Monday, 30 June 2025

Action needed on HEL

Many thanks for your kind words, Ian.

Do you feel able to ask for the Himley Environment Ltd (HEL) landfill site to be looked at by your officers, please after approval from your Cabinet colleagues?  The serious issues are:-
  • I suspect, from my own site visit earlier this year, that the obvious neglect, broken fences, polluted stream, 4x4s and dirt bikes riding over it, that all this has gone on for many years, if not decades.​
  • ​The vast area of slag and landfill heaps/hills is adjacent to the two disused railway lines from Pensnett Nature Reserve to Baggeridge Country Park which were converted to, definitely, a walkway and in the 1980s - possibly.  But no maintenance since then or, so it appears.​
  • ​Dudley's section of 5 Kms is in a disgraceful condition because it is used by the same 4x4s and dirt bikes that roar all over the hills of the landfill site alongside it.​
  • ​Yet, our section is the south section of the full 20 Kms Black Country Active Travel Route through three nature reserves, two cafes in old railway stations and one Woodland Trust property.​
  • ​It runs from Fens Pool Avenue, Brierley Hill to the canal towpath in NW Wolverhampton.  North from Dudley's boundary near Himley Hall the cycle-walkway is fine.  A smooth, free draining surface of even tarmac in places.  Far worse in Dudley!:-​​Full set of photos:​
​Many thanks if you could simply chase it up for officers to take action, please Ian.

Best wishes     Tim

Chant: 'Death, death to the IDF' - Bob Vinen

Chanting 'death, death to the IDF' is simply not in the same league as the IDF's actions in bringing death and annihilation or genocide!  And extermination is the whole aim of the war, as Netanyahu has made clear from the outset.  The Palestine side chants the wish in anger at being wiped off the map but our Israel/USA/UK side actually does the wiping out.  A very different matter altogether!

These Israeli men and women, part of our Judeo-Christian Western world, have brought so much death, death and destruction to tens of thousands of mainly women and children.

Death, death and destruction as they have cowered in the world's biggest open-air prison camp controlled by Israeli guards - by US lot of shameful humans.  Done by OUR side which is firmly on the side of Israel/USA/Germany in slaughtering our fellow humans just as WE did, our side in OUR 'Christian' German and Polish concentration camps in the 1930s and 40s.

Chanting one's disgust at what OUR authorities are doing in a modern-day, 21st-century holocaust, seems pretty tame in comparison.  Nothing changes.

Sunday, 29 June 2025

Inability to Share - so the unHoly Land

Dear Leon

How do you explain the shameless support that so many good and faithful, Bible-believing, born again Christians give to Israel/Jews/Zionists in their terrorism against the Brits from 1945 to 1948 and, ever since from time to time, against the people of Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank?

Have you preached a sermon on the Christian view of how to deal with this over 100 year old, intractable problem of Jews and Arabs resorting to violence to keep the land both sides are convinced is theirs and, given to them by the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?

Apart from prayer for "the peace of Jerusalem", how should Halesowen Christians be lobbying for the end of, at least, the onslaught on Gaza, now that our close friend and ally has stopped bombing Iran but, is still armed to the teeth by the Judeo-Christian West?

Should there be any personal boycotting of Israeli goods in the shops?  Or, writing to our MP?

Best wishes and every blessing to you and Alison

Christ will return when Israel has the lot - do you believe that cousin Paul?

There is the most enormous credibility chasm between evangelical Christians wanting Israel to have all of the Greater Promised Land or, at least, Gaza and Judea/Samaria, and the way they are going about it in fully supporting coercion, force, violence, starvation, murder and killings.

Trying to find an apt parallel

For the BBC to have any connection with Hamas is as unacceptable as​ the 13 year old son of the Russian or Iranian or Chinese Deputy Minister of Agriculture or a KGB official, narrating an hour long film giving us three children's view of Gaza's death and destruction.  It is seen as the BBC being thoroughly treacherous in seeming to allow Russia or Iran or China space on the airwaves!  It is seen as helping our No 1 enem​ies, Russia, Iran​, China, in some way! 

