to Wendy Thompson, Opp leader, Wolves CC

Dear Wendy

I am a complete nobody and certainly not a councillor like you are with much greater access to so many more people, like Andy Street and your three good Conservative council leaders in the West Midlands.

Have you spoken to them at anytime over this:-

This is brilliant stuff from Peter Madeley.  READ IT!  All of you working together, regardless of political party and with officers.  The planet is burning.

From dozing rubber stamps to members CHECKING, CHALLENGING, QUESTIONING officers.

From talking shop committees to discussion, debate, votes to tell the officers what YOU want.

'Delayed delivery and broken promises' – Labour to consider move away from tram travel

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/politics/2023/07/03/delayed-delivery-and-broken-promises--labours-plan-to-move-away-from-tram-travel/

It was Labour, initially, who was right behind the failed attempt, from the start in 1981, to rebuild the tram network of 200 Kms by year 2000, only 20 years after destroying it!!  WITH THE ENTHUSIASM OF EVERY COUNCILLOR, of every party, except one Dudley Green Party cllr!

End the 70 years of destroying the tram network and then rebuilding it on the railway network.

END METRO EXTENSIONS AND CONCENTRATE INSTEAD ON GETTING BETTER BUSES AND PUTTING THE TRAINS/STATIONS BACK, where railway lines have survived your total destruction.

Dear Wendy, you are the Opposition Leader on your council.  Should you not be opposing idiocy and incompetence and joining me in telling them what they SHOULD be doing?!  It would be wonderful if you could help me, please.

Andy Malkinson

27 July 2023

A quite superb statement from Andrew Malkinson yesterday. Long but extremely concerning in revealing yet more corruption and incompetence by the State.

What I've discovered over the last 70 years, re transport infrastructure wrecked is nothing compared with this far more serious catalogue of misdeeds than the ones I uncovered.

Fraudulent June 2017 Business Case for WBHE

EVIDENCE IN BOLD over lack of probity and competence.

So grossly misleading claims from unrealistic thinking that they amount to lies.

My corrections/rebuttal in blue.

Andy Street's Forward to Business Case:

"As you are aware, we are also working on a case for transferring the ownership of the line from Network Rail to the West Midlands Combined Authority which we think will help to ensure we are able to control costs Costs are so out of control that work was stopped in 2022 and the 11 Kms project was divided into two halves and deliver to timetable Planning began in 1981 and work on the ground in 2019!  In four years, not even a 5.5 Kms tram route on a principal mainline railway is nowhere near finished. whilst making provision for future national rail use of the route."  Even a single track for trains is totally unrealistic because of bridges, tunnels and buildings.

FAILURE TO CONTROL COSTS TO KEEP WITHIN BUDGET

FAILED TO KEEP TO THEIR OWN TIMETABLE

FAILURE TO BE HONEST

FAILED TO BE COMPETENT

FROM https://www.metroalliance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WBHE-Business-Case-June-2017.pdf

Introduction

"The Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro Extension is in the unique position of having a valid Transport and Works Act Order in place, with funding commitments for initial development (from the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership and the West Midlands Combined Authority) and widespread support from local authorities and the business community. The route makes use of one of the few remaining disused railway alignments left in the West Midlands, the former South Staffordshire Railway from Walsall to Stourbridge. It will provide a mainly segregated Metro service with the opportunity for fast and reliable connections between important towns and cities, in a part of the West Midlands that has historically suffered from a lack of rail based options. It will also make provisions for long-term plans to reintroduce freight traffic into the disused railway. The Metro is planned to adopt a tram train operation so as to allow the use of both Metro trains and conventional freight services to be used, On the UK's last but still available, nationally important mainline railway, to have trams on two nibble-sized sections, followed by tram trains or train trams, followed by freight trains - is entirely unrealistic and a wholly madcap idea.  Can freight go on the tramway at night? thus allowing freight traffic to avoid many congested railway locations across the West Midlands network; improving both journey time and reliability."

3.11 This preferred option also paves the way for the introduction of rail freight on the Walsall to Stourbridge corridor by reinstating the currently derelict corridor and enhancing the likelihood of the reintroduction of freight along the Stourbridge to Walsall route, removing lorries from the congested M5/M6 corridor and freeing up train paths on the congested West Midlands rail network. It will also allow for future extension to Stourbridge and to Walsall.  And all you had to do, for a fraction of the price, was to rebuild the stations and reinstate the regional and intercity services between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby!

The metro extension makes use of the disused railway alignment of the South Staffordshire Railway, one of only a few remaining abandoned rail corridors in the West Midlands. Abandoned by councillors and officers.  Many councillors gave planning permission for about 100 Kms of Victorian railway lines to be built on.  Seven Dudley railway lines have been lost.  It will provide a mainly segregated service with the opportunity for fast and reliable light rail connection between important towns and cities in a part of the West Midlands that has historically suffered from a lack of rail based options. Because of the authorities destroying them!  The scheme has also been designed to facilitate future tram-train operation that will allow for freight trains to avoid ‘hot-spots’ on the network and improve journey times and reliability (See Figure 4.2).  Utterly impossible unless the freight can use the line at night.  Is that what they mean?  But they have never said so in any communication with me or anyone else I've heard from.

to Donald

Yes, indeed, Don.  Thanks for replying.  Andy can't even claim the glory and the praise for the paltry 2 Kms of trams popping up in his 6 year reign as Mayor.

