Mia Grace, Acorn

Dear Mia

Thanks for the email about our conference that mentioned "understanding how we can solve the housing crisis."

We can help solve the housing crisis by putting apartments and blocks of 3 storey town houses for the most badly housed on the 22,000 sq m at High Plateau, owned by the owners of Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Brierley Hill DY5 1SH

I believe this land was made available in the 1990s when the canal was straightened, as in this plan

 WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

However, it is still not used for low cost, energy efficient, highly insulated, solar powered, 1/2 bedroom apartments for owners/tenants without cars.  I am getting nowhere with the authorities who are not interested.  The land has been available for housing but wasted for over 20 years.

I am a member of Birmingham Acorn branch but their officers will not touch any matter outside of the Birmingham City Council boundary.

Can you help or advise, please?

Things going so wrong accelerates the climate emergency and the extinction of life on earth

• Not a single railway line has reopened and only one station was rebuilt in 7 years (the super-duper, the gigantic spectacle of University railway station, with a financial crisis in 2022 to suspend work for months).
• In fact, things have gone backwards, with work begun on the ground in 2019 to destroy the second, even more important railway
  
    "of national strategic significance".pdf
  than the first.
• The first was the mainline between Snow St station and Wolverhampton railway station - turned into a tramway when opened in 1999, would you believe!
• The second destroyer of railways is the shuttle Dudley Tram to Wednesbury tram stop on the first mainline railway.
• Not a single new railway station has opened in 7 years of his mayorship.
• 3 new train stations were begun for a railway line in use but, for decades, without stations for Brummies to use!
• Until the year before Andy was elected, that mainline railway between Brum and Bristol was to be turned into a tramway.  That had been the case for 35 years!
• Only 3.7 Kms of tramways have opened in Andy's 7 years.  They began long before Andy was even thought of as a possible Mayor!

STOP Metro expansion. Instead: Use the hundreds of millions for Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) for all and all day and to finish the electrification of buses and trains. Bus/business lanes to reward car commuters who will be incentivised and not enraged to free up road space for essential vehicle users. MORE DETAIL: I'm suggesting a virtuous circle by more reward than penalty to educate and appeal to car commuters that they must free up the limited road space for essential business vehicle users, like buses, HGV drivers, district nurses, midwives etc who have to use their vehicles. These drivers must register to have the right to drive in daytime, Mon to Fri, because of their work. The car commuters who do not register are then picked up by CCTV and fined. The money goes to Fare-Free Public Transport for all and the phasing out of diesel buses for electric. Essential vehicles use the nearside and overtaking lane with traffic light priority for them. Car commuters who pay the penalty every day are only allowed to use the overtaking lane, until they have to turn left. Registered users can use both lanes. This encourages more people to leave their cars at home and jump on a free bus, train, tram throughout the region. Thus healthier, safer communities that are doing more to slow the climate crisis/breakdown and resource depletion. Protect our future and improve our prospects by No more duplication and replacement of buses and trains with trams This saves finite reserves of oil and gas and slows climate breakdown Saves 1,000 trees, shrubs and front gardens on the south side of Hagley Road, if tram expansion was stopped and buses boosted instead. Tim Weller 28 March 2023

One unfortunate missive from Arthur Balfour. How big of him to declare Palestine for the Jews as long as the Arab Palestinians were OK about it

It said all things to all men; but, gave preference to wealthy Lord Rothschild, a banker and an important figure in the British Jewish community, who Arthur would have been foolish to upset.  Yet, the Arabs were helping us to defeat the Ottoman Empire with the help of Lawrence of Arabia.  The Arabs would just have to put up with the disappointment of the British Empire giving preference to our man, Lord Rothschild.  The Jews in Palestine were a small minority at the time.

In November 1917, to win the war, it was important to keep the Jewish Americans, in particular, on board.

Britain, said Arthur, will give Palestine to the Jews as their homeland as long as the existing Arab communities are not prejudiced or disadvantaged in any way. But they were the very ones whose homeland it already is - and had been for centuries. Nearly two thousand years in fact after the Romans left. Along with many other rulers of empires who came and went, like the Brits who were driven out by Jewish terrorism in 1948!

