Drax accused of driving ‘environmental racism’ in US deep south

Also this week, Drax — the company that bills itself as the UK’s largest source of renewable electricity — quietly agreed to pay out a further $3.2m to settle air pollution claims in the United States, according to a major investigation by Unearthed.

Documents show that last month the company agreed two settlements of $1.6m apiece with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, to settle claims against two of its wood pellet plants in the state for air quality breaches. 

These settlements —  which relate to claims dating back to 2019 against pellet plants in Bastrop, Louisiana and Urania, Louisiana — come after Drax was fined $2.5m for air pollution violations in the town of Gloster, Mississippi. 

The company’s mills in Gloster and Bastrop are sited next to majority-Black communities with high poverty rates. American critics say that while Drax presents itself as green in the UK its operations have driven “environmental racism” in the US — allowing communities of colour to be disproportionately exposed to polluting industries. 

Drax burns wood pellets as a substitute for coal at its massive power plant in Yorkshire. The decision to substitute coal for wood pellets has allowed Drax to receive significant amounts of money from the UK government in green energy subsidies.

Drax denies it committed any violations at its Louisiana plants and agreed the settlement payments without admitting liability.

Terminate WBHE at Level Street

Dear Chris - and this is also intended for Alex Lane at the Brum and Black Country Wildlife Trust for his interest and action, please Alex!  I've also copied in TfWM who are well and truly fed up with hearing from me and, I'm sure, would love to hear from you both!

Terminating Phase 2 of WBHE at Level St tram stop, between the Waterfront and Merry Hill SC  (WBHE is Metro Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Extension)

I've been wanting to write to you, Chris for a long time and missed my opportunity to give you my email address, last year, when you so very well and fairly chaired the hustings for candidates for Combined Authority Mayor.  I was one of them, you may remember, until I had to pay the deposit!

Like me, you were horrified in the 1980s at the continuing, never ending tarmac, brick and concreting of farmland and countryside at Merry Hill, as well as that open space lost at Narrowboat Way, north of Saltwells Wood Nature Reserve and north of Highbridge Road, Lodge Farm.  Only a narrow buffer zone for nature is now left.  Wildlife gets pushed out for humans!

 UK is one of the most nature depleted countries

Since the 1990s, I've been writing to 16 Summer Lane B19 3SD (Transport and Combined Authority HQ) objecting to Metro trams taking over perfectly good railway lines that should have had commuter and regional trains reinstated.  I soon lost the Snow Hill to Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury mainline that was given to trams when Metro One opened in 1999.  Last decade, I lost the more important, 120 Kms principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance" 

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

that runs between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby.  That line has been given over to light rail Metro on two short sections and, on the site of the former Dudley Castle Hill Station, to a Very Light Rail Innovation Centre at the foot of the road called Castle Hill, Dudley town, below the zoo and castle.

There is one last battle that you and I might still be able to win with the help of both of you, please Chris and Alex!  The Metro tram rejoins the former principal mainline railway at the Cinder Bank roundabout on the Dudley Southern Bypass.  Where the trams come off the railway after Canal Street tram stop, Hart's Hill, I am suggesting it still goes into the Waterfront and almost all the way to Merry Hill Shopping Centre but, it should terminate at a new Level Street tram stop.  This slightly shortened route is to

1. save £100 m by not needing to build the 400 metre, steel and concrete, double track, standard gauge, tram viaduct on the 400 m long and high canal embankment;
2. save my 'magnificent' guerrilla garden from being wiped out;
3. save the only public open space at Merry Hill;
4. everything (and more) in this photo between the road and the canal gets bulldozed for the massive viaduct;
   
    6 glorious white trees.jpg
5. save nature - of which we are part and depend on for our very existence;
6. save the view of five lovely hills from the canal towpath and from the boats on the high canal embankment; and 
7. save all the 10,000 sq metres of land designated for housing - after some decades, is still available for very low cost energy apartments for the poor, as here:
   
     WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

Level Street tram stop would enable passengers to walk to the Waterfront and, in the other direction, to the shopping centre.  Level St is marked on the above plan and crosses, west to east, the roundabout in the top right hand corner of the plan, above.

