Hi Angus
Thank you so much for this excellent, helpful and comprehensive report that has been good to read - and impossible to refute!
I suppose my concerns are how we all feel so entitled to everything and everyone. We are so wealthy we can afford to do anything we like but, there are downsides. And just because we are so wealthy we can spend the money in any way we like, does not mean we should.
From 2013 I was trying to convince Nick Mallinson of the WMG to use the 3 Km Kingswinford branch line from Moor Street, Brierley Hill to Pensnett High Street for their test track rather than the former, 100 year old successful, principal mainline railway through Dudley Castle Hill station between Worcester and Derby. You now have a 2 Km test track through Castle Hill tunnel, when it could have been 3 Kms. I was given the guff that the test track had to include a tunnel and that heavy rail can only be reinstated once LR Metro has gone on the mainline railway! Such was the incompetence that in 2013, they even tried to put the VLR test track on the mainline railway to Dudley Port that was intended for LR Metro since 1981!! The sorry saga of tragic transport in the West Midlands is detailed here:
The 100 year old Dudley mainline station, now a tram stop, is impossible to reinstate with the Innovation Centre and test track built on it. That line between London and Edinburgh via the Black Country was broken up into heavy rail, light rail Metro, a test track and an extended cycle-walkway from Walsall railway station to Lichfield station when it was built as an intercity railway. How bizarre is that?!
Billions in price and in weight of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are going into a damaging high speed railway, LR over 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops in the W Midlands, including Coventry. Coventry also becomes the electric bus city of the UK and a swish, swanky VLR line that you are working on. All this, while the poor have to rely on energy and food banks and the most inadequate housing to meet the Climate Emergency. In addition, lots of new buildings are going up that are not meeting ecological considerations.
It was lovely to meet you last Saturday and to hear of the excellent work you are doing. Thanks again for writing.
Tim
PS: Do try my quizzes!
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