How cheeky for us Brits to tell the Jews it is all theirs. Who are we to think so arrogantly that, as the biggest empire in the world, we can decide such matters?  And we hadn't even won the war!

The Wikipedia view is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration#:~:text=The%20Balfour%20Declaration%20was%20a,a%20small%20minority%20Jewish%20population.

"Early British political support for an increased Jewish presence in the region of Palestine was based upon geopolitical calculations.^[1][i] This support began in the early 1840s^[3] and was led by Lord Palmerston, following the occupation of Syria and Palestine by separatist Ottoman governor Muhammad Ali of Egypt.^[4][5]"

"The British government acknowledged in 1939 that the local population's wishes and interests should have been taken into account, and recognised in 1917 that the declaration should have called for the protection of the Palestinian Arabs' political rights.

"The declaration had many long-lasting consequences. It greatly increased popular support for Zionism within Jewish communities worldwide, and became a core component of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founding document of Mandatory Palestine. It indirectly led to the emergence of the State of Israel and is considered a principal cause of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, often described as the world's most intractable conflict. Controversy remains over a number of areas, such as whether the declaration contradicted earlier promises the British made to the Sharif of Mecca in the McMahon–Hussein correspondence."

"The year 1916 marked four centuries since Palestine had become part of the Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire.^[39] For most of this period, the Jewish population represented a small minority, approximately 3% of the total, with Muslims representing the largest segment of the population, and Christians the second.^{[40][41][42][ix]"}

This is the Aljazeera view: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/11/2/more-than-a-century-on-the-balfour-declaration-explained

By Zena Al Tahhan on 2 Nov 2018

EXTRACT:

The document was controversial for several reasons.

Firstly, it was, in the words of the late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said, “made by a European power … about a non-European territory … in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory”.

In essence, the Balfour Declaration promised Jews a land where the natives made up more than 90 percent of the population.

Secondly, the declaration was one of three conflicting wartime promises made by the British.

When it was released, Britain had already promised the Arabs independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 1915 Hussein-McMahon correspondence.

The British also promised the French, in a separate treaty known as 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, that the majority of Palestine would be under international administration, while the rest of the region would be split between the two colonial powers after the war.

The declaration, however, meant that Palestine would come under British occupation and that the Palestinian Arabs who lived there would not gain independence.

Finally, the declaration introduced a notion that was reportedly unprecedented in international law – that of a “national home”.

The use of the vague term “national home” for the Jewish people, as opposed to “state”, left the meaning open to interpretation.

Earlier drafts of the document used the phrase “the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish State”, but that was later changed. 

Published On 2 Nov 2018

Retaliation, Western supremacy over the centuries

Dear Adrian

Thanks so much for your perspective and for engaging in discussion.  Most valuable.  I would certainly like to see the DVD, please.  I'll watch it with Linda.

Linda is fully on your side, as are so many evangelical believers at church and, the main political parties in supporting Israel by their deeds, if not now, finally, their words in saying they want a ceasefire.  All too easy to say, of course!

As I see it, our electorate and political parties are part of the traditional 'Christian' West through recent centuries of slavery, imperialism and warfare by the European, supposedly 'Christian' nations.  Behaviour that is the antithesis of Christ's teaching in the Gospels, in my view.  But, it is in line with the violence used to gain the Promised Land from its inhabitants, that is covered in the Old Testament.

Therefore, Biblical texts certainly support your point of view but the Gospel teaching from the Magnificat through to the Sermon on the Mount and the all too soon crucifixion of Jesus all point to non-violence, peaceful co-existence and constraint rather than coercion and retaliation.  Retaliation is what our side is doing on the very largely innocent, non fighters of Gaza.  Hence, my jaundiced view that the established Church has seen centuries of most unfortunate coercion and violence and oppression.  From its disruptive birth at the time of Henry 8th through to today, the CoE must, from then on, always avoid rocking the boat as much as possible.  The wonderful National Trust is putting the record straight at their properties.  Justin Welby is talking about reparations, this time, for the descendants of the victims of slavery rather than for the perpetrators (includes CoE!).  And that is excellent.  He is a man of integrity who is doing what he can within the constraints of having to minimise criticism of HMG.  He can't go too far!  Good on him.  And he is a good man.