Other maps and full details are found here:

https://metroalliance.co.uk/projects/wednesbury-to-brierley-hill-extension/

 WBHE map in leaflet

 Map Wednesbury - Brierley Hill.pdf

 Metro map with my notes.pdf

What do both of you think?  Please could you write and support me?  I'd be very happy to show you my own landscape enhancement scheme that is about to be wiped out - anytime after these next three weeks.

The most important email address is customerservices@tfwm.org.uk - as I've used, above.

Best wishes for helping with this positive, practical and helpful suggestion.

Scathing verdict on WMCA misspending

Dear Ed   (Ed Cox is Director of Inclusive Growth and Public Service Reform at WMCA)

Greener Together Forum on Transport

I remain very concerned that after 41 years of your seven councils, regional and national governments attempting to rebuild the tram network, that was only obliterated twenty years earlier between 1950 and 1960, you have still not come anywhere near to achieving this forty year old ambition.  This, even though you were rebuilding the tram network on the railway network for both Snow Hill to Wolverhampton and from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill.  Astonishing!

This does raise the question if local, regional and national governments are competent.  Why this self-inflicted idiocy?  All you had to do was to stop destroying our railway network for roads and buildings and, then, not to put Metro trams on what survived the onslaught, the obliteration but, simply, to put back the commuter and regional trains that had been so successful for 100 years!

This incompetent idiocy has gone on for decades and, now we are in a state of multiple crises - climate, a proxy war, energy, cost of living, inflation and, last week a stupidly, self-inflicted, national financial crisis to add to all our self-inflicted problems.  Yet, you blithely carry on regardless with Metro instead of (non Sprint) buses and trains!  In fact, you are reinforcing all our problems by continuing to give top priority to Metro, and without even a nod in the direction of democracy with a proper process of discussions, debates and then votes.  Never any democracy involving the public with all the facts and figures given!  Even when Andy was re-elected last year, a Mayor with, supposedly, no dictatorial power, none of us were informed about his £15 billion, February 2020 tram plan.  He is meant to be working with the seven council leaders and representing their democratically voted on manifestos.  He has no authority to push through his own wishes, especially when there has never been any discussion, debate and vote over the wisdom of pursuing Metro expansion.

Yesterday, I wrote this to you:

Might there be a full explanation for Andy Street's planned 150 miles, 380 tram stops and 8 lines of Metro network of underground and overground "bus on rails" trams by 2040?  Only a drop in the ocean at £15 billion was the Feb 2020 figure.  However, all this at a time of national financial crisis - and every other kind of crisis!  Better still - even a pro and con debate by your transport experts over this latest extensive tram network, perhaps?  Edinburgh City Council had two lots of discussion, debates and votes before going ahead with their two tram projects.  See

 Edinburgh Conservative Group OPPOSES their tram...

 Edinburgh's £1billion tram line

 Edinburgh tram costs

 Like for like comparison of infrastructure buil...

As they did things properly, could we not at least have a full, for and against, debate in our Greener Together Forum, please?  A lot of taxpayers' money is involved and we need to be very well informed, I think.

Best wishes for a revolution in turning from wrong priorities to all the right ones.

Considerate constructors

Considerate constructors for the well-being of future generations would want to be following HMG advice: 'Restoring Your Railways' BEFORE rebuilding the tram network (on railway lines, too) you destroyed in the 1950s!

UK is one of the most nature depleted countries

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2022/09/25/tories-stand-accused-of-launching-a-full-scale-assault-on-nature/

The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world with about half of its biodiversity left.

The country may not have enough biodiversity - the variety of plant and animal life - to prevent an ecological meltdown, researchers said.

It has just 53% of biodiversity left, well below the global average of 75%, according to the Natural History Museum.

Both figures are below the 90% level that experts believe is needed to prevent the world from tipping into an “ecological recession”.

