ONE WAY OUT OF CONGESTION, POLLUTION, FINITE OIL/GAS RESERVES

PLEASE SELECT, COPY, PASTE, SEND TO  dudleycouncilplus@dudley.gov.uk

Please use the funds from the Mayor's Charities to free up road space, reduce congestion outside schools and increase active travel by:

• Rewarding parents who walk or cycle their children to school by encouraging them to claim, via a form the daily active travel allowance - if they have left their cars at home.
• Council officers should also be allowed to claim for using cycles on official council business - but this money to come from council funds.  Is this encouraged now and does anyone do it?  DUDLEY COUNCIL PLUS, PLEASE REPLY.
• What should be the daily rate for primary school parents and the mileage rate for council officers?
• Does WMCA Cycling/Walking Chief, Adam Tranter claim?   ADAM, PLEASE TELL ME!

Tim      (Weller)

to Radio WM

Dear Kath and Adam (is that name right?) - and copied to Andy and the Brum and Black Country Wildlife Trust

It was so good of you to remember that I wanted to speak to Andy about the very important, half used, Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance", as in the letter, here:

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

I listened back to the full one hour of the time with Andy and you were very fair with every caller and with Andy.  You were excellent.  I interrupted you, Kath at one stage and now wonder if you  can remember what you were about to say?  Sorry about that!

I have never voted Conservative in all my 75 years but did so in 2017 and 2021 in order to vote for Andy.  I did so because he has always held public meetings, open to all and sundry, from soon after he was chosen as the candidate in 2016.

When you next have him on, would you allow me once more to ask him, not about the railway but about one of these matters affecting and at Merry Hill Shopping Centre, please?

1. The public open space on the Dudley No 1 Canal embankment that is still due to have a 400 metre, concrete and steel tramway viaduct for the Dudley Tram project.  Right here! :-
   
    6 glorious white trees.jpg
2. The massive 23,000 sq m of housing land at Merry Hill, called High Plateau, that is partly taken by the tram.  See the official plan
   
    WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg
   Nothing has been done about it for decades yet, we are in the midst of a housing crisis.
3. The Black Country Urban Forest that was started, I believe, in the 1990s but was soon heard of no more.  I am suggesting it be resurrected for the other two grassy areas at Merry Hill, as an obvious positive measure since Dudley Council declared a climate emergency in 2020, I believe.
4. The possible SSSI that is Daniels Land at Merry Hill.  It is untouched by we humans for decades, fenced off on all four sides, right next to the important Dudley No 1 Canal and, hence a paradise for nature.  The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, we keep on being told.  The pond and wetland area might have great crested newts that give Pensnett Nature Reserve its Triple SI status a mile north of Daniels Land.  I am trying to get a qualified person to do the ecological survey that is the first and, rather essential, first step.  No one is interested and I'm getting nowhere, Kath.  Not even the Brum and Black Country Wildlife Trust will help

to Duncan Dollimore

Good morning Duncan and Adam

I fully agreed with everything you said, Duncan just now.  Excellent!

I am not so pleased with the UK's only major 22 Kms, urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway is not, I fear, seeing any progress, whatsoever.  This is the Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway.  It must be the UK's very worst major commuter, business and leisure route for all non fossil-fuel users.  It really does need urgent upgrading but the West Midlands Combined Authority has its priorities on other more flash, fancy, expensive transport projects.

Adam is our Cycling Supremo and, I'm sure, is doing his very best.  However, the climate emergency demands a much higher priority for cycling and away from fossil fuels.

Best wishes

from Adam Tranter

 Morning Tim,

I don't recognise many of the characterisations you make in your email on transport schemes, but I did want to follow up on the cycle route following our discussions outside the lifts in Summer Lane.

After discussing with Black Country Transport (BCT), to the best of my knowledge the situation is as follows:

Over the summer, BCT began the development of a business case for work to upgrade the Smestow Valley path between Dudley and Wolverhampton, building on earlier feasibility work.  Site visits were made to the sections of the path within Wolverhampton and Dudley.

Also at this time the Black Country Local Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plan was in preparation.  The sections of this route within Wolverhampton and Dudley were included in a long list of desirable schemes and subject to assessment by various criteria set out in the Network Planning section of the BCLCWIP.  Owing to the 5-year timescale for delivery of the BCLCWIP and the resource and other constraints governing the number of schemes that can be progressed simultaneously, the two top-scoring routes for each Highway Authority area were selected for further development, to be progressed in the near future.  The Dudley section of this route fell into the top 2 for Dudley and so this will be developed in the coming year with a view to delivery in successive years.  The Wolverhampton section did not fall into the top two for Wolverhampton so at this stage it is not a priority for development.  However, having been included in the BCLCWIP increases the likelihood the route will be developed in the medium term.

In the meantime, a Heritage Lottery Fund application is in progress with a view to making minor improvements to the route in Wolverhampton.  An update on this has been sought by officers.

So that you understand the process, routes have to be on a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) in order to have the best chance of securing funding from Government.