The Amish, Mennonites and Quakers are showing the rest of Christendom what costly discipleship is all about.  As are Linda and I in dwelling together in harmony and love, if not in unity over this particular matter!

Do read what this Canadian writer has to say - from my blog:

Israeli complacency, pride comes before a fall and failure to be the Good Samaritan instead of the robber

FROM:  https://newlinesmag.com/argument/how-changes-in-the-israeli-military-led-to-the-failure-of-october-7/#:~:text=Despite%20their%20oversight%20of%20Gaza,phone%20calls%20from%20the%20front.

Overreliance on technology, dehumanization of Palestinians and incompetence left a once-effective force unable to prevent Hamas’ assault

James Rosen-BirchJames Rosen-Birch is an organizational scientist, start-up founder, technologist and writer based in Toronto                      20 May 2024

Five final paragraphs:

"This status quo was unacceptable to Hamas, who embarked on a two-year plan for an operation aiming not to destroy Israel, but rather to shock it back to the negotiating table with leverage gained through hostage-taking. As later reports showed, within three days of the initial attack Hamas had offered to return all civilian hostages in exchange for Israel foregoing a ground invasion.

Yet neither side understood the degree to which Israel’s national security capabilities had degraded, nor how Israelis would react to having their national self-image shattered by the attack. As Hamas fighters made their way into Israel, expecting fierce resistance and martyrdom at the hands of a vastly superior opponent, what they found instead was minimal resistance and an army so caught by surprise it was willing in a handful of cases to fire on its own civilians.

Senior officials, themselves caught by surprise with no explanation for how such an attack could occur, quickly resorted to threat inflation to skirt accountability, while deferring a formal investigation until after the conclusion of a hastily launched war of reprisal. The lack of official explanation as to how an attack of this magnitude could occur in the first place further panicked the population, creating the pretext for a level of retaliatory violence unprecedented in the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Yet, as the analysis above shows, no part of this was inevitable. To paraphrase the great military scholar Carl von Clausewitz, the purpose of military action and, by extension, military technology, is to create the conditions where diplomacy becomes possible, not to eliminate the need for negotiation altogether. An organizational science analysis shows clearly how Israel’s substitution of technology for politics, dehumanization of Palestinians, and growing corruption inside its security and political establishment had set the stage years in advance for the disaster that struck on Oct.7.

The Gaza “showroom” once bragged about by Saar Koursh has now collapsed (see first para of Rosen-Birch piece). Instead of showcasing Israel’s technological prowess and military might, the Gaza Strip has become a monument to Israel’s institutional decay, indifference to international norms and accelerating global isolation. What new order will emerge from the ruins of the current war is not yet clear. But the belief that Israel could enjoy safety while dismissing, ignoring or suppressing a captive Palestinian population, caged in by surveillance technology and brutal security policies, has been exposed as a costly illusion — paid for in both Israeli and Palestinian lives."

No Dudley Tram for Merry Hill but for Stourbridge, instead

Very well done for coming first out of the three winning candidates for Kingswinford South ward elected on the 2 May.

Do you feel able to propose this motion that, if passed by the full Council, must be binding on TfWM?

"In the light of

1. the climate emergency,
2. that the UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world and,
3. all of the 22,000 sq m of designated housing land at Merry Hill Shopping Centre must be urgently used for the most badly housed in the Black Country​.  Some of the 22,000 sq m at High Plateau is taken by the tram.

"Therefore, Dudley Conservative Group insists that the Metro tram, already planned for the railway, stays on the railway so that it does not divert off into Merry Hill to destroy the housing land, nature and public open space but, instead, connects with the national railway network at Stourbridge Jct.

"It is noted that, with their plan, TfWM/WMCA plan to level up the rich owners of Merry Hill with yet more rich assets, using public money, to advantage them at the expense of the rest of us."

The courageous Karim Khan

FROM 'THE TELEGRAPH' on 26.5.24:

Mr Khan said: “There were attempts to kill Margaret Thatcher, Airey Neave was blown up, Lord Mountbatten was blown up, there was the Enniskillen attack, we had kneecappings… 

“But the British didn’t decide to say, ‘Well, on the Falls Road [the heart of Catholic Belfast] there undoubtedly may be some IRA members and Republican sympathisers, so therefore let’s drop a 2,000lb bomb on the Falls Road.’ You can’t do that.”