Ecological recession could lead to a future in which ecosystems do not have enough biodiversity to function well, leading to crop failures and infestations that could cause shortages in food, energy and materials.

Meanwhile, a Treasury spokesperson insisted:

The Government remains committed to setting a new legally binding target to halt the decline of biodiversity in England by 2030.

Despite the government’s protestations, its plans represent a real threat to nature. Last year, researchers warned that the UK has already lost so much biodiversity that it risks an “ecological meltdown”, ITV reported. This government’s proposals are the last thing we need.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-10-10/uk-is-one-of-the-most-nature-depleted-countries-in-the-world

11 questions for FoI at WMCA

1. ​Is it tr​​ue that the ​multiple cris​e​s ​confronting the nation ​have meant that there is a £300 million shortfall in the cost of the Dudley Tram (Wednesbury, Brierley Hill Extension or WBHE) construction project and this is leading to only half of it being built - for the time being?  Over the 40 years of planning and constructing the 10.7 Kms tramline on mainly a railway "of national strategic significance", the cost has ballooned to £550 million.  Is that the current figure?
2. Are you still insisting that the only way to finish the missing middle section of the 120 Kms Black Country Mainline Railway is to put Metro trams on a total of 6.7 Kms out of the 56 Kms that is available to be finished with the regional and commuter, fast trains between Worcester and Derby via Dudley?  The official line that has never been withdrawn in 22 years is this: "Light rail (trams) investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."  (Heavy rail services mean trains between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby.​  Source: letter dated 18 September 2000 from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director, Centro​)
3. ​What length of the former mainline railway must be converted to tramway before it can be converted back for passenger and freight trains, once more?​
   
4. ​What did Laura Shoaf, CEO of WMC​A ​mean in a 'Midlands Today' interview that "passive provision would be built in" to the WBHE Metro tram scheme to allow the mainline railway ​"of national strategic significance" ​
    "of national strategic significance".pdf
   ​​to be completed with fast passenger and freight trains, in due course?
5. Ha​ve the many cris​e​s delayed the reopening of the Wolverhampton to Walsall Railway with its two new stations at Darlaston and Willenhall?
6. Is the Kings Norton, Kings Heath, Moseley, Balsall Heath railway still going ahead with its three new stations?
7. Has the cost of living crisis caused the postponement of the Walsall to Brum via Sutton Coldfield railway being brought back into use?
8. Are there plans for the Clean Air Zone to be made tighter to improve even further the quality of life and health of those living and working within the Ring Road?
9. Have our transport experts ever talked of road pricing to free up road space for essential business users and to deter car commuters who should be using bus, train and tram to get to and from work?
10. What is the latest cost of the Birmingham Eastside Metro extension?
11. What was the final cost of the Brum Westside extension?

Shale gas for ten years and water galore is essential

Yesterday, I read every word (at least once) of your ten year Fracking Nirvana to give us untold blessings of wasteful and greedy gas consumption at the present rates that the UK uses up gas reserves.  Impeccable facts and figures that are undeniable.  However, shale gas is simply very short lived.  Also undeniable?  And, we are short of water, too?

I heard on Radio 4 that our new three rates of income tax will give the richest taxpayers a bonanza of yet more money to waste on greedy, selfish living.  Most will be worse off, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).  Only those earning over £155,000 will be better off by 2026.  The richest 10% will be £700/year better off.  Prior to the measures unveiled yesterday, they were due to be £3,500 worse off.  The rest of us will see our living standards drop, according to the IFS.

• "From April 2023, there will be a single higher rate of Income Tax of 40 per cent, rather than an additional 45% on annual income above £150,000 ... three rates (0%, 19% and 40%) ...  all annual income above £50,270 will be taxed at 40%".     (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-growth-plan-2022-factsheet-on-income-tax/income-tax-factsheet)

The government's 2.5% economic growth/greed year on year means that production and consumption is doubled by the beginning of year 29.  This is unsustainable, selfish, foolish and stupid.  This economics wrecks ecology and accelerates ecocide - the sixth extinction episode in the history of the planet over the last 500 million years.

