Dudley CAN have a direct connection with London and Scotland!

Please try and persuade Khurshid that Dudley having a direct connection with all parts of the UK, as we used to have for about 100 years, is more sensible and advantageous than having a tram shuttling passengers between Dudley Castle Hill and Dudley Port on the West Coast Main Line and then having to go via Brum or Wolverhampton to other parts of the country.  Additional points:

• The ultra-light rail tram (VLR) idea appears to be a project at Warwick University in Coventry from the Warwick Manufacturing Group, there.
• It still has to be developed, tested and then to pass all the H&SE requirements before it can come into public service on our major inter-city line.  This will take years from past experience with the Stourbridge Shuttle. 
• It will be a refinement of the 3/4 mile tram that is the Stourbridge Shuttle - ideal for that short branch line but NOT on a nationally important, last remaining, unopened, north-south, double track line!
• There is no other (opened or unopened) north-south line between road and rail congested New Street Station in the east and the Hereford-Shrewsbury line in the west.
• The VLR would stop, for ever, inter-city trains using the Black Country Line, once more
• One mile, for now, for the tram between Castle Hill and Dudley Port and then extensions in small bite sized chunks.
• The bite size chunks strategy failed to get Light Rail Metro (LR) trams on this same line.  Now, Khurshid wants VLR trams as well or instead - and, using the same failed strategy!
• Khurshid and his predecessors failed in 34 years to get LR Metro between Wednesbury and Brierley Hill - a distance of 7 miles.  Now Khurshid is trying with getting VLR trams on only one mile!
• His plan will cost £20 to £25 million; mine will cost under £200 million, even with £10 million spent on Parkhead rail Viaduct in Netherton (figure from Toby Rackcliffe of Centro).
• My figure is based on the £300 million for the 48 Km (29 miles) line from Edinburgh to the middle of nowhere in southern Scotland (a small community at Tweedbank) - I exaggerate not!  It re-opens in September.
• This is a big enough scandal in its own right when we constantly get passed over for even a 7 mile tram on this former 13 miles inter-city line!
• Khurshid's plan is for one mile; mine is for 13 miles.  Therefore, mine is better value for money! 
• Bridges, one viaduct and one tunnel (all of which cannot be widened) prevent shared use of VLR and heavy rail inter-city trains.
• For about 20 years, DfT, PTA/Centro and Network Rail official transport policy - in every single document - was for freight trains, only on the full length and LR Metro on the seven miles middle section.
• Now, all of that is over-ruled by Martyn Holloway, Head of Traffic and Transportation in Dudley Council, advising Khurshid that every single strategy and study, policy and plan - written and poured over for years by transport officials - can be walked all over!
• Martyn should have known that the far more sensible and suitable site for the VLR project and Innovation Centre is the vacant Brierley Hill Steel Terminal site on Moor Street and using the mothballed, 3 Km, Pensnett branch line.
• The VLR tram then road running to the Waterfront and Merry Hill and, a second line road running to connect with the Stourbridge Shuttle at Stourbridge Town interchange.
• There has never been any public consultation over this weird and wonderful idea from Khurshid and Pete Lowe.