Saturday, 28 June 2025

This invites laughter of derision

An absurd, far-fetched reason for censorship.  It invites derision.  In my view, the boy’s family links to the agricultural wing of Hamas are irrelevant.  If the film was about the suffering children of Israel, having to endure a sudden dash to a nearby air raid shelter day or night, and the narrator was the 13-year-old son of the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in Israel's government, I would not have dreamt of complaining.  Let them make such a documentary and broadcast it, as long as the one featuring the three children of Gaza is also broadcast.

We must have anti-Israeli love speech to put them right!

Direct citizen participation in existing democratic processes is nothing new!

Hi Tony and friends

Thanks for your email.  My reply is in blue.

YOU WROTE:
There could be mileage in your idea, and I feel it is something that should be encouraged.
Yet you would have to be able to point to an ongoing engagement with a council or similar.
It would either have to be tried at the local level where you are through your XR local group.
Direct involvement with our local Dudley Council from Halesowen Wildlife Group, Dudley Green Party and Dudley FoE has been going on, intermittently, since the 1980s.  Over the decades, from time to time, one or two of us have even been on Dudley committees as non-voting members.
Direct citizen participation in existing democratic processes is nothing new!
The only alternative would need you to become part of one of the XR UK central groups, to influence policy.
Again, you would do that only through your local group..

You should know that many individuals regularly present us with "golden bullet" and other useful ideas and our answer is always the same, if you want XR to take on your idea you have to present it to a local XR group, enact it as XR, and thereby demonstrate it is a viable idea.  It is XR that is pioneering imaginative and creative protests but it is direct engagement with existing democratic and consultative processes that is urgent for XR to take on board.  Councillors' surgeries, replies to emails and phone calls/texts in Dudley borough, where I live, are rare.
We must take advantage of our right to attend council meetings open to the public and make the most of our right to occasionally speak.  Or, to talk - just a pleasant chat - with decision makers before and after council meetings.

I also use this helpful email address:   dudleycouncilplus@dudley.gov.uk

TIM WELLER

Friday, 27 June 2025

Guardian article on the banned/censored Gaza film

Have you ever wondered what you’d do if your world is destroyed?” asks 13-year-old Abdullah, speaking at the beginning of an intimate BBC Two documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, that airs on Monday night. “Most important, could you stay alive? After all this, you could say we’re experts.”

Abdullah, now 14 and heading back to his prewar home in the north of the shattered territory, is the English-speaking narrator – one of three children whose stories of hope and endurance are at the heart of an hour-long film, a distinctive and deliberate choice intended to make the film resonate after 15 months of war.

In an email exchange via the BBC, Abdullah said he wanted to be part of the programme “to explain the suffering that people here in Gaza witness with the language that the world understands, English” – and so that viewers learn about the situation on the ground without being “blurred by misinformation”

FROM:-

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/17/gaza-how-to-survive-a-warzone-bbc-documentary-children


Open letter signed by more than 600 industry figures says corporation is failing in its journalistic responsibility

The Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon and the British film-maker Mike Leigh are among hundreds of figures from the cultural world accusing the BBC of censoring Palestinian voices, after its decision to delay the broadcast of a documentary on medics in Gaza.

Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, has received an open letter signed by more than 600 industry figures – including some of his own employees – stating that editorial caution over the subject has spilled over into “political suppression”.

The signatories demand the immediate release of Gaza: Medics Under Fire, claiming it has undergone extensive editorial reviews and fact-checking and has been ready for broadcast for months.

"13-year-old who narrated the film, Abdullah al-Yazouri, was the son of the deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas government."

In my view, the boy’s family links to the agricultural wing of Hamas are irrelevant.  If the film was about the suffering children of Israel, having to endure a sudden dash to a nearby air raid shelter day or night, and the narrator was the 13-year-old son of the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in Israel's government, I would not have dreamt of complaining.  Let them make such a documentary and broadcast it as long as the one featuring the three children of Gaza is also broadcast.  It is called  Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone

 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/feb/21/bbc-pulls-gaza-documentary-iplayer-hamas

Truth, honesty, accuracy and fair reporting must trump association

In any documentary film, does truth, honest and fair reporting of all sides and, accuracy, override, rebut, answer charges of bias, partiality and anti-semitism by Israel?       Tim


​https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Your%20Complaint

​I've made a complaint to the BBC, writing this:

