Nightingale hospitals, Charles Windsor of Wales and easy, obvious wins for the taking!

 Easy, obvious wins for the taking!  Pick the low hanging fruit, first!

I remain of the opinion that urgent writing, phoning and persuasion are all we have!  Our money is now being spent, on a 20 year, £15 BILLION programme of converting bus routes to tramways, for an underground light rail system and to destroy the UK's most important mainline railway for multi-modal transport that is really multi-mixed up transport of more changes and delays for non-car users.  And HS2 extensions also exacerbate fossil fuel shortages, accelerate the runaway greenhouse effect and bring nearer a most uncomfortable future by the end of the century.

URGENT writing to these top bods, if you feel so inspired, please.  And £15 billion would last a long time for Fare-Free Public Transport for all, in all of the W Midlands!

 September 2019 A5 flyer

I heard on the radio today that the Nightingale hospitals cannot be brought back because there is not the staff to run them!  Why did the authorities not think of that before going ahead with spending public money on building unusable hospitals?  Or, could there not have been the training of workers to run them during the course of this past year, in case of new waves of Covid?

Despite my republican leanings, I do like what the Prince of Wales said on the 'Today' programme yesterday, 29 Dec especially about "Mother nature is our sustainer ...  " and onwards, here:-  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000qlwd

2:20:20 in, for two-times Booker Prize winning author Margaret Attwood's interview with Charles.  Available for 27 more days from today.

"We're not on a sustainable trajectory ... the private sector has contributed to the problem over the past century, is now a necessary and critical part of the solution ... I launched the Sustainable Markets Initiative, almost a year ago, to catalyse the private sector to put nature, people and planet at the heart of global value creation." https://www.sustainable-markets.org/

Global value creation = humans living more sustainably, I suppose?

The spendthrift public sector builds Sprint, Metro and HS2 instead of doing Fare-Free Public Transport for all W Midlanders, with electric buses on bus priority roads!

Margaret Attwood and Prince of Wales talking

Despite my strong republican leanings, I do like what the Prince of Wales said on the 'Today' programme yesterday, 29 Dec especially about "Mother nature is our sustainer ...  " and onwards, here:-  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000qlwd

2:20:20 in for two-times Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Attwood's interview with Charles.  Available for 27 more days from today.

"We're not on a sustainable trajectory ... the private sector has contributed to the problem over the past century, is now a necessary and critical part of the solution ... I launched the Sustainable Markets Initiative, almost a year ago, to catalyse the private sector to put nature, people and planet at the heart of global value creation."   https://www.sustainable-markets.org/

MY TRANSPORT CONCERNS

My bee in my bonnet, as you know, is no democratic debate, for and against, as regards spending £1.6 billion, now on Metro trams replacing buses and trains.  With a total of £15 billion on mainly tram extensions to 2040 that is Andy Street's intention.  It will almost certainly be taken on by Liam Byrne, if he is elected on 6 May.  Again, never a public debate in any of the seven council chambers as to whether this is wise/sensible expenditure of public money!

The money, instead, for trains/stations back on the remaining 97 Kms of railway lines that are mothballed or freight only and don't get trams or a test track; FFPT for all on bus priority roads; and, the major, commuter/leisure route of 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway upgraded/transformed to encourage use!

My black biro circles mark the cycle-walk mudway:

 Disgraceful Dudley section of BC Cycle-Walkway ...

where I have written 'boundary' is the border between S Staffs and Dudley on the railway line that is now a cycle-walk mudway open to the public:

 Disgraceful Dudley section of BC Cycle-Walkway ...

RIGHT TO ROAM and improving access

 Dear Guy - and copied to other interested parties for their thoughts, PLEASE!

IMPROVING ACCESS

It was brilliant to hear you on 'BH' with Paddy O'Connell on Radio 4, earlier this year. Well done!

