to Richard Worrall

Dear Richard

It was brilliant to have our walk and talk yesterday.

You were the third councillor who had agreed to meet with me for that conducted tour.  The first was a Dudley Labour councillor and the second a Dudley Conservative councillor.  Both are not members of TDC.  Both seemed to understand the importance of saving the housing site, the tree and grass canal embankment and did not disagree with me over the cost of £100 million for the two bridges and the 400 metre concrete and steel viaduct on its stilts.  Both did not disagree with keeping the trams on the railway "of national strategic significance" from Dudley bus station to save the £100 m.  And so link it to the national railway network.

By email, I had personally and individually invited, all 72 councillors to meet with me to see the important public open space and wasted mainline railway.  Only two were interested and showed some concern - when it was their borough, too.  The three ward councillors declined or did not reply!

I agree/saddened about your experiences at 16 Summer Lane when you became Chair of the TDC.  I thought it was unacceptable for John McNicholas on TV to defend the 49% rise in the already grossly inflated salary of the seriously over-paid airport boss.  In my opinion, the airport should not be owned (or partly owned?) by the seven district councils.

Now, a suggestion:

Please question the ways things have always been done

With your second occupancy as Chair of TDC, would you feel able to see your role as a consumer watchdog, as another Martin Lewis and, as someone who stands up for the very best value for money?  Therefore:

Would you invite (even summons!) Linda Horne, the WMCA Finance Director to the very next meeting of TDC to explain the costs per kilometre of each tram line (from 1999 opening of the first Metro) and each tram extension, since?

After you left, yesterday I had lunch at Wetherspoons and then cycled and took the train to Digbeth to ask about the Metro Eastside extension.  I was told it is now £220m for 1.7 Kms that makes it £129m/Km.  Could Linda confirm that with your TDC - but in person - Richard, and these figures, please?

£7m/Km for the 2015 Borders Railway rebuilding through the Southern Uplands.

£21m/Km for the 2003 M6 Toll greenfield motorway.

£51m/Km from £550m for 10.7 Km Wednesbury, Brierley Hill Extension in 2022

£80m/Km from £160m for 2 Kms Metro Westside in 2022

£129m/Km for Metro Eastside in 2022

over £200m/Km for HS2 in 2020

£62m/Km for 150 miles or 241 Kms of Metro in W Mids costing £15 BILLION to 2040 - Jan 2020 figure.

Do you think we should be pushing for a public announcement over the scrapping of the West Midlands, Jan 2020, £15 billion to 2040, 150 miles of underground and overground tram routes, in the light of the multiple crises, all exacerbated by wrong, foolish expenditure like this?

Such is our total dependence on finite fossil fuels, it is alarming but accurate to believe:

Every £ spent = lb weight of greenhouse gas emissions to worsen the climate emergency.  Venus is further away from the sun than mercury but is hotter because of its runaway greenhouse effect and high CO2 content in its atmosphere.  We are doing the same to earth!

Would you invite Linda to your next meeting, perhaps Richard?

Best wishes

Tim

PS:- Could you mention to Mike Bird please, about the housing designated 10,000 sq metres of High Plateau for very low-cost energy apartments for the most badly housed, including or, especially all asylum seekers and refugees?  Mike is Chair of the Housing and Land Delivery Board on the CA.