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:-