My family and I often travel on the tram after changing onto it from the bus from Halesowen at Edgbaston Village tram stop.  My point is that the work started in 1981 and it was finally completed in 2023 - 42 years later!  Even then, it fell short of going to the original terminus on the further, western side of the white Calthorpe Estates house on Hagley Road, as was the intention until last decade when work had to be curtailed because of the enormous and irresponsible cost.  After 42 years, that lovely white building is still down for demolition with the tram extension to Bearwood, along with felling about 1,000 trees and shrubs and destroyed front gardens!  Nature, of which we are part, gets more hammering for yet another vanity, prestigious, wealth-flaunting, all style over substance, totally unnecessary project.

The hundreds of millions spent on staff salaries, tram purchases from Spain (over £4m each) and construction has meant that trains and stations have still not been reinstated where track bed, miraculously, has not yet been built on.  Buses, too, have languished in the sidelines, like this major, coffin rest-like shelter from the Victorian age that is actually the first bus shelter out of Kidderminster bus station!  That important bus station is a joke, too.  It is a slum, a disgraceful looking station that lets in rain water as you stand waiting for buses.  It is the epitomy of foolish, stupid priorities by our transport planners and councillors in wanting, still the 2020 £15 BILLION figure for 150 miles of trams to duplicate and replace buses and trains.  You would never think that we are in a worsening climate emergency as our only habitable planet heats up and more of it burns to further tighten the screw on the runaway greenhouse effect.  And Worcestershire CC is a non-constituent member of the WMCA, too but gets forgotten!!  Our leaders are a joke, too - like the bus station and this bus shelter:-

to Railfuture

Dear Donald, Colin and Steve

In 6 years as Mayor, Andy Street has not been responsible for seeing a single railway line or tramway opened.  Not Pipers Row; not the 3 Kms from St Chads tram stop to Edgbaston Village tram stop that was started before he became Mayor in May 2017.

It took 18 years to open the first tramway in 1999 that was never connected to even the bus station let alone the railway station in Wolverhampton.  Scandalous and incompetence!

Why has it has taken 42 years to get 23 Kms of tramway, 18 Kms of which were on a mainline railway that destroyed Wolves Low Level Station and a total of 4 or 5 Kms of railway line either side of it?

Why has Railfuture not sent a single email to the authorities in support of what I have been arguing should be done since about 1990?  Namely, concentrate on rebuilding the closed and mothballed railway lines with TRAINS and STATIONS.  The trams were a solution looking for a problem but still took priority in both staff time and in getting the money out of national government.

£100s million wasted on trying to get TRAMS on railway lines instead of TRAINS.  Unbelievable!!

This is brilliant stuff from Peter Madeley.  READ IT!  All of you working together, regardless of political party and with officers.  The planet is burning as Greta Thunberg said in 2018 and Sir David Attenborough, the same year gave these warnings: "the collapse of civilisations, the extinction of much of the natural world and time is running out".

From dozing rubber stamps to members CHECKING, CHALLENGING, QUESTIONING officers.

From talking shop committees to discussion, debate, votes to tell the officers what YOU want.

'Delayed delivery and broken promises' – Labour to consider move away from tram travel

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/politics/2023/07/03/delayed-delivery-and-broken-promises--labours-plan-to-move-away-from-tram-travel/

It was Labour, initially, who was right behind the failed attempt, from the start in 1981, to rebuild the tram network of 200 Kms by year 2000, only 20 years after destroying it!!  WITH THE ENTHUSIASM OF EVERY COUNCILLOR, of every party, except one Dudley Green Party cllr!

End the 70 years of destroying the tram network and then rebuilding it on the railway network.

END METRO EXTENSIONS AND CONCENTRATE INSTEAD ON GETTING BETTER BUSES AND PUTTING THE TRAINS/STATIONS BACK, where railway lines have survived your total destruction.

Best wishes for a better effort from you all - PLEASE!   Tim

On Wed, 26 Jul 2023 at 10:57, Don Payne <donpayne@btinternet.com> wrote:

Dear Tim,

I think you are being a bit unfair. These things take some time in
planning - they can't all be achieved overnight. At present new stations
are under construction at Willenhall and Darlaston beyween Wolverhampton and Walsall, also three stations on the "Camp Hill" line in Birmingham at Moseley, Kings Heath and and Pineapple Road (formerly Hazelwell). For all of these a business case has to be made before work can commence.

Donald

On 25/07/2023 21:57, Tim Weller wrote:
Is this really true that when you have not reopened a single railway
line, let alone one station since Smethwick Galton Bridge in 1995 and
Walsall to Rugeley in 1998, you are now wanting yet another train
station? This one at Pendeford/Palmers Cross/Tettenhall?  This makes
it the 6th station, at least, you are trying but failing to reopen.