Karim Khan, "the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor said it was not his job to make friends but to put the victims of injustice and war first, regardless of the geopolitical consequences."

What we continue to see, right now in the Holy Land and, since 1945, is the epitomy of the failure of violence after the disaster of two European wars further underlining the moral and political bankruptcy of the men and women of violence.  What unbelievable incompetence in believing that violence solves anything!

All my life I have been renouncing war and the weapons of war.  I was a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation for many years as a young man, and greatly admire men and women of non-violence like Donald Soper, Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jnr, Mohammed Ali, Bruce Kent, former ROI President Mary Robinson and, of course, the mighty powerful Gandhi.  I'm a financial supporter of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.

Now discovered two more - two Irishmen, Daniel O'Connell and Michael Davitt who also espoused non-violence (p 28, 'Everybody Matters', by Mary Robinson)

From excited Midland Metro Alliance

We’re very excited to give you a look at our works inside the former railway corridor as our works for the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro extension continue.

You would have done a quicker and better job at a fraction of the price by putting the commuter and regional trains back when you first thought up this crazy scheme in the 1980s!

What happens when councils take control of buses? BBC News

Buses are the most commonly used form of public transport in England - yet in recent years routes have been disappearing at an alarming rate.

Outside of London, bus services have dropped by 50% since 2008, according to research by Friends of the Earth, with people on lower incomes and those without a car disproportionately affected.

Bus use plummeted during the pandemic but even before then it was steadily declining in areas outside the capital.

One area bucking the national trend is Reading. The town - 40 miles to the west of London - was hit by Covid restrictions like everywhere else but the number of journeys on local bus services had been on the rise before the pandemic too.

Reading is one of only five areas in England where the local bus company is owned by the council.

Robert Williams, the chief executive of Reading Buses, says it means profits can be reinvested into services.

“We're able to take a longer term view, we're not constantly being chased to make sure our profit margin is a certain level, because our brief is just to provide the best possible service we can,” he says.

“You have local people that live and breathe the area, running the services and working out what should happen. It's not a central head office, hundreds of miles away.”

It also means that if the council puts money into things like bus lanes it sees a direct return - better services, more passengers and higher revenue from fares which can then be reinvested.

An extra £3m a year goes into the town's bus network because it does not pay out dividends to private shareholders, according to campaign group We Own it.

The council says this means it has been able to invest in one of the most environmentally friendly bus fleets in the country, including 66 bio-gas powered and 24 electric buses.

Until the 1980s most bus services were delivered through publicly owned companies, often run by councils, but in 1986 services outside London were deregulated and privatised, leading to the mass sale of council bus companies.

In London a franchising system was introduced, with Transport for London deciding routes, timetables and fares and operators bidding to run services for a fixed fee.

This has contributed to the capital seeing an increase in bus use, with services less hit by cuts, in contrast to other parts of the country.

In 2017 metropolitan mayors in England were given powers to introduce bus franchising but at the same time councils were banned from setting up their own bus companies from scratch.

If it wins power, Labour says it would give all areas the same opportunity to introduce franchising as metro mayors, as well as allowing councils and regional mayors to set up their own bus companies.

Mr Williams is a supporter of the council-owned model but has doubts over how easy it would be to replicate this more widely.

“You have to be able to afford to buy a depot, buy the vehicles, employ the people,” he says. “Setting that up from scratch is no quick job.”

In Reading, he points out, the council has owned the local bus company for more than 100 years.

Labour claims its plans would require no additional central government funding.

But Mr Williams is sceptical over whether councils, which are facing huge financial challenges, have the money to set up their own bus companies at the moment.

To improve services, he says, also requires investment.

In Reading, he says bus services get very little subsidy from the council as it benefits from its location as a busy commuter town.

“If we tried to replicate this in the middle of the countryside, we clearly wouldn't be able to sustain the same kind of network,” he adds. 

Paul Swinney, director of research and policy at the Centre for Cities think tank, says there are easier ways to achieve the benefits of greater control over bus services than full public ownership.