Sustrans manages the National Cycling Network and allocates route numbers. As previously explained, they are currently reviewing all routes because some do not meet the standards people would expect from pieces of national infrastructure. I'd suggest, in my own opinion, that allocating a NCN number to the Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway, as you describe it, wouldn't add any benefit and frustrate people further that the route is not to a quality that's useful.

People need a variety of cycle routes for journeys - including quiet routes, off-road and segregated cycleways on main roads. Generally, funding is prioritised from Government for routes that are going to deliver benefits for the most number of people to help deliver "modal shift" - hence, priority to some of the A road corridors which will benefit from bus and active travel priority. But, as mentioned above, that doesn't mean other routes will be ignored.

So, in summary:

• The route is now in the right strategy documents to secure future funding
• Some parts of the route are being prioritised for progression
• Others parts are earmarked for funding bids in medium-term
• A funding bid for minor improvements has gone in to Heritage Lottery Fund
• An NCN number would not add value, but confusion

I'll continue to keep an eye on the development of this route, following our conversation.

Best,

Adam Tranter

Cycling & Walking Commissioner

The oddest bus shelter in the world!

Thank you Adam for the email.  However,

Why such a very strange, eccentric looking, black (and wooden?) bus shelter that looks nothing like one?!

Are you sure there is a timetable somewhere on the structure?  I don't remember seeing one.  The lady standing there in my photo did say it was a bus shelter, so I had to believe her.

Would your civic pride, Adam not want it brought up to date with a modern, conventional shelter that we have in Stourbridge and Halesowen?  This shelter of yours is not even attractive or, interesting as an historical artefact!

The two 20th century, more modern shelters round the corner on the way out of the town centre were also very poor with missing information and not like the TfWM ones in the W Midlands, next door.

Standards need to be urgently raised.  That disgraceful slum of a Kiddi Bus Station needs to be razed to the ground for something more respectable.  Are you not aware of the climate emergency, with the Secretary General of the United Nations saying at COP 27, two weeks ago, "We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator"?  One simple answer is to make bus use much more obvious, attractive and, indeed irresistible to those many wedded and welded to their cars.  You know what to do, Adam.

Best wishes for much higher standards of provision in future days - PLEASE!

Tim   (Weller)

PS bonus of 3 photos and 2 cartoons:

TO MALCOLM HOLMES, Executive Director, West Midlands Rail (WMR), and Director of Rail, Transport for West Midlands

TO MALCOLM HOLMES, Executive Director, West Midlands Rail (WMR), and Director of Rail, Transport for West Midlands

Hi Adam and Malcolm - and copied to local train driver, Dave Parsons, and a Railfuture member, for their opinion/advice.  Malcolm to please amplify, correct or confirm what I have written here, please.

Thanks for your decency in replying, Adam.

You wrote,

"a passenger rail service could only ever be delivered if a Rail Operating Company came forward with a business plan to develop and deliver it."

There is already a toc or train operating company!  They are the tocs that use our 120 Kms Black Country Mainline Railway at the northern (Derby) and southern (Worcester) ends.  If allowed, they might be willing to provide a service in the middle, as well.  However, for forty years the section between Stourbridge and Walsall has been reserved for Metro trams.  The tocs are forbidden to use it!

YET, this was no obstacle last decade when the contracts to run the services were up for grabs.  One company, was it West Midlands Railway, wanted to extend their service to meet the tram at the Canal St tram stop with their trains from Snow Hill to Stourbridge Jct reversing out of Junction to Canal Street - and then back to Snow Hill via Junction station.

Do please, Adam press for our Black Country Railway to be finished to revive the Black Country and to compete with Brum and to bypass their New Street Sta (aka 'Grand Central Diesel Perfumed Underground Station Stuck in the Basement of the Closed John Lewis Store')

"New St Station is one of the worst rail congestion bottlenecks in the UK" - Peter Plisner, Transport Correspondent on BBC 'Midlands Today' for very many years.

Your statement was no obstacle to having the trains and stations back in Brum on their Camp Hill line or, between Wolverhampton and Walsall.  Both are now finally being achieved after decades of asking but Dudley has to wait, despite the fact it is the largest UK town, by population, without a railway station!

Funny how poor old Dudley gets palmed off with second best.  Actually, gets landed with the worst possible outcome.  The whole mainline railway is broken up into HR, LR, VLR, ULR - and fresh air!  HR = heavy rail; LR = light rail; VLR = very light rail; ULR = ultra-light rail.

Best wishes and thanks again for writing.  But don't leave it there, Adam.  Right is on our side!

Tim

PS

Funny behaviour by our dear betters and masters

from W Mids Climate Coalition

Nine Action Points

Direct Message to Adam Tranter

You are doing a brilliant job, Adam. Well done on the parklet and shame on the council. Please could you help us over in the far west is worst of the W Mids with our business, commuter and leisure route, 22 Kms of traffic-free, THE WONDERFUL the Black Country Cycle-Walk-Horse MUDWAY extraordinary. It runs between Brierley Hill and NW Wolverhampton. 3 nature reserves and 2 cafes in former railway stations on 2 disused railway lines.