David Attenborough video

https://twitter.com/GaryLineker/status/1544281661071921153?t=FsjBa7pPL2g6UO--MRGK6w&s=03

for Climate Change/Environment Scrutiny Committee on 20 June 2022

BLEAK OUTLOOK AS WE IGNORE THE WARNINGS:

"Code Red for Humanity" from Antonio Guterres, Sec Gen, UN on 9 August 2021

"... the collapse of civilisations, the extinction of much of the natural world and time is running out ..." warnings from Sir David Attenborough

"You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the Earth belong to us all and the Earth itself to nobody." Rousseau, ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’, 1754

I heard about climate change in about 1980 when I saw a BBC TV 'Tomorrow's World' programme. The main greenhouse gases are CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and water vapour.

Finite fossil fuels are coal, oil and gas and all give off greenhouse gases that enhance the natural greenhouse effect. The natural greenhouse effect makes life on earth possible. Unfortunately, the burning up in 300 years of our one-off geological inheritance that took 300 m years to form is enhancing that natural greenhouse effect to raise temperatures to make life uninhabitable on earth. This is called human-induced climate change. Hence, we have to urgently and drastically cut all GHG by quickly reducing our use of fossil fuels and, ideally, leaving them in the ground.

We can get out of using oil and gas by spending less, like:

1. Using a self-powered bike or a bus to come to council meetings.
2. Switching off lights when you leave a room - especially in the Council House.
3. Turning down the temperature of the room you sit in and wearing more clothing, instead.
4. Buying less of absolutely everything and making everything last a lot longer.
5. Insulating your council offices and your own homes to the maximum possible.
6. Put in secondary glazing or double/triple glazing.
7. Use your car as little as possible and try walking and cycling and public transport.
8. Immediately, tell your officers to scrap Metro tram extensions that have spoilt and even destroyed railway lines and infrastructure in the Black Country and Brum. And, Five Ways underpass.
9. Put the commuter and regional trains back on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" that has not yet been turned into the over £500 million, 10 Kms Dudley Tram.
10. Bring in FFPT to reward everyone who uses bus, trains and trams, with traffic priority for buses on the inside lane and a stiff financial charges for every vehicle on main roads, within the Outer Ring Road, in the rush hours that are not registered as being essential vehicle users.
11. Move your council offices to more energy efficient buildings like those at the Waterfront and use the railway line!
12. There is still time to cancel the climate-busting concrete and steel, double-track railway/tram viaduct to smother the carbon-absorbing grass, soil and trees/shrubs on Dudley's No 1 premier canal embankment at Merry Hill.

timweller1@gmail.com     0791 380 4363

The only zero we are headed for is ...

The only zero we are headed for is zero gas and oil as we greedily burn them all up, without a thought for tomorrow.  And, as Mrs Thatcher said in 1988 in a speech to the Royal Society:

She believed it possible that "We have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the earth itself."

By 'system', she meant life support systems, the planet's natural ecosystems.

"Either we get our numbers (population) and our activities into harmony with the powers of the earth to support life or, collapsing ecosystems will do the job for us."  (UK Green Party Manifesto for a Sustainable Society, 1970s)

The three main parties all want and work for an unsustainable society.  Hence, Attenborough's  "collapse of civilisations", "extinction of much of the natural world" and, "time is running out" warnings, at COP 24 in Dec 2018.

We are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.  Snookered.

Three VIPs sound off

"They've been calling for it for quite a while", said Evan Davis this evening on 'PM', Radio 4.

"How dare you continue to look away. To think you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight." Thunberg

"Climate change and biodiversity loss represent a borderless crisis. The solutions to which have been argued about and postponed for far too long." Prince of Wales

"If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations, and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." Attenborough

Popular HS2, Metro, Sprint extensions all worsen climate emergency and hasten disaster

Dear friends - photos to bring a smile at the very bottom of this email for light relief!