If a company is publicly owned, it is the taxpayer that is taking on the risk if it goes bust, he points out.

Instead, the think tank supports expanding the franchising system which is in place in London and has also been adopted in Greater Manchester.

Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire are set to follow suit.

Mr Swinney says under a franchise model councils and mayors still have control over bus routes and can ensure these are integrated into a cohesive network with other forms of public transport like trains.

They can also keep hold of fares and choose to subsidise less profitable routes which are still vital for certain groups.

Although he says this won’t necessarily make single journeys cheaper, it is easier to bring in daily caps across the whole network.

The only difference to full public ownership is that it is private companies running the services.

Mr Swinney says past experience shows some level of public subsidy will still be necessary.

In London, for example, the tube generates surplus revenue which is used to subsidise buses, which run at a loss.

Other options for councils include generating money through congestion charges or parking levies.

I didn't give you the full picture in the zoom mtg yesterday

 Dear Phillipa and John - succinctly as poss!

• There has been no indication that Andy's £15 billion Transport Plan of 150 miles, 8 lines, 380 tram stops to 2040 has been scrapped.
• In March, TfWM modified it to £6.1 billion to be spent between 2017 and 2032 on mainly new tramways.
• West Yorkshire CA (Leeds) is also going for a mass transit (tramways) scheme to 2040.
• Our own TfWM/WMCA will finish Metro Eastside extension and reopen the whole 1.7 Kms for £245m, by 2030 when Curzon St Sta is opened.  Even more expensive by 2030, of course!  £7m/Km to rebuild the 50 Kms Borders Railway in 2015 when it opened.
• "The extension will service the Eastside regeneration area offering connections with New Street, Moor Street and Snow Hill Railway Stations, in addition to the new HS2 station. The scheme also includes a new bus interchange adjacent to Clayton Hotel Birmingham to provide an efficient bus, Sprint and coach interchange with HS2."
  
• The Dudley Tram (WBHE) opens to Flood St, Dudley in time for Christmas, this year!
• I think that Dudley Council and TfWM are still desperate to finish the tram at Merry Hill SC.  Perhaps, even to Brierley Hill instead of, more sensibly, keeping the tram on the former, principal, mainline railway to connect with the national railway network at Stourbridge Jct station.
• The tram to Merry Hill is exactly like levelling up the rich owners with a rich man's tram to level down the poor who need FFPT and warm homes to counter climate catastrophe.  This is scandalous and a misuse of public money!

WE CANNOT ALWAYS RELY ON WHAT WE ARE TOLD IS CORRECT/TRUTHFUL
I wrote this on the 3 May, to a Labour councillor on the Transport Committee of the CA:

Andy has attended every husting, except the very first and holds public meetings and engages with the public.  I voted for him because he comes over so well as the WMCA Public Relations man which is all his job is.  He has no more power than any of the other elected council leaders.  From Monday, Richard or Andy has to work with the CA and not lord it over them.  Andy, I think, will be better at doing that.  He comes over so well, even though, as you say, he "does not tell the truth on the literature that has come through my door."  Nor, on Radio WM in answer to a question I put to him on the 25 July 2023!  He is far too optimistic, exaggerates and gets carried away with his own enthusiasm.  But he (or Richard) must be accurate and correct when he opens his mouth or writes.

I want bus services much more fully funded, with FFPT for all and other inducements for car commuters to leave their cars at home.  Use the £6.1 billion between 2017 and 2032 for mainly underground and overground trams over 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops.  The money for trams can be better spent as the 

  The Conservative Group on Edinburgh City Council OPPOSED both of their tram schemes on grounds o...

The UK tram promotion group, with its HQ at 16 Summer Lane, called the tram a "bus on rails" at the time of the Croydon tram crash in 2016.  Let's have the very best buses on streets without the railway tracks, whoever owns them!  Ownership is much less important than maximum funding taken away from tram extensions.  And partnership, collaboration between operators and TfWM.