Two documentary films on what is going on in Gaza are not being allowed to be broadcast on the BBC.  With one film, the 13-year-old son of the Hamas Deputy Minister of Agriculture is the reason for the BBC excluding the film from its sites.
Is the charge of bias, partiality and anti-semitism properly addressed by the BBC insisting that it has verified all facts, checked everything that was said and has concluded that every word, phrase, sentence uttered was true, correct, accurate?
Should TRUTH trump ASSOCIATION?
Should accuracy of every word, phrase, sentence spoken by 13-year-old Abdullah be more important than his dad being a government minister​ in the agriculture wing of Hamas?
Was the dad​ ever in the military wing of Hamas​ as a young man?
​Was Benjamin Netanyahu ever in the IDF as a young man?
Do you allow the broadcasting of clear and obvious inaccuracies by the Israeli government?
Or, is this only done after you have fact-checked/verified Israeli government statements?
Why was the other film disowned by the BBC?

Wednesday, 25 June 2025

Failing miserably for 40 years!

Since the 1980s, I've been a hopeless, useless failure in trying to stop the destruction of the Black Country Railway section of the London to Edinburgh mainline for everything but the kitchen sink.  Brownhills to Lichfield section is to be a dog walkers' paradise of a cycle-walkway - the ultimate insult/indignity/folly - as roads clog with traffic!!  But what fun I am having!


Tony Marone XR Public Engagement Working Group

Hi Tony

Fantastic to hear from you.

The good news is that we don't have to wait for Citizens' Assemblies.  We already have committee and Board meetings to attend!  If we cannot attend those meetings specifically organised for the public to attend, will anyone attend Citizens' Assemblies?

Would the elected members of councils and regional Combined Authorities, plus the officers attend their own meetings AND new Citizens' Assemblies?

I was writing about whether my friends in XR Brum believe it is worthwhile to attend local council and/or our region's own Combined Authority committee and board meetings that the public are invited to, to try and influence the decision makers.

Does anyone do so?
If not, why not?

I do attend from time to time to try and influence members and officers and it is most worthwhile.  In particular, I attend those local council committee meetings which have a public forum item on the agenda.  I can then speak on any subject relevant to the committee for a maximum of three minutes.  It is great fun to take part and even to read out something prepared beforehand.  Has anyone in XR done that?

Would you like to try it?
Do you think it worthwhile to engage with those who make the decisions to try and get them to do what we want?  Direct citizen participation in existing democratic processes.

Please let me know your thoughts over this tactic for XR.  Bob Whitehead is in XR and has written this:
Are you, personally, in agreement with these points?
If so, can you read them out in the public forum item on the agenda of your own council meetings, perhaps?  Or, send them direct to your local council and Combined Authority?

All the very best

Tuesday, 24 June 2025

John Rees, co-founder Stop the War - TRANSCRIPT

Rees: "Israel has a secret and illegal nuclear weapons arsenal of perhaps 200 warheads.  It is not open to any international inspection.  It is not part of any international treaty about nuclear weapons.  

"Iran has never invaded even one of its neighbours in hundreds of years of history.  Israel has invaded every single one of the neighbours which border it.  It is in breach of more UN resolutions than Saddam Hussein's Iraq was.  If we are talking about violent intent towards one's neighbours, I think we should be concerned about Israel's nuclear weapons programme and not be so concerned about a programme which might at some point, if the intelligence is right about WMD - and haven't we heard that one before - only might be right about Iran.

"What we are absolutely sure about now because it was carried in your news report earlier, is that the bombing has now, according to the IAEA, breached the containment vessel for nuclear material in Iran.  That is an immediate danger which wasn't there before America entered this war, with the aims of both the Israeli military operation and according to Pres Trump's tweets, that regime change is a good idea.  We are back into a land that we have been in before, with Afghanistan, with Iraq, with Libya and which have proved to be absolutely disastrous on every single occasion.  Perhaps worse than those cases, the so called 'Rules Based International Order', probably more observed by weaker states than stronger ones in the past, is now in shreds.  Why should anyone - China, Russia or anybody abide by a rules-based international order now if all that matters is that you've got a big bomb and can drop it on someone - hey why not?

