Hi Richard - thanks so much for writing
In summary - read this and skip the rest!:
Labour is worse than the Tories over loving trams and advancing them on roads and railways.
Both parties and the LibDems have destroyed two mainline railways and 2.25 mainline stations for trams!
Both are spending £72 m more for VLR trams in Coventry and still going ahead with £15 billion to 2040 for 150 miles and 8 tram lines in Coventry and throughout the region.
Nearly 100 Kms of freight only or disused railway lines in the W Mids still await their commuter, regional and intercity trains!
All this idiocy is the exact opposite of sensible action to address the climate emergency.
In other words, both main parties are even more hypocritical than when they declared a climate emergency in 2020 (was it?)!
At the next council elections, it is very likely that Labour will regain power in Dudley. Unfortunately, every political party, including the Green Party, have been equally enthusiastic for Metro trams taking over both railway lines and roads - and have been since 1981 when Wolverhampton Labour councillor, Phil Bateman was the first among the prime movers for re-building the tram network that they had only just obliterated twenty years earlier.
Labour and the Tories were at the heart of destroying the tram network in the 1950s. Next, over subsequent decades, all parties set about obliterating about one third of the W Mids railway network . In the 1980s, what railway lines remained as unused, like Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level and the 120 Kms Black Country Railway began to be turned into tramlines. Snow Hill to Wolverhampton by 1999 - NOT connected to either the bus station or railway station! 2019 in the case of our own railway "of national strategic significance" that was turned into heavy rail (HR), light rail Metro (LR) and very light rail (VLR) National Innovation Centre, exactly where our principal mainline Dudley station stood and was successful for 100 years. What utter idiocy and incompetence by all our dear politicians!
Certainly, in the West Midlands and in Edinburgh, it is your party who is most enthusiastic for trams replacing or duplicating buses and trains. The only support I have ever had in thirty years of campaigning for trains NOT trams on unused but existing railway lines were these emails from the Edinburgh Conservative group:
Your party and the green movement have always been the most enthusiastic for the return of trams, including train spotters/enthusiasts who want a bigger and better railway but will sacrifice all that for trams!
Anyway, how are things going with your ambitious and worthy plans for the summer? Include me in your news and updates.
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