A shocking record of good intentions but complete failure and
incompetence.

Bizarre priorities in wanting only Metro trams on two former mainline
railways.

Tim Weller

to Richard Parker

Dear Richard 

You must attack Andy over his idiocy in putting average speed 15 mph Metro trams on the Derby, Dudley, Devon principal, mainline railway "of national strategic significance".

   "of national strategic significance".pdf

This, on two nibble sized sections totalling 6.7 Kms out of the available 56 Kms between Burton on Trent and Stourbridge Jct.

The 56 Kms of track bed, with bridges and underpasses remains ready to be finished with TRAINS and stations. 

On the 25 July on Radio WM, Andy said this had been checked out with Network Rail but an FoI request was never forthcoming to confirm this. Although Network Rail has always wanted the trams and not the trains. Astonishing!

There is a black hole of £750 m in Birmingham City Council's finances but this Council has been the leading council of seven in working so fruitlessly, since 1981, in spending £100s millions in FAILING to get their 200 Kms of tramline by the year 2000!!

To date, they have precisely 23 Kms in 42 years of very expensive endeavour. A shockingly bad track record. 

Now, Andy, since January 2000, wants 150 miles of tramway by 2040!

Andy said on 25 July on Radio WM that Birmingham "has to be held accountable for dealing with it" (the massive financial scandal). But his scandal is very much worse!

And, doubly reprehensible by us having to add the irrefutable fact of incompetence in putting TRAMS on a SECOND mainline railway instead of TRAINS!!

The first was Snow Hill RAILWAY Station to the edge of Wolverhampton City centre - not even to the bus station let alone the railway station, like we had with TRAINS for a hundred years.

That idiocy is now being repeated with Burton on Trent to Bristol, via Brierley Hill with TRAMS and, at the most enormous expense, too!  £650 m for 10.7 Kms, apparently. The first half may be over £400 m when finally opened next year. 

Grand Central Station was £750 m

Please put a stop to the incompetence and idiocy, Richard.

Best wishes for getting elected - if you do stop the madness. 

TO BRUM FOE for their comment

1. 1/2 bedroom apartments that are highly energy efficient and solar powered for the most badly housed at High Plateau, Merry Hill Shopping Centre.
2. The return of ONLY stations, commuter and regional trains to our railway lines that have not been built on or turned into two nibble sized tramlines on a total of 5.5 Kms with 50.5 Kms still remaining for TRAINS on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Worcester and Derby.  To cut greenhouse gas emissions from our addiction to car use.
3. The major, urban-rural-urban, 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway to be transformed into a usable, finite fossil fuel FREE, business, commuter and leisure route.   To cut greenhouse gas emissions.
4. The Black Country Urban Forest to be returned to, in order to use the grass embankments and the other suitable land at Merry Hill SC.  To capture carbon dioxide and improve biodiversity.
5. WOULD THIS WORK?  A two-year trial of a bus/business lane (NOT TRAMLINE!) on the nearside lane of Hagley Road in Brum to reward car commuters who take the bus with Fare-Free Public Transport extended to ALL and, in the rush hours with some traffic light priority on Hagley Road for buses and work buses and pre-registered essential vehicle users who can all use both lanes.  So you don't need a dedicated bus lane at all, then?

Objectives: (a) to free up road space in rush hours for essential road users who must have a vehicle to be able to carry out their work.

(b) to make for a more efficient use of highly expensive city centre land, with much less given to car parking and more for solar powered, modest sized housing.

(c) a more sensible use of road space that cannot go on being widened.

(d) to make it as anti-social to car commute as smoking now is in the presence of non-smokers.

(e) to cut deadly greenhouse gas emissions.

DISCUSSION ON CROOKED CULTURES

Near us, crooks set the Crooked  House pub ablaze and then bulldozed what remained. We inhabit the lawless, bleak, barren Black Country where even the upright politicians and officers destroy transport infrastructure. The tally is 7 railways in Dudley alone, all gone for homes, offices, factories, roads and trams. The upright have not set the crooks a good example. Not one bit have they!!

Criminal crooks obliterated the wonky Crooked Pub. Climate crooks obliterated or refuse to use 7 Dudley railway lines for their intended purpose. Kremlin crooks expand westwards by violence following the American led Western expansion nonviolent (for a change) eastwards. All accelerate climate breakdown.

I much enjoy pointing out to the VIPs the 70 years of transport destruction, costing £100s millions in price and in weight of greenhouse gases emissions  that is continuing apace, while Mayor Andy is insisting that the pub must be rebuilt but not the 120 Kms railway finished with trains and stations!

QUIZ:

The reason it is perfectly all right for the IDF to kill so many Palestinians is that they are evil Hamas.

Who kind of said that?!

TIM:

My Linda said Hamas to justify Israeli's intermittent and interminable war on Palestinians.

