Question for your colleague, Commissioner John Coughlan

Dear Max - I'm sorry this is lengthy but, it is important

Addressing not accelerating the Climate Emergency is your aim

Thank you so much for writing to clarify so much over Equal Pay.  However, some concerns of mine do remain over an even more important matter.

FACTS ON THE GROUND

• Your Commissioner, John Coughlan was a fellow student with me in Birmingham from 1986 to 1988.
• In 1981, the W Midlands County Council and its transport arm, Centro launched their 200 Kms, 10 Metro tramway lines to be achieved by the year 2,000 CE.
• For 43 years, Birmingham City Council as the lead authority along with the other six councils, have all been working hard to achieve the wholesale conversion of bus routes and three (now two) mainline railways into a rebuilt tram network that they had only just wiped off the face of Brum and the region twenty years earlier.
• 200 years ago, we were converting tramways to railways.  We've learnt nothing in 200 years!
• By their target date of 2,000 they had achieved precisely 20 Kms out of 200 Kms, with a further 3 Kms added in the next 24 years, to today.  A quite disgraceful record even by their standards.  And on railway lines, too!
• Metro One opened in 1999 but never went as far as even the bus station let alone the Wolves railway station.  The latter was finally achieved, this decade, with 700 metres of tramway taking nearly seven years of work on the ground - astonishing!!  (Blunders, changes from the top, work having to be redone and, general incompetence, I understand)
• Today, the Metro Expansion Plan remains as 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops, costing £15 BILLION by the year 2040 (Jan 2020 cost figure).  THIS, with a £22 billion black hole in the nation's finances, would you believe!
• But for only two mainline railways to be converted to tramway and no longer the three - some good news!
• So far, at least two 12 month postponements for the Camp Hill to have its commuter trains and stations back.  It is taking an age for three railway stations to be rebuilt.
• The money went on replacing a smaller University railway station with the most enormous station imaginable (the actual tall, substantial building - what will all the rooms be used for?)
• The mainline railway currently being worked on to destruction is "of national strategic significance" - but this is of no consequence to the professionals or, their minders (the councillors)

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

QUESTION FOR JOHN COUGHLAN

To the best of my knowledge, why has John over these forty years, never joined me in questionning the wisdom of converting bus routes and mainline railways into tramways at the most colossal expense both in price and in weight of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to accelerate the Climate Emergency (declared by Birmingham CC and the WMCA in 2019)?

QUESTION FOR YOURSELF

Why did I profit from the Equal Pay claim windfall but not others who were not in the union or were never told by management that they had to claim via Leigh Day?  If this is correct, it is hardly fair on those who never heard they could claim and win a financial windfall.

BACKGROUND

BCC has always been the leading and largest member of, first the WMCC and, now, of the WMCA.  The WMCC HQ, with Centro was in Brum, as is today, of course, the WMCA and Transport for W Midlands also in Brum.  Therefore, I think, you and Laura Shoaf really do need to work together to sort out forty years of the Miserable Metro Mess that has tied up so many staff at 16 Summer Lane, destroyed two mainline railways, turned one Wolverhampton railway station into a conference and events centre and, cost billions in price and in weight of GHG emissions.  And, in forty years of hard endeavour, after destroying so much has still only got us 23 Kms out of the 200 Kms wanted by the year 2000.  Hence, the acceleration of Climate impacts that I've been following since before 1988 when the IPCC was formed by the UN.

In the 80s and 90s, Metro madness was meant to run out to Birmingham Airport but ended up going in the opposite direction to obliterate the first, former mainline railway between Snow Hill and Wolverhampton.  All of that took 18 years with Metro One opening in 1999 but never going as far as even the bus station let alone the Wolves railway station.  The tram arriving at the railway station was finally achieved, this decade.  Putting the commuter trains back, instead would have been done in a fraction of the time and cost but was, clearly, completely beyond them!

REMEMBER:  BCC was involved and remains the leading member of WMCC from the outset in 1981.  When he was BCC leader, Ian Ward was the Transport Lead for the WMCA for a number of years, after Cllr Roger Lawrence, Leader of City of Wolverhampton Council.

Now, all I have to do is to attach my documents that explain, truthfully and without exaggeration, why you, your five Commissioners and Laura need to abandon, end, terminate Metro tramway expansion.  Do this to save billions and to slow the Climate Emergency that many councils, all the regions and national governments declared years ago.

 IMMORAL PRIORITIES

 40 short statements never corrected or even challenged

 6 scandals on the 40th anniversary of the W Mids Metro!

Best wishes