"Iran was part of an agreement to control their uranium enrichment and Donald Trump tore that agreement up in his first presidency.  His own Secretary of State, weeks ago made a statement that the Iranians were nowhere near getting a nuclear weapon and this was the view of the USA security establishment that the Iranians were "nowhere near a nuclear bomb".  We have all been through these propaganda barrages before.  We all remember the dodgy dossier.  We all remember what was said about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Just swallowing whole this kind of stuff is not good enough.

"In Vietnam it was said, in the beginning, that we were only sending advisers there, the American told us.  Mission creep is part of war.  If the Iranians follow through with the suggestion of their Parliament that they close the Straits of Hormuz and oil prices jump by some 15% as is predicted, I absolutely guarantee that we will have American spokespeople on the media saying, "Oh well we didn't want to go there but look what the Iranians have done.  Now we will have to respond to that.  If they hit an American base in the Middle East, oh it was only going to be a one-off but now we will have to have a long military engagement.  If you can't see that coming you can't see very much coming, I'm afraid."

FFPT AND STRENGTHENING PENALTIES FOR CAR COMMUTERS

 Dear Alex and Naomi

The couple of articles I have read in my daughter's transport magazines, as Jake Thrush said last Thursday, agree that Fare-Free Public Transport does not entice the thoughtless car commuters who insist on driving into work when they do not need their vehicles for their job, to leave the car at home.

I drive a car but no longer in town or city centres, preferring my bike or bus/train/tram.  I even have my sister-in-law's Brompton or my own bike in the car to cycle the last part of the journey.  Indeed, last Thursday for the Net Zero Annual Event, I cycled the nine miles from home in Halesowen to 'The Exchange'.  As a full-time social worker in Brum, I gave up the car for 90% of work days for the last twenty years of my career.

With those credentials (and my daughter is a great cyclist to the railway station on her way to her transport planner job) I can argue for FFPT together with stiff and strengthening penalties for errant car commuters.

Dishonesty, double standards and evil by us lot of renegades!

Dear James - sent to you as I believe you are a fellow activist and adherent of non-violence.  Have I got the right person, my friend?   A Stourbridge Quaker?    Tim

Monday, 23 June 2025

Biggest investment in Local Transport announced

The Government has announced a £15.6 billion funding boost for local transport in city regions across England, supporting projects from tram renewals to new mass transit schemes.

Government report finds a "litany of mistakes" were made by HS2

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has today (June 18) announced a sweeping overhaul of HS2, accepting all five recommendations from the landmark James Stewart Review, which uncovers a “litany of failure” and years of mismanagement at the heart of Britain’s flagship high-speed rail project.

In a statement to Parliament, Alexander vowed to “draw a line in the sand” regarding the beleaguered project, also stating that the Government aims to restore public trust and deliver the London to Birmingham route within a reset framework.

The James Stewart Review, commissioned in October 2024, painted a stark picture of a project plagued by spiralling costs, poor oversight, and a supply chain misaligned with taxpayer value—issues that have collectively inflated costs by an estimated £37 billion.

https://www.railmagazine.com/news/2025/06/18/government-report-finds-a-litany-of-mistakes-were-made-by-hs2?utm_campaign=RAIL_weekly_newsletter_18_06_25&utm_content=RAIL%20-%20Weekly%20Newsletter&utm_term=Government%20report%20finds%20%22litany%20of%20mistakes%22%20by%20HS2%20Ltd&utm_medium=email&utm_source=adestra

Keith in Coventry going for it!

Hi Keith - it would be wonderful to keep in touch with you, please my friend.

It was great to hear of your work in opposing VLR in Coventry, with the one hour presentation you gave to Jim O'Boyle and much other work.

Are you able to give me a little encouragement, please, by also writing to oppose Metro LR that is also due to come to Coventry?  VLR and LR are both taking funds away from stopping the destruction of our railways and the neglect of freight only railways.  The long Sutton Coldfield railway line remains as freight only, as does the railway "of national strategic significance":-

This is the Black Country Railway that is being turned into LR and an extended cycle-walkwaY between Brownhills and Lichfield.  It is the other London to Edinburgh railway to the west of Brum.  It has goods trains from Port Talbot as far as Round Oak Steel, next to Merry Hill Shopping Centre.