Reward for the wealthy - turbocharge the economy - live off and depend even more on fast depleting resources, like oil and gas.  This is cloud cuckoo land economics/ecology.  Get 2.5% growth every year for evermore so we can stuff our homes with more stuff, have 'em bigger and two or three homes each, at home and overseas as the magic money tree allows greedy growth.

 Workings out for 2.5% economic greed

Sir Jonathon Porritt said, in the 1980s, that 3% growth every single year for 25 years builds up nicely to production and consumption having doubled in those 25 years from a planet that is not expanding in line with our ever greedy demands placed upon it!

My concern is that our funding to kill Ukrainians and Russians is also immoral when it is only about where the boundary is to go.

My further concern is how our Feb 2020 £15 billion for 150 miles of tramlines is also economically and ecologically unsound.  Quite apart from being immoral spending, as trains and buses get duplicated/replaced for lovely luxury trams.

Do put me right.

TODAY'S MINI BUDGET from Kwasi Kwarteng MP

"AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA" Kwasi Kwarteng

Reward for the wealthy - turbocharge the economy - live off and depend even more on fast depleting resources like oil and gas.  This is cloud cuckoo land economics/ecology.  Get 2.5% growth every year for evermore so we can stuff our homes with more stuff, have 'em bigger and two or three homes each, at home and overseas as the magic money tree takes off from greedy growth.

Sir Jonathon Porritt said in the 1980s that 3% growth every single year for 25 years builds up nicely to production and consumption having doubled in those 25 years from a planet that is not expanding in line with our ever greedy demands placed upon it!

Worked out as:

End of yr 1, from £100 you have £103

Yr 2, this becomes £106.09

Yr 3, £109.2727

Yr 4, £112.55

Yr 5, £115.93

Yr 6, £119.40

Yr 7, £122.99

8      126.68

9      130.48

10    134.39

11    138.42

12    142.58

13    146.85

14    151.26

15    155.80

16    160.47

17    165.28

18    170.24

19    175.35

20    180.61

21    186.03

22    191.61

23    197.36

End of year 24: £203.28

Truss and Kwarteng want only 2.5% each and every year.  So,

by beginning Yr 2  £102.5

3  105.06

4  107.69

5  110.38

6  113.14

7  115.97

8  118.87

9  121.84

10 124.89

11  128.00

12  131.21

13  134.49

14  137.85

15  141.30  

16  144.83

17  148.45

18  152.16

19  155.97

20  159.87

21  163.86

22  167.96

23  172.16

24  176.46

25  180.87

26  185.39

27  190.03

28  194.78

by beginning of yr 29  199.65 - it's doubled!  In just under 30 years.

30  204.64

Budget for the wealthy to spend yet more and UK borrowing more.  Faster depletion of finite resources and especially fossil fuels as growth takes off - in a new era.  Biggest tax cuts for decades.  50 years since tax cuts on this scale.

Those on Universal Credit will have their benefits cuts if claimants are not trying hard enough to find work.  A tougher sanctions regime for people on UC, Andy Burnham called it and, he said this evening, he is against a deal to end the Ukraine War.

GRIM ECONOMIC/ECOLOGICAL TIMES THREATENED

Dear Laura, Linda and Deborah - and, copied to Anne Shaw (who leads from the front I have noticed and gets a big tick from me) and bcc'd to other key players who might share my concerns.

I would like a response, please from Laura on behalf of you very top women who might be able to do better than the men.  Apart from Johnson and Jack, below!

On Wednesday 7 Sept at 0710 hrs on the Radio 4 'Today' programme, I heard Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, say:

"The reason gas prices are so high is because there is less gas around.  If the world doesn't use less gas over the next year, we are going to run out."

"The entire economy is at risk here", said the BBC Business Editor, Simon Jack, later the same day on the 'Jeremy Vine Show'.