TIM:

Where have we been today?

A living, breathing monument of unadulterated oppression, greed and power. But an excellent, frank interpretation of Welsh/UK behaviour/history from 18th century to 20th. Political education done well.

COLIN:

In answer to your question on Friday, one of the worst examples of unapologetic & ostentatious flaunting, indeed glorification of power, oppression & greed that I know of in NW is Penrhyn Castle. Other than a few token gestures here & there I don't know of any centres offering a complete history of Welsh subdugation.

COLIN:

I was saddened to read that it was Linda who you refered to as having condemned Hamas as "evil". Such a possition suggests the turning of a blind eye towards the behaviour of Hamas' enemies. That said however, Hamas does nothing to advance the Palestinian cause with its current military tactics.

TIM:

The problem, as I see it, is the large majority who believe in violence and the same people who believe in the right of self defence by violence and revenge - tit for tat. It results in endless cycles of killings by all sides - Gaza, the West Bank and, since Feb 2014, Ukraine.

Billions for armaments to fuel our wars in the Middle East, like Yemen and Ukraine. In comparison, nothing to fight our wars on climate, resource shortages, with accompanying consumption and population pressures.

Last century was the most violent in the history of humanity - thanks to the West is Best power bloc.

And Penrhyn, as NT makes clear, was built on the backs of W expansion, exploitation of Welsh slate workers and slavery - nothing to do with China or Russia!

COLIN:

As you see it then, the only way to stop the "endless cycles of violence" is for the attacked to meakly submit to the will of their assailants. As for Penrhyn, I'm struggling to see the relevance of China. The obscenety of it merely mirrors at a local level the depravity we see on the world stage.

TIM:

Just that our own upstanding culture over the centuries and still to this day is not much better than theirs. We are hardly equipped to teach them any lessons as Penrhyn's grotesque pile of stones shouts out!

Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, MLK and Lennon were outstanding successes and far too good for this world. They were simply right - like that other saint, Jesus of Nazareth and his amazing teaching that is the Gold Standard. Better to be killed than to kill!  Thanks for a great day out last week and discussion.

COLIN:

So, just to be clear, if a would be burglar were to hammer violently at your door in an attempt to rob or cause you harm, you would not try to fend him off.

TIM:

I would resist the invader but no killing. Resist by force, non-collaboration, by going underground and, ultimately by getting out and starting afresh in a new country.  France surrendered in 1940.  Many Jews got out and 240,000 Belgians in 1914.  I've been a supporter of War Resisters International since my teenage years and an activist pacifist since I watched 'The Great War' on BBC TV in the 1960s. I would have been a CO in that war and be banged up in Richmond Prison or shot at dawn.  Those men were the real heroes of WW1.  Not the soldiers who simply brought us WW1, 2, then the Cold War and numerous other hot wars fueled by our side to this day.

The name I could not think of last week was Philippe Sands KC who said on 'Today' on 25.2.22, that the overthrow of Russian-friendly President Yanukovych was like "a red rag to a bull" to Pariah Putrid (copyright to me!)

On 'Unspun World', Steve Rosenberg said that there was "seething resentment over how the Cold War ended", to explain Kremlin anger at the West.  We called it a victory for us and, then went on to take full advantage of it!

FROM BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26386946:

"Viktor Yanukovych has the rare distinction of having been ousted twice from Ukraine's presidency after giant street protests.

Opponents accuse him of having enriched himself, his family and cronies while in power.

A protest against his decision to abandon a far-reaching European Union partnership deal in November 2013 morphed into a huge - and violent - campaign to push him from power.

But it was the deaths of at least 88 people, many of them protesters shot dead by uniformed snipers in 48 hours of bloodshed, that ultimately brought him down.

The killings sent shockwaves around the world.

Under EU pressure he signed a deal to transfer powers to parliament and hold early elections. But within hours he had fled the capital and his administration had crumbled.

As Ukraine's protest leaders and opposition moved to fill the power vacuum, Mr Yanukovych, 63, maintained he was still the lawfully elected president.  As he headed for neighbouring Russia, Kiev's new rulers issued an arrest warrant for his role in the "mass murder of innocent civilians."

to Wolverhampton Mark

Mark,  

Thanks for this.  Very concerning.  However, as we all use up our world reserves of finite fossil fuels, they will become more and more expensive.  It is urgent that we all reduce our reliance on the stuff, Mark or be even bigger fossil fools.  In the long run, all we have are renewables and reducing our demand for energy.  We can only do that by living more simply so that others can simply live, both in the poor world and future generations.  Hence, another reason for scrapping High Scam 2, Metro and Sprint - and, of course, STOPPING the boosting of our stocks of nuclear and conventional weapons and fueling war in Ukraine, the Yemen and elsewhere.  It seems, we are sleepwalking into a nightmare entirely of our own making by drinking long and deeply from the poisoned chalice of finite fossil fuels.