ALL WE HAVE IS WRITING, SPEAKING AND MAKING POSITIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS!

Chris wants us to read, comment and promote the excellent FoE document on green jobs that says:

"There are over 500,000 young people aged 16-24 out of work, and numbers are expected to grow substantially with the end of the furlough scheme. This is a youth unemployment emergency."

TfWM/WMCA WANTS IT TOO

The FoE report is 94 pages long and I can only skim read parts.  It is wanting green apprenticeships.  This is exactly what Andy Street wants.  However, he sees building back better as building HS2 for £106 BILLION, Metro "bus on rails" trams over 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops for £15 BILLION to 2040 and a two class bus provision with Sprint as 1st Class for half a billion pounds and, if necessary, 2nd class regular buses after trams and Sprint.  For Andy, all this means green jobs for young and middle aged people.  I think he is wrong!

WHAT THEY WANT HAS MADE THINGS WORSE!

We have seen that for west Brum, Metro at £75 m/Km in 2020 (Scotland's new railway was £7 m/Km in 2015), has made public transport worse with a much slower and longer journey because of the permanent closure of the Five Ways underpass and "bus on rails" tram priority in Broad St.

This is ecocidal behaviour by us humans that is killing the planet and its life support systems that enable all life on earth as we know it, as of the year 2000.  Simply using finite fossil fuels is killing us all!  David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg and scientists from around the world in the major IPCC reports from its foundation in 1988 has been tellng us this ever since 1988.  In fact, Eunice Foote and John Tyndall since the 1850s!

YET, FOE, GREENPEACE, GREEN PARTY, CAMPAIGN FOR BETTER TRANSPORT, Transport for Quality of Life, Greener Transport Solutions - ALL WANT HS2,TRAMS, SPRINT TOO!

We have seen that for the Black Country, the 40 year old obsession with Metro "bus on rails" trams has led to the destruction or, part destruction, of five commuter railway lines and, one and a quarter mainline stations!  This is scandalous!  Yet, national green/environmental organisations - supposedly promoting more sustainable, less ecocidal behaviour by us humans - have tacitly agreed and often actively promoted HS2, light rail rapid transit ("bus on rails" trams) and Sprint two class bus provision.

Therefore, not surprisingly, in 25 years of writing in opposition to the destruction of our railway network for Metro "bus on rails" trams and for built development, I have had very, very little support even from the green movement!

Every £1 spent = fossil fuels burnt = greenhouse gases emitted = runaway greenhouse effect = same uninhabitable conditions as planet venus (look venus up on Wikipedia).  THIS IS DEADLY SERIOUS.

All we can do, now is limit our expenditure to projects that cut greenhouse gas emissions in the medium to long term with the green jobs that we all know are more sustainable than the jobs at any price idiocy that leads to HS2, road building, Metro and Sprint.

I began my adult life as a full-time volunteer in 1967, for 13 months, on £1 per week plus board and lodging.  I am ending my adult life on a perfectly adequate pension doing voluntary practical work on restoring Nature in my local green belt and in writing, texting, phoning - as here - to try and discourage the all pervasive concrete, brick and tarmac from destroying nature completely and, thus, ourselves and all life along with it.

Universal Basic Income is similar to the Furlough scheme.  Both are better than the jobs at any price ecocide.  I think, we want true green, right jobs built on a basic income for all to ensure sufficient, decent food, clothing and shelter paid for by the greedy wealthy (the top lot help out the bottom lot).  That discourages the HS2/Metro/Sprint type of jobs.  My basic income from 1967 to 1968 was £1 a week (by the end, raised to £1.50/week) plus board and lodging.  I used a bike, some parental help with transport getting to and from distant destinations on three occasions and, I had no savings but I survived!

A few email addresses to write to are here - never ever give up!:

 September 2019 A5 flyer

Attenborough and Bennett sound off

Attenborough warned: “We are facing a global extinction crisis which has implications for every one of us. It’s tempting to assume that the loss of wildlife and wild places is a problem that’s happening on the other side of the world. The truth is that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet and the situation is getting worse.”