Where do you stand, Guy over OS maps giving greater prominence to accurate mapping, rather than publishing public rights of way that, sometimes bear no reality to what you find on the ground? And, showing accurate crossings of walls, hedges, fences in open access land, instead of relying on Definitive Maps (DM) that are, sometimes, misleading? Too often, I find straight lines and gentle curves marking PROWs in open access land on the OS Explorer map. Would they be better left off, perhaps?

For example, on the Worcs/Salop border, in a one-kilometre square, I have found five rights of way on the definitive map, copied onto the Landranger and Explorer maps, that go through a home, private gardens, rivers/streams without bridges and totally unnecessary duplication of two invisible paths (Worcs 502 and 660) a few metres to the west of one that walkers do use (Worcs 661) at Lower Doddenhill Farm. In fact, the OS cartographers diverted the one round the home, deciding on this occasion not to rely on the legal document (the DM) - Worcs 507 path - straight through New Brick Barns bungalow!

I would like our top priority, to encourage walking, to be this: to have welcoming signs and gates or safe stiles where rights of way meet roads. Then, easy to follow paths that encourage more to return without having to use maps. Gates, rather than stiles and excellent waymarking would also help to encourage use.

Right to roam is lessening on public rights of way as footbridges never get maintained. When dangerous to use they are closed & rarely get replaced (Worcs seem to be better than Salop re wooden footbridges), especially the longer ones over major rivers because they come under Countryside Services that are starved of funds. Should those longer footbridges become the responsibility of Highway Departments, in the hope that they would then get maintained/replaced? Even, Grade 2 listed public footbridges are allowed to collapse (R Rea)!

As vital, natural resources become in shorter supply during this century, should we not be returning to the walking and horseback that were so popular for millennia - until the discovery of the rather mixed blessing of fossil fuels?!

It would be great to hear from you, please Guy - and others for their thoughts.

Best wishes

Tim Weller

from Ben Goldsmith

 “Man worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature; unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.” Hubert Reeves

Tweet to Guy Shrubsole

Where do you stand, Guy over OS maps giving greater prominence to accurate mapping than recording public rights of way that bear no reality to what you find on the ground? And, showing accurate crossings of walls, etc in open access land, instead of relying on DMs?

I would like our top priority, to encourage walking, is to have welcoming signs and gates/stiles where rights of way meet roads. Then, easy to follow paths that encourage more to return without having to use maps. Gates, rather than stiles and excellent waymarking.

Right to roam is lessening on public rights of way as footbridges never get maintained. When dangerous to use they are closed & rarely get replaced, esp the longer ones over major rivers because they come under Countryside Services that are starved of funds (instead of Highways)

Right to roam is diminishing on even public rights of way as footbridges never get maintained.  When too dangerous to use they are closed and rarely get replaced, especially the longer ones over major rivers because they come under Countryside Services (instead of Highways) that are always starved of funds.

Ursula von der Leyen questions PM’s understanding of sovereignty while OBR expects Brexit to hurt GDP

from: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/24/borisjohnsons-vows-to-pit-uk-against-eu-in-race-for-success?utm_term=7bae36feb9971cec13ef78cf0954fc2f&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

His optimism contrasted with the expectations of the government’s own independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which expects Brexit to shave 4% off GDP in the medium term.

Now the Brexit blame game will play out at the door of No 10

David Gauke

Read more

From 1 January, most UK nationals will lose the right of free movement and British businesses will face significant extra costs in doing business with its biggest export market.

The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, gently questioned Johnson’s understanding of sovereignty, the watchword of the British negotiation led by David Frost, as she welcomed the agreement.

She said: “Of course, this whole debate has always been about sovereignty. But we should cut through the sound bites and ask ourselves what sovereignty actually means in the 21st century.

“For me, it is about being able to seamlessly do work, travel, study and do business in 27 countries. It is about pooling our strength and speaking together in a world full of great powers. And in a time of crisis, it is about pulling each other up. Instead of trying to get back to your feet, alone.