Do you have PV solar electricity?  Our bill to Octopus is £50 pcm but we have 24 solar panels to make a 6.24 kWp system with battery.  For winter, we now have full elecy space/air heating from Herschel infrared panels and I no longer use any gas but my wife, Linda does for personal washing, only.  We all have to urgently move out of gas.  These are my own recommendations:​

 MY CLUES FOR A CLUELESS, FLOUNDERING, WAYWARD G...

​

I've just sent you what Greg Jackson of Octopus has written.  I'd be glad to hear what you think of it, please.

Do you read what Martin Lewis thinks?  Have you written to him for his opinion?  Do you get his regular emails?

FROM DOZING CLLRS TO ALERT, ALIVE AND ACTIVE CLLRS WORKING TOGETHER - please!

Dear Donald, Colin and Steve

In 6 years as Mayor, Andy Street has not been responsible for seeing a single railway line or tramway opened.  Not Pipers Row; not the 3 Kms from St Chads tram stop to Edgbaston Village tram stop that was started before he became Mayor in May 2017.

It took 18 years to open the first tramway in 1999 that was never connected to even the bus station let alone the railway station in Wolverhampton.  Scandalous and incompetence!

Why has it has taken 42 years to get 23 Kms of tramway, 18 Kms of which were on a mainline railway that destroyed Wolves Low Level Station and a total of 4 or 5 Kms of railway line either side of it?

Why has Railfuture not sent a single email to the authorities in support of what I have been arguing should be done since about 1990?  Namely, concentrate on rebuilding the closed and mothballed railway lines with TRAINS and STATIONS.  The trams were a solution looking for a problem but still took priority in both staff time and in getting the money out of national government.

£100s million wasted on trying to get TRAMS on railway lines instead of TRAINS.  Unbelievable!!

This is brilliant stuff from Peter Madeley.  READ IT!  All of you working together, regardless of political party and with officers.  The planet is burning as Greta Thunberg said in 2018 and Sir David Attenborough, the same year gave these warnings: "the collapse of civilisations, the extinction of much of the natural world and time is running out".

From dozing rubber stamps to members CHECKING, CHALLENGING, QUESTIONING officers.

From talking shop committees to discussion, debate, votes to tell the officers what YOU want.

'Delayed delivery and broken promises' – Labour to consider move away from tram travel

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/politics/2023/07/03/delayed-delivery-and-broken-promises--labours-plan-to-move-away-from-tram-travel/

It was Labour, initially, who was right behind the failed attempt, from the start in 1981, to rebuild the tram network of 200 Kms by year 2000, only 20 years after destroying it!!  WITH THE ENTHUSIASM OF EVERY COUNCILLOR, of every party, except one Dudley Green Party cllr!

End the 70 years of destroying the tram network and then rebuilding it on the railway network.

END METRO EXTENSIONS AND CONCENTRATE INSTEAD ON GETTING BETTER BUSES AND PUTTING THE TRAINS/STATIONS BACK, where railway lines have survived your total destruction.

Development of the region’s rail network FOR TRAMS and a mudway, of all things.

Dear Adrian, Laura, Andy and Helen who are responsible for not just good governance but the very best governance you can all manage.

You replied with the barest and the most minimum information that has been out in the public domain for many years, anyway.  I learnt nothing new!  What were my other requests that were perfectly reasonable for me to ask?  It is vital to allow members of the public to work with you to avoid the decades of blunders in destroying perfectly good urban railway lines and stations for trading estates, offices, homes, factories, roads and trams.

When you reply to a question, could you please include the email that I have written, with your 'answer/information'?

You wrote, "We are exploring options for further new stations, including in the north Wolverhampton area."  One station you have most bizarrely called Tettenhall station, a long way from the railway line!  Tettenhall station is now a cafe on the way below standard, the Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway.  The Mudway is the UK's most important but wasted, unfit for use over too much of its length, 22 Kms urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway.  Did you not know that and that it is a disgrace?  It is made up of two old railway lines - seven that can no longer be used for commuter, regional and intercity trains - and in Dudley borough alone!

 Dudley's Seven Smashed railway lines

 THE GREAT 50-YEAR-OLD SCANDAL OF RAILWAY LOSSES...

Did you mean Pendeford or Palmers Cross or Oxley station for the name of yet another new station that will take many years to build?  Do you accept that not one station has been opened since 1998?

"Passenger services were restored to the line and most of the stations reopened between 1989 and 1998, as part of a joint initiative between the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) and Staffordshire County Council."  Wikipedia

You have all been preoccupied, indeed obsessed with tram development on the remains of the railway network you have not yet destroyed.  Truly absurd!  In the process, worsening the climate emergency to the detriment of all of us.  University station should have had a much lower priority when it does not serve a single home or business.  Why was University station given such a very high priority for funding?  Why so large?  Why is it still not open?

Best wishes for much higher standards of work in future years.  Please correct me where I am wrong.

CLLR MIKE ROUSE IS THE MAN RESPONSIBLE!

Dear Adam

Thanks for both your emails that I received and read.

You really should be kicking up one hell of a fuss with your Twelve and True Kiddi councillors, County councillors and, with Mike Rouse and Leader Simon.