The Wildlife Trusts chief executive, Craig Bennett, said: “Just protecting the nature we have left is not enough; we need to put nature into recovery, and to do so at scale and with urgency.

“We need to transform nature-poor areas into new nature-rich places – and change the way we think about land, looking for opportunities to help nature outside traditional nature reserves.”

WHY I'M STANDING - my cut down concerns for VIPs to action, NOW!

I am a declared Independent candidate to instil some urgency into how changes in transport, jobs and housing policy can reduce the impact of human climate breakdown and postpone Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" and "time is running out" warnings (at COP 24, December 2018 - over two years ago!).

My manifesto is for more sensible, cost-effective and easier ways to reduce congestion and pollution.  Fareless, electric buses for ALL; not only for the few, like me!  To free up road space for essential users.  Paid for by abandoning Metro, diesel Sprint and Clean Air Zone.  Called, Regional Fare-Free Public Transport for ALL that I have had for 13 years!

Listen to Attenborough!

LISTEN TO ATTENBOROUGH!

Please oppose ultra-light rail, very light rail, and light rail that end up complicating a public transport journey with more changes and delays.

Oppose the £15 BILLION to 2040 for mainly Metro underground and overground tram extensions.  Coventry will get the Godiva line.  STOP IT!

Stick to changing to electric buses directly on roads without the rails of ULR, VLR and LR, please!

Rails = steel = high greenhouse gas emissions = climate catastrophe = END!

Quickly move to PV on every council-owned E, W, S, facing roof and insulate city council buildings to set a good example and to reduce the authorities hypocrisy quotient.

Lag yourself and your home/building and turn down the thermostat to 19 or 20 C max.

Avoid large homes with bigger heating bills.  Mine is my ideal home for 45 years at a little over £1/day total for gas and elecy.  Beat that!

SPEND THE MINIMUM TO MAXIMISE OUR FUTURE PROSPECTS.

Spend now, on the right Climate/Ecology/Nature projects to cut greenhouse gases in the medium to long term. 

Pay freeze for workers on more than £150,000 a year

Thanks Stuart and Doug. I think a pay freeze for workers on as much as £150,000 a year must be only the start. The more you get paid, the more you will spend. The more you spend, the more you are taking of finite, precious resources that poorer nations and future generations might just possibly need. But it's worse than that.

Because we are now well and truly trapped in the most prodigious consumption of finite fossil fuels, we are all so dangerously changing the planet's climates for the worse, that Attenborough was warning in Dec 2018 of this:-

"the collapse of civilisations, the extinction of much of the natural world and time is running out".

It is urgent that we not only lockdown for Covid but lockdown our greedy overconsumption for Climate.

Selfish, thoughtless overconsumption is one of the two main drivers of global destruction - the other is ... ?

Five years ago, confirmed by the election for Mayor in 2017, we had the creation of a completely new regional government organisation that I had no idea would be the result of getting a Metro Mayor four years ago!  So, we have workers like Deborah Cadman on £180,000 a year, as Chief Executive, to an unknown number of employees in many layers of a deep hierarchy.  What is worse is this.  Not one of these new decision-makers was elected.  But that will not make a scrap of difference if the election of the Mayor is anything to go by.  He has no official powers and simply says, and rubber stamps, whatever is decided for him by unelected officials.

Yet, from out of our numbers, we get members of councils who are so hopeless they have allowed professional officers whom they have agreed with to do this:

1. An electric tram network completely obliterated and replaced with diesel buses.
2. About 100 Kms of our West Midlands railways were used for housing and trading estates and roads.
3. The UK's very last, fully in place but, only half used, is now converted after 50 years to shuttle tramline, VLR test track and proposed extended cycle-walkway.
4. A worse public transport journey for eleven different bus routes from west Brum and the Black Country because of the rebuilding of the tram network that has always had priority over trains and buses from Metro's start in 1981.  The bus now has a longer and slower journey into Colmore Row because of the tram taking over.  If you change for the tram, this is no quicker if you have to wait upwards of 15 minutes for the tram at Five Ways to take the direct route that was taken by the bus.