In case you don't have these addresses to write to:  customerservices@tfwm.org.uk

All the best

Sunday, 22 June 2025

Is it me who is completely out of my mind?

PLEASE RESTORE MY SANITY by correcting this nonsense.

For over forty years, we have had a Metro tram scandal costing billions, both in​ price and in weight of ​greenhouse gas (GHG​) emissions​.  And the very people - politicians and transport experts - who almost completely wiped out the UK's electric tram network in the 1950s, then set about one-third of the railway network to be given the same dozy, bulldozer treatment.  Since 1981, they have been desperate to rebuild the tram network on the railway network to completely destroy two mainline railways and, to neglect the remnant 100 Kms of unused or freight-only Midlands railways - that remain forgotten and wasted.
​​
It is taking many years to rebuild the three stations at Kings Norton, Kings Heath and Stirchley after that mainline railway between Brum and Bristol was also down for the tram treatment since the 1980s - reversed ten years ago to get trains back​ - hence the stations!

A second attempt to bring back trains between Wolverhampton and Walsall is also stuck in the doldrums for years.  The first attempt, in the 00s failed, when not enough passengers used the trains.  They preferred their cars and the good bus connection.  This time, two new railway stations at Darlaston and Willenhall are being rebuilt on this same failed railway line - supposedly!  It is taking many years - like the seven years for the 700 metre tram extension to connect the first Metro tramway with the bus station and the sole remaining railway station in Wolverhampton.  95% of the first mainline railway was used for trams​.

The second mainline​
​has gone for a tramway, a VLR test track, an innovation centre, freight trains, a dog walkers' paradise of a cycle-walkway and fresh air.

​TfWM are also planning a railway station at Tettenhall but that station is now called 'Cup Cakes' cafe on the 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walkway Active Travel Route!  SEE: https://en.tripadvisor.com.hk/ShowUserReviews-g190762-d7214774-r896893637-Cupcake_Lane-Wolverhampton_West_Midlands_England.html

Friday, 20 June 2025

Please tell me what you think, here - criticism, feedback, suggestions welcomed!

Were there any aspects of the WM-Net Zero Annual Event that you found especially useful?

"The two presentations from Naomi and Alex, with Sussex University email addresses, had the right idea and were excellent."

What do you think could be improved for future events?
Please invite the decision makers, the Senior Leadership team at WMCA, who need to be present.  Not one senior councillor was present, I believe and certainly not a single Council leader.  They need to hear the result of research and hear the evidence to enable them to make the right decisions.  More radical suggestions, like the ones I have been suggesting for decades need to be discussed by the decision makers, as the Climate Crisis deepens.

What additional activities would you like to see at future WM Net Zero events? (e.g., workshops, round-table discussions, networking sessions, co-creative sessions, hands-on installations)
Let's see the top VIPs who hide behind their minions!

Are there any particular topics that you think we should cover in future events?
Fare-Free Public Transport from around the world.  Why is it so popular?  Why is it so unpopular with academics and policy makers in the UK?  Could a strict stick/penalty on car commuters, to incentivise them, make all the difference?

Why are Metro tram extensions three times more expensive than the 46 tram schemes from around the world, according to Mat Taylor of CNNCT Consultancy.

Has finite fossil fuel rationing been tried anywhere in the world?

How can HS2 increase capacity when it is a dedicated line for high speed passenger trains only, with no stations other than the one at Brum Airport?  Is it of relevance to frequent flyers, between London and Brum who are the main beneficiaries to give them a second option, a little variety to their travels?

Can the delays and cost overruns affecting the building of HS2 over these last sixteen years, be of any help over the construction of the 200 Kms West Midlands Metro tramway network that was to be completed and opened by the year 2000, 25 years ago?

It is now to be 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops by 2040 and costing £15 billion (Jan 2020 figure).

Is it a good idea to convert, or break up, our bus/train public transport into regular buses, Sprint buses, high speed trains, regular trains, light rail trams, Very Light Rail trams and ultra-light trams (the excellent Stourbridge Shuttle).  Quite apart from tram trains and train trams!  The driverless Dockland Light Railway is absolutely brilliant!

You are all doing brilliant work.  Thanks for all you do on behalf of us all.