Their national Conservative Party in government declared a climate emergency four years ago but absolutely nothing has changed.  Presumably, because they fundamentally disagree with the 200 year old science of climate and know better than every scientist from the 1820s to the present day.  They believe we can rip through our irreplaceable resources that will never lead to shortages or, have the slightest effect on the composition of the atmosphere that is allowing life on earth to exist.

Quite apart from that, you should all be thoroughly ashamed of your disgraceful bus provision that really does make Kidderminster a laughing stock.  Are you really not ashamed, Adam of the slum bus station and joke of a bus shelter?  You cannot be because you want millions spent on the Town Hall upgrade lasting two years, instead!

What is worse is that you are starved of funds for even a 20th century bus station and shelter, while your fellow members in the Combined Authority get the most magnificent, all style over substance, grossly extravagant, wealth flaunting, public transport provision imaginable with High Scam 2, Metro "bus on rails" trams and Sprint, "the bus that thinks it's a tram"!  Not a single W Mids railway line has been restored to use since 1998.  However, they have achieved two mainline railways destroyed by trams since 1999, costing us all hundreds of millions of pounds in both price and in weight of deadly greenhouse gases to get the trams instead of the trains on railway lines!

Do you think you all might need to check out your shockingly poor values and priorities in the Combined Authority?  Worcs CC is a non-constituent member and should be standing up to the Big Seven constituent members wanting all the largesse for themselves and only the crumbs from their rich man's table for yourselves in Worcestershire.

Mike, Simon and every Worcestershire councillor are being taken for a ride.  Yet, they don't care.  Only three councillors and yourself have ever replied.  Nothing at all from Mike or Simon.

Best wishes for a future of much higher standards.  And thanks, Adam for having the decency to reply.

Tim    (Weller   0791 380 4363)

Glyphosate banned, mowing of sight lines only and removal of the residential designation on Daniels Land

Hello Ros, Andrew, Cat and Peter - and Democratic Services.  And copied to Leader, Patrick.

I am cancelling my plans for tomorrow morning and will join you at 12.30 pm at Mary Stevens front entrance in Worcester Street.

I want to ask Cat and Andrew if they would support me in asking Cllr Peter Dobb who is the Chair of the important Climate Change Select Committee, if they would join me in asking for a full discussion by all members and then vote of councillors only, to decide on this proposed package of measures, as Dudley Council's first response to their self declared 'Climate Emergency' in 2020.  This suggestion to be the first item on the agenda and incorporated into the 30 mins 'Public Forum' to allow members of the public to speak in the forum.  I'm asking that this be at the next meeting of the Climate Change Select Committee on Thursday 14 September at 6 pm - please.

1. Glyphosate to be banned, as other councils have done but, work to start immediately, on being allowed to use the nature friendly but effective alternative from 2024.
2. Mowing of sight lines only, with roundabouts and the central reservations, as at Manor Way, Halesowen to be allowed to naturally grow carbon capturing wild flowers, shrubs and trees and then managed, as they grow, by officers as they are well able to do.
3. The 'residential development' designation to be immediately removed from Daniels Land, Merry Hill and a professional ecological survey to commence, asap, to determine what level of nature designation it should be.  Plan here:
   
    WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

I understand that Dudley's Cabinet would have to approve the changes, if passed by the Select Committee councillors.

Best wishes

Concerns over FoI and much misspending

Dear Helen - our wonderful, new broom to sweep clean and who is bristling with vigour and good ideas!

I'm so sorry to make more work for you, Helen - simply ask FoI to get to the bottom of this - but there are contradictions, discrepancies and confusion in what Andy is saying, below, compared with my record of the facts that I sent you a few days ago.  Who is correct?

In addition, I don't seem to be getting answers from FoI.  Could you chase them up, perhaps - please?  My concerns are extremely serious because they are about competent governance.  Hundreds of millions of pounds of public money are being misused, indeed wasted from obvious very strange and quite wrong priorities.  All of that worsens the climate emergency that everyone blissfully ignores!  Roughly, £1 = 1lb in weight of greenhouse gas emissions according to Sir Jonathon Porritt, as here:

ME: The more we spend, the more we burn fossil fuels, it seems to me.  Have I got this right? SELF, 16 February 2019

PORRITT: “More or less right! … ” 

"Just one caveat: as we decarbonise our grid, we’ll obviously be burning rather less of the reserves of remaining fossil fuels, and relying more on green electrons. But the rule of thumb still holds for the time being!"  SIR JONATHON PORRITT, 17 Feb 2019

Andy said "All three projects are full steam ahead" on 25 July 2023

(The three: University Station, Wolverhampton extension, WBHE even to Merry Hill)

On Radio WM, on Kath's 10 am Show, Andy said:

"You are not right in saying that they were suspended ... it is bad that Pipers Row extension is late but we are testing trams on that.  It will open very soon now subject to the testing ... WBHE has definitely never been suspended.  WBHE Phase 2 now has the funding for the tram from Dudley to Merry Hill, so construction will go ahead ...  All three projects are full steam ahead."

