to Sandeep and Marilyn

Dear Sandeep and Marilyn

I would like you and your colleagues to reconsider the WBHE devastating the 400 metre Dudley No 1 Canal embankment at Merry Hill and think, instead of keeping the trams on the railway line to Stourbridge Junction station.

What is destroyed is the only public open space, the nearest thing to a Nature site with my landscape enhancement scheme against the corroded metal sheet piling at the southern end of the embankment.  In the light of the ongoing climate emergency declared in 2019 by the WMCA, and the inflation, energy, and cost of living crises today, I think it is best not to bury Nature under concrete, brick and tarmac, by the planned standard gauge, double-track, concrete and steel, 400 metre railway/tram viaduct for Metro trams on the Dudley No 1 Canal embankment.  Instead, the trams might stay on the mainline railway "of national strategic significance" all the way to Stourbridge Junction station, with tram stops at the Waterfront, Brierley Hill and Withymoor.

Part of the embankment that gets destroyed:

 6 glorious white trees.jpg

I would prefer the carbon dioxide absorbing grass and tree embankment to be allowed to be naturally rewilded into first long grass, then the natural succession to shrub and finally woodland as part of the Black Country Urban Forest and the WMCA Virtual Forest.  This is essential to slow the climate crisis.  The mowing of the embankment seems to have temporarily stopped, perhaps in expectation of the eventual construction of the 400 metre concrete and steel viaduct.  However, there is still time to permanently stop the destruction that comes with the viaduct being built and start recovering more of the railway that Network Rail and the DfT insist is "of national strategic significance" (see letter, below).

Many thanks if you could review this part of the scheme, please.