“And the European Union shows how this works in practice. No deal in the world can change the reality of [the] gravity in today’s economy. And in today’s world, we are one of the giants.”

Von der Leyen referenced Shakespeare, the Beatles and TS Eliot as she ushered in the new era. “It was a long and winding road, but we have got a good deal to show for it. It is fair. It is a balanced deal. And it is the right and responsible thing to do for both sides,” she said. “At the end of a successful negotiation I normally feel joy. But today I only feel quiet satisfaction and, frankly speaking, relief.

“I know this is a difficult day for some, and to our friends in the United Kingdom, I want to say parting is such sweet sorrow but, to use the line from TS Eliot, what we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is often a beginning. So, to all Europeans, I think it is time to leave Brexit behind.”

At long last we have a Brexit deal – and it's as bad as you thought - Tom Kibasi

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/24/at-long-last-we-have-a-brexit-deal-and-its-as-bad-as-you-thought?utm_term=7bae36feb9971cec13ef78cf0954fc2f&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

We already know its contours: a barely-there treaty that will make trade harder and destroy jobs. Labour should oppose it.

‘The main impediment to a better deal is not the EU but hardline Tory ideology.’ 

Boris Johnson always expected news of a deal to be greeted with jubilation. It was to be his moment of triumph after three decades of climbing to the summit of British politics by railing against Brussels. The rightwing press dutifully rallied. Even Nigel Farage declared: “The war is over.”

But with Britain in a state of crisis because of the government’s botched response to the pandemic, most people will react with relief or perhaps indifference. For all the triumphalist claims of the Brexiters, the sunny uplands they told us to expect are no more than another cold, dark, wet winter’s day. The 11th-hour antics means there will be little scrutiny of a trade deal that could shape Britain’s economic destiny for a generation.

To Michael Bourke, ret Bishop of Wolverhampton

 Thanks so much for sending me your helpful talk that I have now read and, re-read.  It reflects some of my own thoughts and has increased my understanding.  Thank you.

I particularly liked,

"the Presence of One whose world it is, who is here before us
and we are her guests. We know that nature can be cruel and
inhospitable, and yet, as today’s environmental movement
testifies – despite everything (the second part of my title!) –
the natural world is not just a blind mechanism or a material
resource for us to exploit. It mediates a presence and a
sense of wonder."

AND,

"We are not the lords of the universe.  Reverence, humility and trust are required of us in the macro-ecology of which we are part."

Yes, indeed.  We are part of nature and subject to the laws of nature.  But we think we are a cut above nature.  Such is our hubris and eventual undoing.

"The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."  Psalm 14 v 1

The problem I have is that even the wisest of the wise who are most devoted to the Lord God, are, like the rest of us, living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet.  That is extremely dangerous and foolish.  Unfortunately, we are now well and truly locked into this behaviour.  Utterly dependant on, addicted to, oil and gas that without them, means I think, we cannot even eat or drink!  We are well and truly trapped into using finite fossil fuels for virtually everything!  Yet, both must be in short supply before the end of the century.

In addition, as we merrily burn them up and live it up, we have been told for 150 years, that making carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels warms the planet.  Eunice Foote, in 1856, was the first and is the mother of climate science.  The IPCC has confirmed this in every report since 1988.  However, still no effective action to reverse the rot and we carry on regardless, with our fingers crossed behind our backs.

As a result, it looks likely that we humans will have a much shorter track record than the dinosaurs that God seems to have created the earth for and not for foolish humans.  I hope I'm wrong!

A poisoned chalice.  The gods have played a cruel trick on us.  A one-off geological inheritance that was never meant to be exploited with such gay abandon.  It was the apple on the tree that we were never meant to take, let alone partake of as we have done, for 300 years.  But we can hardly blame our ancestors, can we?  I expect, we would each have done exactly the same.  Perhaps, a serious flaw in our human nature! 

Very many thanks, again for such an erudite essay to promote thought!  I have put it in my 'Religious thoughts' folder to refer back.