And again, Andy said, "The money is there for the extension of the line through to Merry Hill."

Therefore, I'm right in saying that Merry Hill to Brierley Hill is suspended or, alternatively, WBHE is curtailed.

What is the cost you have budgeted for, to do WBHE Phase 2, Dudley to Merry Hill?

What is the budgeted cost of Wednesbury to Flood St, Dudley tram?

What is the cost, so far, of Parkhead Viaduct being strengthened?  Was it included in the £385m for Wednesbury to Dudley tramline?

What has Network Rail contributed?

Why was a brand new University Station given top billing for money when it serves not a single home?  I don't think the present station platforms were ever overcrowded in the rush hours because it only served the university and hospital.  But, had a study been done that proves me wrong?

FROM:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fytt7m

Best wishes and so sorry to have to be a flippin' nuisance.

Tim

They are here because we first went there

This is brilliant, Stuart!! It's called being hospitable to those whose lands we have explored, invaded, warred over, stole their ancestors, shipped them across the Atlantic in disgusting slave ships and then got free labour out of them for centuries, to give us the wealth and wealth flaunting lifestyle we enjoy today.

Centuries of exploiting their lands, their people and their raw materials and resources. We do nothing to make their lands so safe and desirable or, simply liveable in, that they would never dream of leaving.

Now, our proxy war with Enemy No 1 is threatening their food supplies. We reap what we sow.

The Scandal, the Scam and the Sin for faith leaders to address

I want our Christian and all faith leaders to speak out against this immorality and, quite honestly, plain stupidity.  Will YOU do so?

THE SCANDAL

In 42 years, only 23 Kms of Metro tramline are open, costing £100s million of taxpayers' money in salaries of office staff, purchase of trams and in construction.  200 Kms was wanted by 2000, 23 years ago!

18 Kms of those 23 Kms were on a former mainline railway that was never connected to even the bus station let alone the railway station in Wolverhampton that was the case for 100 years with the trains!

An even more important mainline railway "of national strategic significance" is being used for trams on only 5.5 Kms out of 56 Kms that is STILL without the commuter, regional and freight trains between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent.  This is the Worcester to Derby Railway on one of only two N-S lines between Brum and the Irish Sea!

There remains 99.5 Kms, in Brum, the Black Country, S Staffs that are mothballed for eventual trains or, are freight only!

THE SCAM

High Scam 2 trains only stop at 3 terminal stations, two airports and some will divert into Brum and Crewe.  A branch into E Mids Parkway is hoped for.  PUT TRAINS ON THE RAILWAY LINES WE STILL HAVE!

Therefore, every intercity train must remain in service for all those towns and cities that High Scam 2 is far too fast to stop at!

Capacity is increased only from providing a high speed line between the N edge of London and two other cities and their airports.  Yet, it results in the destruction of nature, more pressure on water supplies - costing tens of billions of pounds in price and in weight of greenhouse gases.

Another SIN of omission!

For over 15 years, I have enjoyed free public transport throughout the West Midlands and, in all of England as regards buses.  I really don't need it!

Yet, I get held up on the bus as rush hour cars take commuters into Brum city centre when they do not need the cars for their work.

These people should have the Fare-Free Public Transport since they must travel into work and, in so doing, would free up the road space for essential vehicle users, like mobile/shift workers, the work bus and regular buses.  FREE education, health and regional rail/national bus use.

Very expensive land is taken for car parking for commuter cars that could be used for apartments for the badly housed, migrants and our own children.  Save the countryside for food grown to feed us all.

Shortfall, suspension, curtailment of Comedy Authority spending

HELEN, THIS IS FAR FROM BEING GOOD OR EVEN COMPETENT GOVERNANCE!

From my research and record keeping, I believe this is accurate and correct:

In the early summer of 2022, after three years of work on WBHE, further work had to be suspended because of a realisation that they were running out of money and could not do the full 10.7 Kms for the £449 m budgeted for.  The work had either cost £385m by then or was expected to cost £385m just to get it to Flood Street.  Therefore, work onwards from Flood Street was suspended and it was decided, in June or July 2022, that the project should be split into two .  The suspended section was to become Phase 2.  And that was definitely NOT the original plan, nor at anytime since 1981 when the whole absurd 200 Kms by the year 2000 was dreamt up - as 106 Kms of railway lines rotted or 18 Kms were slowly turned into tramlines at a snail like pace or, others remained only for freight!

In December 2022, we had a Comedy Authority report on WBHE Phase 2 about a funding shortfall of around £300 m to get it to Cottage Street, Brierley Hill to finish the 10.7 Kms.

The summer 2022 Phase 1 brainwave is 6.8 Km in total with 5.5 Kms on a perfectly good, former mainline railway between London, Oxford, Worcester, Dudley, Derby.

Phase 1 is from Great Western Street, Wednesbury to Flood Street, Dudley seems to be costing around £400 m by the time Phase One only, is finally expected to be opened and in use, as the comedians insist, by Christmas 2024.

