Friday, 15 November 2024

Weller's Last Ditch Stand

Dear Cat - my plea, my last ditch stand, in blue

"You are Alex's constituent and I have reminded him that due to strict Parliamentary procedure, I can only take up issues from my own constituents."  Since the 1990s, although I live in Halesowen, I've been working by writing, texting, attending meetings, challenging Andy Street on Radio WM and at his 'Ask Andy' public meetings, pleading at umpteen Community Forums all over Dudley ... all to try and get you wonderful Stourbridge people, your very own former principal mainline railway up and running again.  To get your train connection north and north east to Dudley, Walsall, Lichfield, Derby, with stations reinstated.  Cat, please can you be your own constituent and the MP for yourself, to ask a Parliamentary question to Louise Haigh?

"I resent your suggestion that I haven't acted on this issue. I am doing a lot of work and research and reaching out to key people. You know I agree with you on the destruction of the land around Merry Hill.  THAT IS BRILLIANT AND REASSURING TO READ - THANK YOU!  Therefore, please tackle Louise in the Commons (and privately) over the idiocy and incompetence and the sheer scandal of spending over £1 BILLION for less than 11 Kms of tramway to wreck the UK's most important and last, principal mainline railway between London/Bristol and Glasgow/Edinburgh via the Black Country.

"Finally, I do not sit on the WMCA board and have no voting power in that forum."  Perfectly true, Cat but you are in a powerful position as the MP for your own home town.  Continue to be the first MP I have ever known who is jumping up and down demanding sensible railway trains on what is left of the 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Worcester and Derby.  NOT FOR CYCLISTS, DOG WALKERS AND HORSE RIDERS BETWEEN WALSALL AND LICHFIELD!  200 years ago tramways were being replaced by railways.  We are going backward in time to the Georgian age!  And yet, TfWM wants the tram thinking it can be the catalyst for the freight and passenger trains to return all the sooner.  Honestly!  See below:

Letter from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director, Centro in the year 2000, 18 September of that year:-
"Light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."
A LIE, in fact.  And, it has never come in 24 years because TfWM/WMCA are obsessed with Metro trams - now 150 miles to 2040 costing £15 BILLION (Jan 2020 figure).  That money is needed to fight the Climate Emergency by helping the lowest incomes.

The full horror to entertain you, Cat is all enclosed in these 40 statements:


Thanks so much for acting to help your constituents preserve nature, public open space, housing land and my magnificent guerrilla garden at Merry Hill.

Please, don't let a Transport Minister sign off on WBHE Phase 2 this month or next.  Work on the ground begins in January, said Anne Shaw, Executive Director, TfWM.

Best wishes

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