I believe what follows is basic ecology/economics.  For me, HS2, Metro, Sprint are symptomatic and the reality of the fact that we are living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet.  Living unsustainably.  Somewhat dangerous and foolish!  All three transport projects are self-indulgent and greedy at a time when the nation is even more awash in debt.  We need to tighten our belts and not splash out on wasteful, extravagant and totally unnecessary projects.  We insist on business as usual, with not even a nod in the direction of the multiple crises - climate, energy, inflation, cost of living and, funding of the Ukraine War amongst others - confronting the nation and regions.

I have tried to make this accurate but light-hearted, in the spirit of British pompous pricking and satire:

 16 (not so?) SNAPPY SENTENCES

A REQUEST

With Metro WBHE Phase 2, you are putting the "bus on rails" trams on the UK's very last, ready built but unused railway "of national strategic significance".

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

You have now done so at the Wednesbury end.  As you are keeping the sedate trams on the Phase 2 section of another 2 Kms of this nationally important railway, perhaps now keep it on the same railway to allow it to connect to the national railway network at Stourbridge Jct.  In this way, at Merry Hill, you:

1. save my magnificent guerrilla garden from being wiped out;
2. save the only public open space at Merry Hill;
3. save nature - of which we are part and depend on for our very existence;
4. save the view of five lovely hills from the canal towpath and from the boats on the high canal embankment; and 
5. save all the 10,000 sq metres of land designated for housing - after some decades still available for very low cost energy apartments for the poor.
   
    WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

With best wishes for a reply from Laura, please

Tim    (Weller, 0791 380 4363)

Brindley Drive housing scheme for High Plateau

Many thanks, Richard.  (Richard Harris, Court Collaboration Consultation Team)

There is no Brierley Hill scheme by anyone.  That is the problem!

10,000 sq metres are lying unused, wasted, vacant for decades and no-one is the slightest bit interested!

Would you like to do so and transform that land for the benefit of the far too many who are badly housed and need low energy costing homes, as you are planning to do at Brindley Drive.

What is "Green and blue roofs for on-site water attenuation"?  More details, please.

EU expects to raise €140bn from windfall tax on energy firms

 Fossil fuel extractors will be asked by the EU to give back 33% of taxable surplus profits for the 2022 fiscal year, in a move that could pile pressure on Liz Truss to reverse her decision not to extend the UK’s windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which is set at 25%. Truss has ruled out extending the £5bn windfall tax on energy companies introduced by the former chancellor Rishi Sunak.

In a further sign of the UK’s post-Brexit divergence, the new prime minister has also stopped short of asking consumers and businesses to reduce their energy use over the winter.

In contrast, the commission wants EU member states to sign up to a legally binding target to cut electricity use by 10% overall and by 5% during peak hours, via efficiency campaigns and incentives.

The plan mirrors an already agreed voluntary target of cutting gas consumption by 15% until the end of spring 2023. “Demand reduction helps rebalance the energy market, lower energy bills, reduce emissions and makes us immune to Russia’s gas games. Without demand reduction, it is not going to work,” Timmermans said.

Founder gives away Patagonia to fight climate crisis

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard said, “Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth.”

“Instead of exploiting natural resources to make shareholder returns, we are turning shareholder capitalism on its head by making the Earth our only shareholder,” he wrote.

Chouinard and Patagonia have long been groundbreakers in environmental activism and employee benefits. In its nearly 50 years in operation, the Ventura, California-based company has been known for extensive benefits for employees, including on-site nurseries and afternoons off on good surf days.

In the 80s, the company began donating 1% of its sales to environmental groups, a program formalized in 2001 as the “1% for the Planet Scheme”. The program has resulted in $140m in donations for preservation and restoration of the natural environment, according to the company.

Each year, the money Patagonia makes after reinvesting in the business will be distributed to the nonprofit to help fight the environmental crisis.

from the Guardian, 15.9.22

Is this any business of faith leaders?