The new, 2022 idea of having a Phase 1 of 6.8 Kms is turning out to be as expensive as the 2019 cost of £449 m for the full 10.7 Kms

Metro lines in use, now in 2023, are 23 Kms from St Georges Sq, Wolverhampton to Edgbaston Village tram stop.  Of that, 5 Kms are on roads and 18 Kms are on a former mainline railway between Snow Hill station  and Wolverhampton Low Level station (now a conference and events centre because of Metro).  A total of 3.5 Kms of double track railway lines are now lost in Wolverhampton because of trams being reinstated instead of trains.  And the trams, unlike the trains for 100 years, still don't connect the two stations and never will for years to come in the case of Snow Hill!  They will finally connect the Wolverhampton bus and railway stations by the end of this year.

The last railway reopenings:

Smethwick Galton Bridge opened in September 1995; Walsall to Rugeley in May 1998.  In 25 years we have had nothing more apart from a change of mind from tram to train for the Camp Hill line but, in June a 12 month delay was announced on that re-opening!  42 years of top priority given to rebuilding the tram network on the remains of the railway network.  Quite absurd.

Mighty Awful with Mighty Potential to be Mighty Outstanding!

Is there anything you can do to advance the transformation of the UK's only major urban-rural-urban cycle-walk mudway, please?  22 Kms through three council areas, 3 nature reserves, two station stops as cafes and one Woodland Trust property.  The mighty awful, Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway with Mighty Potential to boost cycle commuting that I've been up to since the mid 90s.

4 multi-coloured stunning paragraphs - even if I say so myself!

GLORIOUS ENGLISH ECCENTRICITY: the UK's only mothballed, easily reinstated, ready made but they forgot the trains and stations, mainline railway!

WHICH IS MORE SENSIBLE THINKING?

2 or 3 fast regional trains every hour and nine new stations to complete the 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby;  OR: 6 to 10 "bus on rails" trams every hour and 17 tram stops over only 11 Kms to STOP the reinstatement of the railway "of national strategic significance."

SMART POLITICIANS?

£449 m plus cost overruns to build the Black Country Tramline over 6.7 Kms that destroys the Black Country Railway over 56 Kms.  All 56 Kms can get commuter/regional trains back for less than £200 m (2015 figure).  Or, stupid politicians?

SMART RAILWAYS?

Why CUT a 120 Kms principal, mainline railway through the congested West Midlands with a tramline in two halves, a railway test track and a trail of trees, Japanese knotweed and undergrowth, when absent trains on 56 Kms of track could have their trains and stations back, FOR LESS MONEY than using trams on only 6.7 Kms?

Tim Weller   Independent candidate for the 2021 Mayoral election (and 2024!) for a more sensible, cost effective and easier ways to reduce congestion and pollution.  Fareless, electric buses for ALL; not for the few, like me!  To free up road space for essential users.  Paid for by abandoning extensions for High Scam 2 (£100 billion), Metro (£15 billion to 2040 from 2020), Sprint (£1 billion to run alongside regular buses and trains between Walsall, Brum, Solihull).

40 years of trying to build the Dudley Tram on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway

40 years of trying to build the Dudley Tram on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway - promised by Dudley Council leader, Cllr Fred Hunt, by the year 2000, fully opened and operating!!

The whole frightful business, if dear Andy denies it was suspended in the early summer of 2022, was certainly curtailed in the light of rising costs.  It then became Phase 1 as far as Flood Street, costing £385 m by then when, to complete the full 10.7 Kms route, the thing was supposed to cost £449 m in 2019 when serious work on the ground was finally started.  Phase 1 is expected to open by the end of 2024.  That makes five years to build 6.8 Kms when 5.5 Kms of the 6.8 Kms is on a former, supposedly fully safeguarded, principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance".  This is blatant idiocy and incompetence!

According to reporter, Peter Madeley in the 'Express and Star', the June 2023 figure to complete the full 10.7 Kms will be £650 m - a 45% increase in four years.

Phase 1 is 6.8 Kms from Gt Western St, Wednesbury to Flood St, Dudley.  £56 m/Km if £385 m.

Phase 2 is 3.9 Kms from Flood Street to Cottage St, Brierley Hill, except it is now decided that the tram line will end at Merry Hill SC - somewhere or other.

So where exactly?  And the length?  Assume 3.5 Kms.  For at least £200 m, as Ian Ward told me, at today's prices, means £57 m/Km.

What is the cost of WBHE Phase 2?

Where is it now terminating?

​How much is Dudley MBC contributing?

You must know because Andy said, on the 25 July on Radio WM, it is "full steam ahead", even for Phase 2.

When Network Rail says that the mainline railway is not needed by them until 2040s, at the earliest, has Network Rail contributed even one pound to the cost of strengthening Parkhead Viaduct?

Has Network Rail coughed up ANYTHING for improvement work on THEIR  railway?

Or, have they given the full length to WMCA?

Tim Weller