"On 9 November 2016, a tram operated by Tramlink in London derailed and overturned on a sharp bend approaching a junction. Of 69 passengers, there were seven fatalities and 62 injured, 19 of whom sustained serious injuries.^[1] This was the first tram incident in the United Kingdom in which passengers died since 1959."  Wikipedia

Colossal cost of construction and, thus weight of GHG emissions, make nuclear pointless because of their short lifespan and long decommissioning

Emissions in construction are unlikely to be cancelled out by what is saved in the low GHG emissions during the lifetime of the nuclear power stations.

Public or Private Control/Ownership Seems to be Immaterial

Should all of us taxpayers make a profit (through paying lower taxes for state services) or, should it be only the private sector and their shareholders that make profits/losses?

The private sector with their shareholders did very well out of owning the water companies because the regulator was too laid back, too relaxed and, let them get on with it.  Therefore, would things be any better if they had remained under public control and state ownership?

Wasn't the regulator meant to be guiding investment - as to what profits went into maintaining and improving water quality and what was paid out in dividends?

If something as vital as water provision is owned by shareholders, shouldn't military expenditure be similarly owned by shareholders since armament construction, sale and their use in so many countries, is so popular?

Under private control of buses, TfWM was and, still is, in constant contact with the bus companies over services, routes and fares.  Is that more important than who actually owns and maintains buses, depots and offices?

Stuff their mouths with gold and you get an excellent bus provision, including FFPT.   And, regional Fare-Free Public Transport for ALL must have top priority.  But there still have to be checks, challenges and questions from members of the public like me/us.

One vital consideration must be this:

What is the passenger/kilometre cost of subsidising BUSES in each of

A: London,   (hell of a lot)

B: the Combined Authority areas and,   (not nearly so much)

C: the shires?   (a pittance - compare the Kidderminster disgraceful slum of a bus station for decades!)

If both construction costs and running costs are so much more for TRAMS than BUSES, why are tramways in both West Midlands, West Yorkshire CAs and Edinburgh still going ahead?

Financial price = Climate crisis deepening, such is our 100% dependency and total addiction to finite fossil fuels.  Even to get renewables!

We must have a candid briefing of both the pros and cons of bus franchising sweeping the country, when it should be FFPT for all.  PLEASE!

Tim Weller   22 May 2024

Group members must show solidarity with one another

I am very happy to be corrected, to accept censure and, in future, to get the group member's permission first before quoting from his/her email.

To clarify further:  I 'owned' Richard's email only to the extent of agreeing with it as I made plain in my additions of trenchant support.  Every member of the group has the right to do that in solidarity with that member of the group.  It is, after all, good group dynamics.  And, I made it very plain that I was not deceiving any reader into thinking that I was the author of Richard's email.  I would love other members of the group to show similar solidarity - even with what I have written!  Do send off my stuff, without my permission, as long as I am not defamed through changing something I wrote and passing it off as though it came from me!  It was Bob who wrote, I believe, our Ten Action Points.  I have sent them off digitally countless times and, I have spent much money printing off hundreds as A4 sheets and handing them out to 72 Dudley councillors and, at WMCA committee and board meetings and, to many other cllrs and officers.  There have been no repercussions from Bob or anyone else in my doing that, has there?

To put that in a different way:-

For me, if anyone was to take my emails and to endorse them as solidly as I have done with Richard's writing, I would be absolutely thrilled.  I would be delighted to be quoted and supported, although authors must always quote their sources.  But, I believe, authors never have to get permission from them as long as acknowledgement is made, the quote is accurate and there is no plagiarism.  Therefore, I did not take Richard's email and give the reader the impression that it was I who had written it.  Is that true, Christine?

PLEASE SEND THIS OFF (see below) - and change anything you like in it.  As long as you don't pass it off as coming from me.  Only from yourself, to avoid a possible charge of defamation from me!!!

All the best

Tim

Very Nicely Accelerating the Climate Emergency!

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL SCANDALS PAR EXCELLENCE - but only denial or, “it’s of no consequence, Tim.  Don’t bother”!

The UK:- united in incompetence and cover-up, OK?