Is this just unfortunate, incompetence or is there more to it - like vested interests at play and improper influence?  Or, is there nothing to be concerned about and is just the way everyone behaves?  Is this the norm:

to waste and even destroy railway infrastructure:

• first the tram network wiped out in the 1950s; then one-third of the West Midlands railway network, followed by the tram network (Metro) rebuilt on the railway network closed but not yet completely obliterated;
• to give top priority to the most prestigious, extravagant and luxury projects like HS2, Metro and Sprint;
• and, replacing buildings that are sound but out of fashion and must be replaced with something brand new and modern to impress and wow the visitor and tourist?

Is it right to keep the asylum seeker, refugee and all of the badly housed of all nationalities well away from their own small, very low cost energy homes?  An example:

On land that has been waiting for them for decades but is still left idle, wasted, unused - like High Plateau and Daniels Land at Merry Hill Shopping Centre?

Cutting GHG emissions starts at home

What has the destruction of our railways and the rebuilding of the tram network on closed lines not yet obliterated, got to do with climate?

1. Everything we do impacts climate because we are so thoroughly addicted, so totally hooked on finite fossil fuels (but slowly getting better with renewables).
2. If we can't even run a sensible, unsustainable society, there is no hope for reaching a more socially just, sensible and sustainable one.
3. Destroying transport infrastructure creates extra GHG emissions from all the energy used.
4. Destroying the Great Central Railway may have contributed to HS2 that destroys nature for no good reason and uses up precious resources.  Precious resources like finite fossil fuels that are burnt in enormous quantities to build the thing to emit even more GHG!
5. Metro is very high in GHG because of so much concrete and steel in the construction of the trams and lines.
6. Climate activism means standing up against wrongdoing, idiocy and making public transport more off-putting by introducing yet more modes that mean more changes between them to get anywhere by shared/public transport.
7. The more we spend, the more GHG emissions and the more climate instability - but more renewables will help.

Is the horror really worth it?

Is it really worth all the horror, the suffering, the pain and killings to be really bothered about where the boundary goes and who your President is - Volodymyr or Vladimir?

The two nations are called cousins and many eastern Ukrainians speak Russian, I have heard.

Is life really so bad under Putrid that you have to kill and be killed to avoid his governance?

Is that really worth it?

If it becomes that bad, why not simply flee and become an asylum seeker or refugee, then?

For me, this is the tragedy of Ukraine and Russia for which, it seems, we (the American-led West) are partly responsible.  We failed to show magnanimity in the 90s and 00s, failed to maintain a good relationship with Putrid at that time and favoured triumphalism over restraint and empathy for the defeated 'enemy'.  It was an out-and-out extension of our reach eastwards to gladly take on board the former Soviet satellite states.  Even to military exercises, NATO membership and nukes in eastern Europe!

I thought it was fair enough for Putrid to claim that Russia's security was threatened by an American-led Europe and NATO coming right up to his western border by EU firebrands overthrowing Ukraine's pro-Russian President Yanukovych in Feb 2014.

Clear the undergrowth on Dudley's section of Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway

Dear friend - please reply.  Please do more to make your/our section fit to use without wellies!

Can your workers clear the undergrowth to allow the mud to dry out more quickly?

None of the 22 Kms, Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway (from Fens Pool Avenue to NW Wolverhampton) has a hard tarmac surface with good drainage.  However, different parts of the South Staffordshire and Wolverhampton section are called Kingswinford Railway Walk, Monarch's Way and Valley Parkway.  They are popular with walkers, cyclists and horse riders.  That section has a lovely Woodland Trust property, called Himley Plantation with a car park beside the cycle-walkway.  In Wolverhampton, there is the Valley Park nature reserve and two old railway stations are cafes that are well used when open.

The Dudley section has two short public rights of way connecting it with the Crooked House, "Creative rustic cooking and local real ales served in quirky higgledy-piggledy old world pub."  (Google Maps)  It is off Himley Road and is well worth a visit for the mining subsidence that has caused it to be 'crooked'.  I've never seen anything like it for its visual illusions!