Basic socialist/humanitarian/ecological principles

Thanks for the email.  Please don't take my candidacy as a declared Independent, too seriously.  It is simply a campaigning device to get the real politicians to do what I want them to do, in line with LU policy that I so like and agree with.  More radical than the Green Party, my former home and, I just love Bob Whitehead's FFPT, his careful research on it and his help, for me, over antisemitism in the Labour Party.

I think, I'm unlikely to waste £5,000 but being a declared candidate does have an advantage.  One reporter, Mark Cardwell wrote something, 'The Commitment' contacted me yesterday and FoE has included me as a result of my 'declaration'.  I may be taken a little more seriously and my questions over my many concerns are more likely to be answered.  I also get better access to decision-makers for a short period.

In particular, I want them to understand the basic socialist/humanitarian/ecological principles of:-

• from each according to his ability; to each according to his need;
• build out obsolescence to make things last;
• use what you have instead of tearing down and rebuilding;
• don't destroy railway lines but use them for their intended purpose;
• finish what you start - unless it's extensions for HS2, Metro or Sprint diesel buses!
• retrench instead of regeneration in the light of the Covid, climate, ecological, nature crises;
• much more sustainable lifestyles urgently promoted instead of 'live it up today and to hell with tomorrow';
• live simply so that others - poorer nations and future generations - may simply live;
• diplomacy instead of the militarisation of diplomacy;
• UN and international bodies taken seriously and co-operated with;
• over-consumption and over-population are the two main drivers of global destruction;
• our very rich, resource-rich and fatal addiction to finite resources is deadly, dangerous and will be our ultimate undoing.  Prepare now!

LISTEN AND ACT ON THE DIRE WARNINGS FROM ATTENBOROUGH AND THUNBERG - at opposite ends of the age range!

Ten specific to Dudley MBC ideas

Ten specific to Dudley MBC ideas:

There are three reasons why the first two are the most urgent.

A) because the £15 billion is being spent now by TfWM/WMCA.  This is regardless of the political party in power at anytime or, who is Metro Mayor.  Democracy has been overlooked for 40 years, this year - it started with the W Mids County Council in 1981!

B) It is the best way and the most painless way to cut greenhouse gases.

C) It also brings the biggest savings in greenhouse gases because: any spending = more finite fossil fuels are used up for ever = more greenhouse gases to dangerously enhance the vital, natural greenhouse effect = unstable climate = risk of ecocide = Earth's 6th mass extinction episode hastened.

1. More commonly found in E Europe but also throughout the world, one UK political party, called Left Unity, is promoting Fare-Free Public Transport for all and not just my age group.  Paid for by abandoning the £15 billion to 2040 for mainly underground and overground trams replacing buses and some trains.  AIM: To get usage back up, as a reward for not using the car, as compensation and to cut greenhouse gases.
2. Freight and passenger trains back on the Black Country Railway in Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and south Staffordshire where they don't put trams, ie 47 Kms still available.  (Also, 68 Kms Derby to Leicester freight-only railway.)
3. Insulate every council-owned building and put PV on every E, W, S facing roof of all council-owned buildings.
4. Provide a cycle-walkway on the south grass verge of Duncan Edwards Way.
5. Major 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway fixed, especially in the borough of Dudley.
6. Abandon moving Dudley's 2nd newest leisure centre all of 1 Km.  Yes, 1 Km to Flood St tram stop.  That is 1 Km walking, too according to Google!
7. Permanently widen pavements in all our town centres to allow parking for the disabled and deliveries only.
8. Change general waste to the same as recycling, to fortnightly collections.
9. Co-ordinate council workers and, volunteers like me, to repair/replace every wooden stile to further encourage active travel by walking, NOT by driving as far as possible and as much as possible.
10. Show the Attenborough film, 'Extinction: the Facts', in work time, to every officer and member of Dudley MBC.