Have a wonderful Christmas and new year.

MY QUIZ of 12 ... oddities, eccentricities, peculiarities ...

 ​​

MY QUIZ of 12 ... oddities, eccentricities, peculiarities ... ?

1.  A poisoned chalice.  The gods have played a cruel trick on us.  A one-off geological inheritance that was never meant to be exploited with such gay abandon.  It was the apple on the tree that we were never meant to take, let alone partake of as we have done, for 300 years.  But we can hardly blame our ancestors, can we?  I expect, we would each have done exactly the same.  Perhaps, a serious flaw in our human nature!

What is in the chalice?

2.  Name the largest UK town without a railway station that it had for 100 years, successfully, until 50 years ago. It now gets a tram stop and Innovation Centre with a 2 Km test track, instead!

3.  "In October, the BLANK October on record according to the EU’s climate monitoring service." (Directors' Report 2019 from Operation Noah)

Fill in the blank.

4.  Who said,

"We have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the earth itself."  Quoted by Andrew Marr, p 480 in 'A History of Modern Britain' (owned by Mike Verduyn and bequeathed to his grandson Jonathan).

5.  Name earth's sister planet and what makes it so?

6.  Munros, Tops, Corbetts, Grahams, Donalds, Bridges, Nuttalls, Marilyns, Furths.

Where do you find them?

7.  For a few years, which UK city had "a concrete collar" named by the very planners who had built it?

8.  Not many people know this useless piece of information: What can you legally do on a public footpath that you may not want to do?

9.  Since the 1990s, how many times has Centenary Square been rebuilt, including its latest incarnation in 2019 at £16 m construction cost?

10. What was the name of the newest national park, announced by the authorities in August 2019?

11. "It would a lovely city if they could only finish building it!"  What on earth do they mean?

12.  Any suggestions for filling in the BLANKS in this sentence that are not expletives but really polite, descriptive and accurate?  I'm sure I must have had a rich vocabulary in mind at the time and I wish I could remember what the polite English was!  Can you help me out, please?

When you have a BLANK, BLANK, BLANK 56 Kms blankety gap in the middle of a mainline railway of "national strategic significance" between Worcester and Derby, do you really shuttle passengers across the gap using "bus on rails" trams, a Very Light Rail test track and cycle hire, as is happening? 

Tim Snr

Tweets to MMA

UK Tram Ltd called trams "buses on rails" at the time of the Croydon tram crash in Nov 2016. "Of a total 69 passengers, there were seven fatalities and 62 injured, 19 of whom sustained serious injuries." Please put electric buses straight on the road without bothering with rails! 27 Dec 2020

BRILLIANT! Well done. However, you are spending finite resources and adding to greenhouse gases on replacing perfectly good and acceptable buses and trains that desperately need investment - with trams! This is seriously irresponsible. Espec at £81 m/Km for Eastside extension.

12.2.21:- Jordan, everyone one of us loves the slick, swish, smart trams. But, thousands of us are now inconvenienced forever because, with priority for trams over buses, we have a longer and slower journey into the city centre by bus or by bus/tram. The Five Ways underpass means no buses.

First duty of local and regional government should be to defend the interests of the poor and not the rich elite, like them who can well look after themselves.

 30 August 2018

I was at the Halesowen Global Justice Group meeting yesterday and mentioned the hundreds of millions going into tram extensions and Sprint bus routes.  For me, this is a local justice issue of morality and of right governance by our well meaning councillors, MPs and MEPs - and party members.

There is a desperate need for modest sized, highly insulated homes for families and singles in bed and breakfast and other 'temporary' accommodation.

There are many brownfield sites in our borough that I have found and listed where low carbon, more suitable housing and apartments should be going.

Therefore, the first duty of local and regional government should be to defend the interests of the poor and not the rich elite, like them who can well look after themselves.