The whole 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway is clearly marked on the OS Explorer map as "Traffic-free cycle route" (from the map Legend or Key).  It has brown circles on the full length on the map that stand out so well.  On the ground, in Dudley, it is an utter disgrace in the vicinity of the Crooked House pub through to Barrow Hill Nature Reserve.

Tim Weller

"We are going to run out" (of gas)

On Wednesday 7 Sept at 0710 hrs on the Radio 4 'Today' programme, I heard Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, say:

"The reason gas prices are so high is because there is less gas around.  If the world doesn't use less gas over the next year, we are going to run out."

The other sensible person who speaks truth to power is the consumer champion, Martin Lewis.  They need to be joint/co Prime Ministers, in my opinion.

The lie promulgated by WMCA

We are given the lie that the UK's only 120 Kms mainline, half-used, railway "of national strategic significance" must be converted to a tramline, VLR test track and cycle-walkway, with passive provision being the magic solution built-in to the same tracks to allow conversion to freight and mainline railway at a later date!!

The second lie is that Metro trams, on this same track, are the catalyst to get the freight and passenger train services back on this line.  This was put out by Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director at Centro who wrote to me in September 2000:

"Light rail provision provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."  And this remains the case to this day.  It has never been withdrawn nor, has a correction and apology been forthcoming.

to Steve Wright of Railfuture

Hi Steve

Thanks for the phone call.  Good to talk to you earlier.

This railway map shows how the tram, in taking over the 120 Kms Worcester, Black Country, Derby principal mainline "of national strategic significance", nicely destroys it!

 Map Wednesbury - Brierley Hill.pdf

The official leaflet with the useful map at the end:

 WBHE map in leaflet

Plan here shows you where the tramline goes but, after 40 years, it is still not too late for Phase 2 of WBHE (Wednesbury, Brierley Hill Extension) to keep the tram down the railway from Cinder Bank roundabout on the Duncan Edwards Way all the way to Stourbridge Jct!:

 WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

My guerilla gardening landscape enhancement scheme from the 1990s to this day is against the high rusty iron wall that holds up the north side of High Plateau and the wall is at right angles to the canal embankment in the above plan.  My plants and trees are directly under the viaduct in the plan, above.

To Cllr Ian Bevan in 2020 - long and detailed, so leave for later!

 BOTH SIDES OF THE CASE, here

This photo of mine shows part of the canal embankment taken for the 400 metre viaduct on the other side of the road and clock tower in this image.

 6 glorious white trees.jpg

The 400 metre, heavily mowed canal embankment is a low quality nature site but is very important for sequestering CO2 by the soil, grass and trees.  Desperately needed, so do not cover it with concrete, brick, steel and tarmac for the viaduct!

I think climate adaptation and mitigation must include opposing every luxury, extravagant, totally unnecessary project like "bus on rails" Metro and "the bus that thinks it's a tram" Sprint, too.  Quite apart from the urgent need to cut back on oil and gas use, of course because they are finite - most inconvenient!

 Metro map with my notes.pdf

 

Similarly, the bizarre, the absurd, the stupid conversion of now two ready built, mainline railways to tramlines, right where we live!  Metro One, opened in 1999 on Snow Hill, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury and now Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro on the Worcester to Derby Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance".

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

SUMMARY

The destruction of part of the desperately needed housing land given to Metro that also obliterates my guerrilla gardening landscape enhancement scheme, plus the only public open space at Merry Hill that are both converted into a 400 metre concrete and steel railway/tram viaduct.  Yet, the trams could stay on the railway to join the trains at Stourbridge Jct railway station under my suggestion that is not done under their plan.  The freight trains would need to operate at night.

The bigger picture:

Here is the 120 Kms Worcester, Black Country, Derby Mainline being broken up into HR, LR, VLR and even, possibly ULR (ultra light rail or the Stourbridge Town Shuttle from Town station to Cottage Street, Brierley Hill where Metro terminates on the 40 year old plan)!!

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

PHOTOS:

 M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

One line nicked by metal thieves!

 M6 Toll 03.jpg

Best wishes