60 years of ecocidal behaviour to bring about Attenborough's dire warnings from the runaway greenhouse effect

 Dear Tim & Co

Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" and "time is running out" warnings (Dec 2018).

Please ditch trams and, instead put the passenger trains and stations back on all 106 Kms - urgently!

Thanks for your decency in replying to my email.  Eventually, my reminders of what I think you all need to do will fall off - or continue to fall on deaf ears.  Your reply seems to indicate that some may be read and that is much appreciated!

It really is an embarrassment to live in the W Midlands.  Before I arrived, 51 years ago, the complete and extensive electric tram network had been completely wiped out.  Replaced by more diesel buses!  In the ensuing years, about 100 Kms of the railway network went the same way.  You started rebuilding the tram network instead of the train network and, in the process wiped out vital parts of the railway network for the trams to run on - permanently.  Astonishing incompetence!  And at the most colossal expense, too.  About ten times more expensive per kilometre than putting the trains and stations back.  SEE THE EVIDENCE:

 Like for like comparison of infrastructure buil...

Two principal railway stations have been demolished and rebuilt, with New Street demolished twice.  The second time, relegated to the basement of a fine new shopping centre that looks nothing like a railway station.  Not even a prominent name plate for visitors to know that there is a station as well!  Snow Hill was thought to be redundant - never again to be needed, I believe.  Demolished in the 1970s.  Your predecessors soon realised their little slip up and rebuilt it but, to half its former size.  Amazing!  The Victorian station had eight platforms, the modern one only four and the fourth is now out of use since Metro trams now bypass the station to go straight to Grand Central.  But the business case justified the great expense by saying that Snow Hill would be linked to Grand Central.  The money was given on false pretences!

The authorities failed to build the much needed western approach tunnels for New Street when Brindleyplace was built in the 80s and 90s.  That was a serious omission.  Indeed, incompetence by the top people.  It continues the station being known as "one of the worst railway congestion bottlenecks in the UK" (Peter Plisner on 'Midlands Today').

The Bull Ring Shopping Centre has seen its second demolition and rebuilding.  Yet the new eastern approach railway tunnels for New Street were never put in after the demolition, in the 90s and 00s.  Another lost opportunity and a tragedy for Brum's railways.

The main library in Brum has been demolished and rebuilt twice.  Centenary Square demolished and rebuilt so many times I have lost count.  Does Chamberlain Square survive?

We once had a fine inner ring road of fast underpasses, flyovers and roundabouts of free flowing traffic.  It did not last long before they decided to break "the concrete collar" by demolishing Colmore Circus, Masshouse Circus and St Martin's Circus.  In their place, we have yet more traffic lights, congestion and nose to tail traffic with all their attendant cocktail of poisonous, greenhouse gases right next to where people have to walk.  They call that progress.  Progress towards more greenhouse gases and the runaway greenhouse effect that means the END.

The Black Country and Brum also took passenger trains off 50 Kms of its railway network and thought that houses, shops and offices were meant to speed down railway lines - and some railway lines turned into roads.  Some of what was left is being turned into tram lines and test tracks, a trail of trees and the extension of the cycle-walkway in south Staffordshire, north of Walsall.

Manchester chose trams to replace buses and trains.  BBC Panorama,  'HS2: The Great Train Robbery' showed the disgraceful state of the railway network in northern England, centred on Manchester, with even slum-like Pacer commuter trains still used.  Money misspent.  Wrong priorities.

All the West Midlands authorities have constantly chosen the last six decades of never-ending building and demolition.  Deliberately destroying the tram network instead of modernising it; choosing trams that destroyed railway infrastructure instead of restoring trains and stations to the railway network.  All this is a very serious failure by our top VIPs in the city and region.  When are things going to be turned round to respond to the climate emergency instead of fueling it?

