site's unique heritage.