Instead, these councillors, MPs and MEPs see their top priority, is to provide prestigious, grossly extravagant and wasteful Metro tram and Sprint bus schemes on the back of the billions going into HS2.

These people see their top priority to provide free car parking for two hours at all council car parks.  Low income families do not have cars.  Google tells me that 24% of UK households do not have even one car.

Our local and regional politicians see another top priority is to spend many hundreds of millions of pounds on immorally expensive tram extensions and Sprint buses - Metro's little sister or the bus that thinks it's a tram.

Low income families need existing buses that have free fares.  Over 60s like me have had them for over ten years.  The money from scrapping tram extensions and Sprint buses should be used to give everyone free bus travel with bus lanes and traffic lights priority to speed them on their way at the expense of car commuters.

There would still be money left over for electric buses to replace diesel buses and to give us all healthier and cleaner air.

Instead, these hopeless politicians only want grandiose, vanity projects to project style over substance.

The money from the Clean Air Zone charges from 2020 should be going into these ordinary bus priority measures, too.  This would free up road space for car users who really do need their cars for their businesses by getting car commuters bussed into work.  One double decker can take 70 single occupancy commuter cars off the road.

At Merry Hill, the other week, I actually saw a double decker bus with 'STAFF BUS' emblazoned on its front.  Brilliant!

Our way below par politicians are happy to preside over bus routes being cut and a slow but steady decline in their use as we all think car and never bus - let alone bike!

PLEASE write a sentence or two about all these shenanigans to the people in the 'To' field, above that are getting this.

To Croydon Trams

 Dear Anthony Norris-Watson and Stephen Spark

 A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM

Why is it that only electric "bus on rails" trams can "take thousands of cars off our roads every day" but never electric buses linked into reinstated trains and stations?

"Bus on rails" trams was the description that Andrew Broddick of UK Trams Ltd gave on the 'Today' programme to help explain 62 injuries and 7 deaths on Croydon Tramlink in November 2016.

Why can only trams "relieve overcrowded existing routes" and not by making use of existing but wasted railway lines, with commuter trains, that would have avoided the tragedy in 2016?

Why only trams to "serve corridors where there is a high or rising demand" but never electric buses, linked into trains returned to existing railway lines, that would reduce the need for multiple changes?

Why is it always trams to "stimulate development in areas that suffer deprivation" like the four Black Country boroughs when its neighbour, Birmingham Grand Central station, remains "one of the worst railway congestion bottlenecks in the UK" - Peter Plisner,  BBC 'Midlands Today'.

Why is it always trams chosen to "duplicate existing public transport links"?

When "Funds will be tight in a post-Covid, post-Brexit environment", why only tram schemes when they are the second most expensive mode to construct after HS2 and have a higher accident rate than either bus or train?

When tram extensions are often ten times more expensive per Km to construct than putting diesel/electric trains back on even rebuilt railway lines (cf Borders Railway), why are they always chosen to duplicate, replace and make for even more multiple changes between bus, train and tram?

Why are "bus on rails" trams chosen over commuter, regional and intercity trains on two short sections of a half-finished, 120 Kms principal, mainline railway "of national strategic significance"?

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

There are proposals and, active plans now being implemented, for three different kinds of trams over four short sections of this nationally important, partly finished railway!!  Pre Metro shuttle tram, Very Light Rail tram and Light Rail tram.

Why complicate public transport travel in this way?

Why cannibalise unused railway lines for tram lines?  And, leave many miles of unused railway lines wasted for more decades or forever!

Has no one thought of trains for train lines that have not yet been used for the bizarre, eccentric activity of running homes, offices, shops and roads down them?

Complete amateurs have rebuilt entire railway lines.  Why can't the professionals put TRAINS BACK on existing, entire, already built railway lines?

BRILLIANT Zarah Sultana MP

 The Spectator describes me as “the permanently outraged MP”.

