Dear Mr Weller
I am contacting you to ask for your help in relation to your communications with Officers and Members of West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
Constructive feedback about the transport network is very much welcomed. While your correspondence is appreciated, the distribution of your emails is causing some duplication of effort and it is in relation to this, that I want to ask for your help. We have noted that your correspondence with WMCA is sometimes sent to multiple WMCA contacts at the same time. This is causing duplication of effort because multiple teams within WMCA are receiving and reviewing the same correspondence. It is urgent that the maximum number of employees read and either confirm I am right or, I be corrected, please.
To resolve this and to support us being able to work most efficiently and answer your queries as comprehensively as possible, it would be extremely helpful if you could send all of your correspondence to our Customer Relations Team via the dedicated email address customerservices@tfwm.org.uk This team has direct links to every department within WMCA including the Mayor’s Office, meaning it is ideally placed to respond to enquiries spanning the breadth of WMCA’s work as well as share feedback more widely as appropriate. Wide circulation saves you having to do it! Public education as to how we can deal with the present crisis is vital.
In connection with your recent enquiry to David Harris, I am pleased to provide a copy of the slides that were presented at Dudley’s Housing and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday 22 September 2021. Thank you. My comments:
In the light of the dire climate emergency confronting us, we have to retrench and NOT recharge/regenerate/expand the W Mids economy for carry on regardless, business as usual. These practices are accelerating the rush to 2.4 C rise in global average surface temperatures. ECOCIDE will be inevitable.
See 'Guardian', 9.11.21:- 'COP26: world on track for disastrous heating of more than 2.4C, says key report'
More travel must NOT be encouraged unless it is commuting by regional Fare-Free Public Transport on no more HS2, Metro, Sprint, LR, VLR, ULR extensions.
Much less finite fossil fuel travel and working from home is urgent to cut fossil fuel use and to postpone extinction.
AN EXEMPTION -
Go for fare-free ULR (Stourbridge Shuttle), to allow for pedestrianisation of High Street and Market Street in Stourbridge and linking with the big car park at the Civic Amenity site entrance on Birmingham Street (A458).
Map, here:- https://goo.gl/maps/
Growing travel demand must be urgently abated by rationing, as we almost had in the 1973/74 energy crisis when fuel coupons began to be issued.
Jolly Japes Johnson's 'levelling up' can only come from the rich levelling down to allow the poor to level up. It is called socialism, social justice, sustainable society or, the Kingdom of God in the New Testament that the UK is supposed to still, officially, believe in - our Leader Boris Johnson must do so with all his talk of 'levelling up'.
You have also specifically asked for clarification on the reinstatement of heavy rail and freight services and how light rail investment supports this. Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) has acquired an approximate 7km section of the old railway corridor from Network Rail. Although Network Rail currently has no plans to bring this line back into operation, as part of our agreement we will make passive provision for freight trains to return to that section of track. This means that we will be carrying out work that could enable this to happen in the future. In its current state of disrepair and without the work we will be undertaking, the section of route we have procured cannot be used by freight trains.
Our plans for Metro construction involve upgrading or replacing several structures to be suitable for use and accommodate heavy freight where possible. We have also acquired Parkhead Viaduct which needs considerable remedial work to make it safe, before carrying trams or freight trains could be considered. We are also moving a small section of track near to Round Oak to allow for both Metro and rail/freight. I would like to see a plan/map, please to understand your intentions.
Please note our agreement with Network Rail will not make the full line ready for freight, so some additional work would be carried out if the reinstatement of freight trains was agreed.
There is currently no firm scheme in place to extend Metro down Hagley Road. WMCA has however, been invited to submit a City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) bid into Government to support capital transport investment within the region during the period April 2022 to March 2027. We have submitted a bid to be delivered through Transport West Midlands and our constituent Local Authorities which incorporates a package of investment for the Metro to include development of further route options on the Hagley Road corridor connecting the west of Birmingham to the Black Country. Please don't bother with Metro "bus on rails" trams. Just do electric buses minus rails, directly on the road. Making steel tracks and concrete is VERY HIGH in greenhouse gas emissions that are bringing all life on earth down (apart from cockroaches, I hear!)
This feasibility work could inform longer term implementation plans linked to our new Local Transport Plan which would be subject to consultation. If it goes ahead, this feasibility work would consider how the tram could work as part of an integrated system, including specific impacts on buses. Please be assured that this assessment would inform the viability of any future development.
I hope this information is helpful and that you can help with my reasonable request relating to your contact with WMCA. Finally, while we are unable to acknowledge all information we receive, please be assured that we will respond to correspondence with specific questions and enquiries to matters which fall within our remit.
Kind regards
Lee Eteo
Customer Relations Manager
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