• After decades of levelling up wealthy shareholders, the water companies have been found out in failing to make provision for a fairly fast population growth, all needing more water and sewage treatment. (listen to 'The Briefing Room' on water on Radio 4, 9 May 2024)
• Government politicians and the NHS killed thousands of us from contaminated blood products and transfusions from the 70s to the 90s.
• The Post Office scandal also lasted decades and killed, imprisoned and made bankrupt their very own frontline workers.
• Julian Assange told the truth.  He exposed war plans, torture and the gravest of crimes by the State.  He exposed monumental wrongdoing by a deceitful and barbaric superpower now applying its laws in the UK.  He revealed state criminality and impunity.  (Radio Four, 'Today', on 20.5.24)
• £5 billion is being spent on border Brexit controls.  ('Today' on 20.5.24)
• The UK's only 120 Kms railway "of national strategic significance" that was successful for 100 years, continues to be broken up into a tramway, cycle-walkway and the rest is wasted and unused.
• Over the decades, the Severn Valley Railway refused to send one email to support my campaign to save the 120 Kms Black Country Railway that was on their doorstep.
• The UK's second city, after less than 20 years, turned its free-flowing inner ring road into traffic lights and one-way streets in two places.
• Its Centenary Square was built, demolished and rebuilt three times in less than 20 years!
• Bankrupt Brum destroyed one of its two mainline railways between its city centre and Wolverhampton - for a tramway!  It meant:
• 25% of the platform capacity at Snow Hill Station is now gone, along with 4 or 5 Kms of railway lines at the Wolverhampton end.
• Wolverhampton Low Level Station is now a conference and events centre.
• From the 1980s to 2016, the Brum to Bristol railway was destined to have a tramway on the section between Kings Norton, Kings Heath, Moseley, Balsall Heath, to terminate at Grand Central!!
• A half-hour commuter service may return in 2025!
• About one-third of the UK railway network was obliterated, in the decades after Beeching, to be used for roads, homes, trading estates and offices.
• Thousands of miles were sold off and wiped out to save the expense of maintaining fencing, bridges and viaducts on the surplus to requirements railway network.
• The one UK railway that was safeguarded because of its "national strategic significance", was turned into a Very Light Rail test track and tram stop.
• This, was in the town (Dudley) with the largest population in the UK without a railway station!  (Stourbridge Jct station is in the borough, however.)
• And, after 100 years of having a very successful one!  On this railway:-
• Through failure to lock the door and more negligence over security, in 1994 or '95, the Round Oak signal box was destroyed by fire and later demolished before it could be re-located to the Black Country Living Museum.
• Bankrupt Brum has two high-speed railway stations to serve plane passengers between Brum and London, instead of them having to fly.
• All the trains on the intercity line must remain to serve the intercity stations that High Scam 2 is too fast to stop at.
• So much for the lie of increasing capacity on the railway to bring more trains and services.
• Thus, £66 billlion for HS2 and, in weight of GHG emissions. is going up in smoke and, in worsening human-induced climate disaster!

Tim Weller    22 May 2024

Super duper SPRINT, METRO, VLR multi-modal bonanza

5 April 2024

Am I allowed to have one hour (max), please with Pete Bond and Jon Hayes, please to discuss the following?

SORRY if you've already answered them for me, in the past (my mind and body are fast failing me).  Answers next to the question, please.  Thanks.

1. What is the cost of just one SPRINT bus, please?
2. Which company and country build them?
3. What is the cost of one Metro tram?
4. How do you decide when to put Metro on an existing bus route and when to be content with just SPRINT?
5. Why was it always printed in capitals, at first, certainly?
6. What exactly are the full reasons for developing Metro to replace and duplicate buses and trains?
7. And the reasons for the irresistible SPRINT bus, please?
8. Would my
   
    Bus and businesses at the centre of a virtuous circle
   be better value for money?
9. Could it be tried on Hagley Road as a two year experiment?
10. Can you make clear, please the difference between bus franchising and the present Enhanced Bus Partnership scheme?
11. Which do you prefer and why?
12. Have you worked out the cost of bus franchising compared with extending the regional Fare-Free Public Transport for older citizens to everyone?
13. As money is tight what is your order of priority for spending:-

tram extensions  -  Sprint bus extensions  -  putting trains back on urban railway lines not yet destroyed  -  bus franchising  -  Fare-Free Public Transport extended  -  bus/business lanes to free up road space in rush hours for essential vehicle users and to reward bus, train, tram users?