Highest excess death toll in Europe. Deepest recession in G7. Unicef forced to feed our kids. Billions to Tory mates in dodgy contracts. Climate catastrophe looming. If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.

Replying to @zarahsultana

Well done Zarah. Please take up democracy curtailed at WMCA, unlike Edinburgh City Council with their tram extension debated/voted last year for £207 MILLION expenditure. We spend over £1.6 BILLION on trams replacing buses and trains without debate/vote: timweller1@gmail.com

WICKED COWS HAVE WHALE OF A TIME AT CRICKET WICKET!

You might like to know that the permissive path round the Hunnington cricket ground was closed to the public after the cows used it!  I was asked on Sunday (13th) to remove the signs by the committee.  This week I've covered them with grey plastic on the four posts that you and Nina installed.  The broken yellow PROW disc is now gone completely, too!  Jenny, from the railway station, is now a lot happier - I think - when I met her dog walking on the public path a couple of days ago!  She'll have it to herself more.  Especially, since she put four strands of wire across the only gap from her drive onto the cricket ground to make it more obvious that the public are not welcome.

I'm smoothing over some of the worst bumps and lumps and improving the barrier between the path and the caravans.  I love the work.  I said to Jenny that it is like having an allotment!

Thanks so much for your paper definitive map, in Jan 2019, proving that the PROW was between the two lines of concrete posts.  Adam and Harry have just put a fence alongside the row of posts on their field side to keep the sheep in.  They were not at all happy when I approached them.  "Go away", Harry said.  So I did!  I've even offered to contribute to the cost but, I've heard nothing.  Just the cows wandering down the path from, presumably the Cherry memorial bench, via the new, large tractor gate that I thought was always kept locked.  It was quite something that they put the wooden stile in, too!  Or, was that you?

Have a great Christmas and 2021 and thanks for all your footpath improvement work in our Golden Green Triangle of the 32 sq Kms Clent Hills Regional Park in the impressive W Mids National Park!!

Tim

Dear Patrick and Worcs CC

On the 3 August 2020, I asked if a kissing gate might be installed.  I wrote,  "Or, would you authorise a kissing gate on the farm boundary with the sports club - please?"  This is at SO 96884 81249 on HN-514 (A).

Last Thursday, 10 December, some cows (Philip Bibbey's) were 'allowed' to wander, 500 metres, down the public path, HN 514 from the Cherry memorial bench at SO 97174 80926, to graze the delicious grass on the Hunnington cricket square.

 VID-20201212-WA0000.mp4

The next day, 11 December and, yesterday when I walked further north to the cricket ground, I found 

1. a large oak branch laid across the path in the open woodland owned by Romsley and Hunnington Sports and Social Club (this was seen on 14 Dec);
2. rather obvious hoof prints on the public right of way (seen 11 Dec);
3. the theft, this time, of the broken remains of the Worcs CC yellow arrow public right of way disc on the corner concrete post, where the kissing gate is needed (14 Dec) ;
4. the theft of my slasher and the second, lighter one left on the ground, with plastic bags in which I had left them, strewn around (11 Dec).

All of this indicates a deliberate malicious act, rather than of carelessness - a gate left open by accident.  All the farmers I have met are always so careful about locking gates.  It is very important that you urgently, please, authorise the professional installation of a kissing gate at SO 96884 81249 on HN-514 (A) - to maintain cordial relations between local farmers and the Sports and Social Club - PLEASE!

With best wishes

Left out people still divided in a myriad of left groups and parties and so we never win!

I agree with Corbyn, particularly over "the Black Lives Matter movement has fuelled a global response to the scourge of racism, and how the climate crisis threatens us all." This means, I think, that all left out people (that includes Corbyn!) should unite in Left Unity for action on social justice, climate justice and non-violence.  All our little factions and divisions on the left simply weaken our urgent, sensible and right actions.  Remember, 'Life of Brian' film and the myriad of rival groups fighting the Romans, 2,000 years ago!  Very funny BUT, we are still like it today!!