Dudley Council chiefs have welcomed news the Commonwealth Games will be coming to Birmingham in 2022 – and will be holding talks to get the Metro on track quicker in the town.

In light of the announcement today, local authority bosses will bid to speed up the £250m Metro extension linking Brierley Hill to Wednesbury through Dudley town centre. Early discussions have already been held and further talks are now planned with Transport for West Midlands and the Midlands Metro Alliance. Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of the council, said:

“The announcement today that Birmingham is to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games is fantastic news for the whole region. With thousands of extra visitors potentially coming into the region, we recognise that the Games could prove a massive economic boost for Dudley.

“We are the historic capital of the Black Country. We have big hotels and fantastic attractions like Dudley Zoo and the Black Country Living Museum. We need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to get to Dudley, and to that end we will be pushing hard to can get the Metro on track a bit quicker.”

Plans for the seven-mile line extension were signed off by the Government earlier this year as part of a quarter of a billion pound funding package to improve transport links across the West Midlands.

From Wednesbury, the seven-mile route will run past the Castle Hill attractions, into the heart of Dudley town centre and then on to the Waterfront, Merry Hill and into Brierley Hill town centre.

It will link Dudley and Brierley Hill to the rail network for the first time since the 1960s. At the moment work is set to start in 2019. The £750m Games will be the most expensive sports event in Britain since the Olympics were held in London in 2012.

It will be the third time the Commonwealth Games have been held in the UK since the turn of the century, after Manchester and Glasgow hosted in 2002 and 2014 respectively. The Games are expected to take place between July 27 and August 7, 2022.