Trains Back on the Tracks!: You are head and shoulders above the other leaders

Sunday 19 February 2023

You are head and shoulders above the other leaders

Dear Ian

I, and I'm sure others, sit up when you start speaking. You speak up, you speak concisely, eloquently and you speak sense. You challenge and question what you read and what officers tell you. Brilliant!

Perhaps, money from the Commonwealth Games legacy, and £2m was mentioned, needs to go to help pay for the Aquatics Centre's energy bill. Even more importantly, PV solar must go on the roof to provide free electricity. And rooftop PV everywhere rather than solar farms needed to grow our food. Sandwell may have the highest proportion of low income households in our region. They need help first.

The WMCA Economic Growth Board really must hear from Sir Jonathon Porritt (email address, above as I've copied his office in) concerning positive, helpful, constructive green growth for the Combined Authority.

TRANSPORT essentials:

Stop destroying or, not fully using, urban railway lines. It only adds to road traffic congestion and all our woes!

You must have the courage to say 'No' to yet more conversions of vital railway lines and roads to tramlines.

Be content with trams from Dudley town centre to Sandwell and Brum.

If you must do WBHE Phase 2, eventually, then keep the trams on the railway line to connect with the national railway network at Stourbridge Jct. Existing freight trains at night.

DO NOT destroy nature (we are also part of nature!) by wiping out the Dudley Canal No 1, 400 metre canal embankment, vital but wasted for decades housing land and, my guerrilla garden at Merry Hill.

Get to grips with car commuters who don't need their treasured possession for their job. They clog up the roads for essential business users. They get rewarded for leaving their car at home with Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) that I've had for 15 years, I'm so old.

The Clean Air Zone and 60 mph on the urban M5 are both brilliant - for health reasons and to respond to climate breakdown. Both have kept you in power. Going further is essential, I think. Getting commuter cars off the roads helps business and more sustainable green growth. Publicity campaigns and FFPT are essential to make healthy car commuters as antisocial as smoking in public.

ESSENTIAL READING, from my pen!