Please ditch trams and, instead put the passenger trains and stations back on all 106 Kms - urgently.  Get the buses turned into fareless, electric buses with 100% bus lanes and traffic lights turning green for them and red for the cars, whenever possible.  Use the nearly £2 billion you will save from abandoning Metro trams and Sprint diesel buses!  Get a sea change in social attitudes away from driving the car into city centres towards jumping on the bus, train or tram instead.  This way you free up the road network for essential vehicles.  My family is now using the bus or car/train to get into the city centre.  I cycle and have done for years.  Even using the bike for my social work in Brum for the last 15 to 20 years of my working life.  And still using the bike in my old age.

With best wishes

REASONS FOR STANDING IN 2021

to instil some urgency into how changes in transport, jobs and housing policy can reduce the impact of human climate breakdown; and postpone Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" and "time is running out" warnings.

For a more sensible, cost-effective and easier ways to reduce congestion and pollution.  Fareless, electric buses for ALL; not for the few, like me!​  To free up road space for essential users.  Paid for by abandoning Metro, diesel Sprint and CAZ.

standing in elections is all part of good campaigning

to bring this scandal or anomaly, incompetence or oversight to the attention of the public by standing as a candidate in the hope that I can bring maximum embarrassment to the Combined Authority at the hustings.  I will be asking the public, at those meetings, if they do agree with what I am asking should be done or, are on your side.  I can't be fairer than that.

CRUCIAL QUESTION: "There is a half-completed principal mainline railway of 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby, via the Black Country.  The middle half is missing all trains but is fully built and available.  Should that middle half be given over to 6 Kms of trams with 2 Kms of a test track and extended cycle-walkway?  Or, should the mainline have its commuter, regional and intercity trains back on the full length?"

to continue the effort, the campaign to slow all 3 crises - virus, climate and urban railway negligence crisis.

Life and death must never be the same again when its all over

Dear Ros and Cllr Chris - and everyone else who is interested

Every cloud has a silver lining; and, if you snooze you lose

You wrote, Ros, "When the time is right, we will look to resume our engagement with decision makers on the climate crisis and how we build a fairer, healthier and sustainable future for all."

I do think this is understandable.  However, I am so concerned at our society being up the creek without  a paddle ("to be in a serious quandary with little chance of a positive outcome").  Does our present predicament foreshadow when fossil fuels will be scarce and the climate emergency even more blindingly obvious?  Then, things will be ten times worse, won't they?  Therefore, we must work immediately towards that lower impact, fairer and more sustainable society where the rich help the poor, the strong help the weak and the advantaged help the disadvantaged.  And, where the old like me, give way, give preference to the young to enable them to thrive as we elders fade away and are gone.  We must continue to explain the uncomfortable realities of life and death, I think.  That does mean urgent engagement with everyone and especially decision makers.  And we are all decision makers, too of course.  We can each lead by example.

It seems, the virus crisis is making a small difference to the climate crisis and the reality of resource depletion, especially finite fossil fuels.  Highly dangerous greenhouse gases have dropped as air flights and movement by fossil fuels have lessened.  We are becoming more dependent on contact by phone and computer and on walking and cycling and, certainly no unnecessary travel now by public transport or, when it is all over, in cars.  Physical distancing still enables us to talk and to socialise at two metres when in the open air.

When the virus has eventually died out, we will all want to get back to how things were.  However, we must NOT, entirely.  I think that we must still restrain our use of fossil fuels and to minimise our dependency on them.  This is because we are fossil fuel junkies that is leading to climate catastrophe, Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" and "time is running out" warnings.  And he said that at COP 24 in December 2018, if I remember correctly.

Now is the time to live and campaign so that we permanently change our lifestyles to respond to the much greater climate emergency, the uncomfortable realities of resource depletion and unsustainable living and dying.