Mary Robinson: 'Everybody Matters'

... that heroine of mine, Mary Robinson - the first woman President of the ROI, an eco-socialist but thoroughly independent of all political parties and a stalwart of the UN, all her life.  She is 80 next week, Wikipedia tells me.  She is a legend in her own country and, in the world, for standing up against injustice, inequality and for all victims of war, poverty and of climate catastrophe.  A wonderful woman of great integrity, courage and wisdom.

WMCA progress on net zero is zero, minus zero in fact

Dear Leaders

My own comments in blue.
The overriding priority of the WMCA’s 52-page Annual Business Plan
2023 – 2024 is economic growth: “Support more of the region’s
businesses to be resilient and grow faster “. The Business Plan also
includes plans for progress to achieve Net Zero: “The Industrial Energy
Taskforce will deliver its final report, and new programs for industrial
decarbonisation will be launched.”

Five years have gone by and we do not know what "industrial decarbonisation" has actually been done.  No case examples.

But what the Business Plan doesn’t provide any information about is
which are the sectors of the WM economy which are most damaging to
the environment?  Very important question.  For me, it is the WMCA's love of building grossly extravagant, wealth-flaunting and totally unnecessary transport projects to prove they are actually climate deniers.

And within them which are the companies which are
most responsible for it?  They themselves are most responsible for it - the WMCA, which is completely out of its depth to even know where to start.

In particular, which businesses are the biggest
polluters and what do they need to do to achieve Net Zero?  GOOD QUESTION.  I think net zero is pretty meaningless and, in five years, the WMCA has nothing to show.  What GHG are spewed out cannot possibly be absorbed and buried in the ground.  For one thing, there is simply not enough land to plant trees to sequester all the CO2. 

According to the Office for National Statistics (December 2023) around one in five

workers living in the West Midlands were employed in the UK’s highest-
emitting industries in 2021. Two key business sectors to focus on are
manufacturing which represents 16% of the WM economy and
construction comprising 7%.  Both sectors need to get to grips with our ten Climate Action Points as their top priority.

 Action Points - 2024 version.pdf

In that context some high-polluting companies may well be making
significant progress towards Net Zero, but many may be making little or
none.  What are they doing for their significant progress towards net zero?  I would love to know!

The West Midlands Chambers of Commerce’s new report “A Roadmap
for Business Growth” provides the following information about “The
Seismic Shift: Net Zero”: “42% of firms were expected to increase their
investment in regard to reducing their carbon footprint over the next 12
months”.  By doing what, exactly may I ask?

Of course, it is positive that many companies are taking net zero
measures (what measures?), but there is no indication of how effective those measures will
be in reducing their carbon footprint, and it is very concerning that 58%
are not planning to increase their investment in zero carbon measures.  YES!

The West Midlands Climate Coalition believes that the people of the
West Midlands have the right to know what businesses in the West
Midlands are doing about Net Zero, and what more they need to be
doing.  We need much more information.

The WMCC therefore requests that the WMCA produces a public
analysis of the businesses in the West Midlands, especially the larger
ones, in terms of how much damage they do to the climate, the
environment and public well-being, including their own
workforce.  Yes.  Very important.

That needs breaking down further: carbon emissions in terms of the
production process itself, the raw materials used, and the use of the
product. The Net Zero aim should be to shift production to less
environmentally damaging production processes and products while
protecting jobs.  Get the jobs by implementing our Action Points and my suggestions.  Shift to solar power and simpler living, as my wife and I have done, to give £20 monthly energy bills (2 adults) and my home is a mini power station making lots of electricity for the grid.  48,000 kWh in the first 10 years.  LIVE SIMPLY SO THAT OTHERS MAY SIMPLY LIVE - future generations and the migrating northwards Global South who all want a share of the action/riches instead of poverty, suffering, war, environmental degradation ...

And it should be situated in the context of the expanding national and
international debate about growth and degrowth in the economy.  Deep green growth is rather essential, as taught by many economists.  Get reading and learning and acting.

These are only some first steps in the detailed analysis of the economy
of the West Midlands in relation to Net Zero that the WMCA should carry
out and make public. The citizens of the West Midlands have a right to
know.  MOST DEFINITELY.

Tim Weller