That wonderful Stourbridge Quaker and Green Party member, Joyce Millington, in the 1980s and 90s, was urging rationing of finite fossil fuels.  I think this is as urgent as ever when the virus has died out.  But our fast changing climates most definitely have not and are alive and well and changing for the worse, we are told.  I think we must have less social connectivity by hungry fossil fuels and more connectivity with nature and the uncomfortable realities of life.  Hence, these ideas:

 My ten point West Midlands plan for the new Gov...

 A5 flyer Feb 2020

But what do the rest of you think?  If we wake up, we may win!

Tim Weller

CLENT HILLS REGIONAL PARK

Dear friends

I am asking for your agreement, support and promotion to give national park standard protection to our 30 sq Kms Golden Green Triangle with its boundaries of one motorway and two dual carriageway​s​ around the ​1,000 feet ​high Clent Hills and its glorious foothills of fields, woodland, footpaths and fishing pools.

This proposed 30 sq Kms regional park is adjacent to the two million population of the Black Country and Brum.
It is vital that it is now used, increasingly, for organic food farming to cut back on very harmful fossil fuel food miles.
It is essential for recreation and for amenity - for all the population on its doorstep.
It is urgent to stop the insidious urban encroachment, with national park standard of protection.
It can help postpone Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations", "extinction of much of the natural world" and "time is running out" warnings.
IT IS INEXCUSABLE THAT IT SHOULD EVER BE CONSIDERED FOR RESIDENTIAL AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT.

Please write to, speak to and lobby the people whose e-mails are public - MEPs, MPs, councillors, Dudley Council officers.

The more people who can go along with my suggestion, the sooner we can stop built development of all kinds coming to the Clent Hills Regional Park.  Please call it by this name that then helps to get the authorities to also accept the name, to use it and, therefore to live up to that name and all it entails in forbidding nearly all built development on land that has never had built development.

Isn't it funny. Every business case ...

is called robust;

robustly justifies every kind of expenditure from spending £1 billion of public money on 14 Kms of tramline to duplicate a bus route in 2014;

to spending nearly the same but, this time, private money on the M6 Toll for 43 Kms in 2003;

to splashing out £17.6 billion of public money on 117 Kms Crossrail;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to extend your £1 billion tram line to replace buses;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to convert our ready made, but they forgot the trains and stations, 120 Kms mainline "of national strategic significance" into a piddling shuttle tram line on two short, middle sections, totalling 6.7 Kms.

All this, when there is never a business case to slash public spending on the Police, the NHS/social care or education to pay for all this largesse.

The money is always found for the flash, the glamorous, the most prestigious projects to hasten Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "the extinction of much of the natural world" warnings from the COP24 in Poland in December 2018.

Are you good Scots getting in on the English act?  Don't follow the English way of the most perverse spending priorities and isolationism!

GLORIOUS ENGLISH ECCENTRICITY: the UK's only mothballed, easily reinstated, ready made but they forgot the trains and stations, mainline railway!

WHICH IS MORE SENSIBLE THINKING?

2 or 3 fast regional trains every hour and nine new stations to complete the

120 Kms between Worcester and Derby;  OR: 6 to 10 "bus on rails" trams every hour and 17 tram stops over only 11 Kms to STOP the reinstatement of the railway "of national strategic significance."

SMART POLITICIANS?

£449 m plus cost overruns to build the Black Country Tramline over 6.7 Kms that destroys the Black Country Railway over 56 Kms.  All 56 Kms can get commuter/regional trains back for less than £200 m (2015 figure).  Or, stupid politicians?

SMART RAILWAYS?

Why CUT a 120 Kms principal, mainline railway through the congested West Midlands with a tramline in two halves, a railway test track and a trail of trees, Japanese knotweed and undergrowth, when absent trains on 56 Kms of track could have their trains and stations back, FOR LESS MONEY than using trams on only 6.7 Kms?