Local Elections May 2023

My own thoughts under:

1 b) Local Election 4th May - Results Round Up

My own Dudley MBC went from 45 Cons to 44 and from 25 for Labour to 27, with one Independent councillor.  Tories down one, Labour up two because there was a vacancy.

It just shows how bleak, backward and barren my ghastly Black Country really is!  No wonder they turn our disused railways into roads, offices, homes and tramways.  While our half finished, principal, 120 Kms mainline railway has been turned into two different kinds of tramways on one 7 Kms section in Dudley, slap bang in the middle, would you believe!

However, two Dudley disused and forgotten railway lines have some intrepid walkers and cyclists (like me!) but are in such a disgraceful state, I call it the 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway from Brierley Hill in Dudley to NW Wolverhampton.

You wrote:

"At present the citizens of Birmingham have little idea of what their Councillors are doing in the Combined Authority."

My comment

But they hear through news/media channels about what is being done in their name, can see with their own eyes and, as a result, very few citizens are at all interested or up in arms about it.  They all agree with what is being done in their name.  Apart from me, everyone else accepts the scandals, the idiocies and tragedies over the 50 years I've lived in Brum and the Black Country.  Not one person seems at all bothered about these six scandals I have uncovered, let alone the 40, below!

 6 scandals on the 40th anniversary of the W Mid...

Apathy, acquiescence and the always very small turnout at local elections proves my point.  Are you interested, Richard?  What are your comments over my emails?  Tell me where I am going wrong, please, sir!  You made some disparaging remarks about my emails this evening.  Certainly, an unkind, unnecessary aside, I thought.  Please be more specific, my friend and help me write better emails instead of slagging me off, in front of others too and, never replying (apart from once when I sent you something and you replied, "Thank you").

Oppose me with evidence and explanation, please!

I honestly think there is no difference in the local authorities/CA between Tory and Labour.  No difference between the elected members and the officers.  Democracy and elections are a complete waste of time because the politicians are simply rubber stamps, confirming whatever the senior officers want.  Committees are talking shops.  In all my years of attending, I can't remember a single vote being taken, apart possibly, from Planning committees and then they all obey their whips.  Please don't ask for more elections to the CA.  The Mayor is also powerless and has to work with his seven council leaders and chief execs.

The existing councillors need much political and every other kind of education, I think.  Don't let us have any more, I beg you and certainly no more MPs.

It is vital that more people in WMCC turn up at public invited committee/Board meetings to speak, informally to both officers and members, before and after meetings.  All of us can learn so much in hearing another point of view.  IT REALLY IS WORTHWHILE and great conversations can be had, for the benefit of all.  Honest!!

For the record, it was Labour who won the Tories over to Metro trams in 1981, in the days of the ELECTED county councillors and elected Cllr Phil Bateman.  But, if I remember correctly, he won them over after committee discussion but with no votes in full council in even one of the seven councils!  This was very different from Edinburgh City Council where the Conservatives vigorously opposed both of their highly expensive tram projects on grounds of cost and knowing the money could be more wisely spent on much more important priorities (SELF: like retrofitting and the poor first).

Ever since 1981, every single properly and fairly elected councillor was in favour of trams taking over our two important railway lines and some bus services.  Not one councillor has ever challenged the full-time, professional officers over the wisdom of continuing with the second most expensive transport mode to construct after High Scam 2.  And more on why High Scam 2 here:

  40 short statements never corrected or even ch...

Extravagant, very foolish, incompetent spending by the officers and members has worsened the climate emergency and put the CA in financial difficulties ever since last summer.  Projects, since then, remain seriously delayed and some suspended.  All those £100s millions could have gone to insulate and solar power the homes of the poorest in our region.  And for the apartments built on the 23,000 sq metres at High Plateau at Merry Hill, as well.

Best wishes

Tim

PS bonus of 3 photos, 2 cartoons and some tongue in cheek writing:

 Happy and glorious reigning by our VIPs (exclud...

to Ian Ward, Ian Courts

Dear Ian of Solihull and Ian of Brum - and copied to the Chief Exec of the CA, Laura and, the Mayor and his Deputy

​Referring to the above, ​I​an ​Ward by virtue of his status as Leader, I was once told of the biggest local authority in W Europe.  Ian Courts as Leader of the highly significant Environment and Energy Board of the CA.  A Combined Authority, with its Chief Exec, whose decisions and power must trump those of the individual, seven constituent council members that make up the Authority.  Is that correct?

The seven individual leaders, I think, must not feel attacked and become defensive if the CA, as the ultimate authority, intervenes and insists on exercising its power in a way the individual council does not like.  Obviously, it is better if all seven of you and, especially you two most powerful Ians, can compromise and come to some mutual agreement.  Yet, you also have to have the agreement of your Board members in the case of Ian Courts and his Cabinet in the case of Ian Ward.

SUGGESTION 1 - committees are talking shops:

Not one decision, after a fair debate and vote, has materialised in a single CA committee I have observed as a member of the public.  Every single one has been an amiable, nice natter of a talking shop.  Similar to what we all like down the pub or in the coffee shop.  I think this needs changing.

SUGGESTION 2 - tell the Conservation Officer:

Ian Ward cannot possibly take offence at the Ian of the Environment and Energy Board asking, for the sake of our precious environment and energy, that the Brum Conservation Officer be instructed to authorise the fitting of self closing mechanisms on the front, north doors (external and internal ideally) of 'The Exchange' at 3 Centenary Square - in order to conserve energy and slow climate catastrophe.

SUGGESTION 3 - challenge the officers:

What I also think needs changing is the tendency of councillors to rubber stamp decisions of the professional officers.  I would like all you elected members, including elected Andy and Bob, to question and challenge what the officers are doing.  This, in the light of the true horror story I have catalogued here after spending 55 years in Brum and the Black Country:​

 One horrible history of truly terrible transport

​​

 36 short statements never corrected or even cha...

​

​SUGGESTION 4 - stop Metro and Sprint extensions to insulate and solar power the homes of the poorest:

​Metro and Sprint are the region's equivalent of HS2 bankrupting Britain.  All three transport modes are very nice to have but calamitous for climate, nature and for our finances.  Redeploy transport staff at 16 Summer Lane to work on insulating and solar powering the homes of the poorest and voiceless.  As a rough rule of thumb, every pound spent needs to be regarded as a pound weight of greenhouse gas emissions.  Therefore, spend in the short term what will postpone, in the long term, climate change and resource depletion.

Resist the paralysis of inertia and have the political will to change - please.  Someone must be the first to say, "We must think again."  Well done for CAZ.  It shows that you can change for the better.

Very best wishes to all of you in getting to grips with your declared climate emergency from June 2019.

Proposed lobby on Fri 14 Jan 2022

Hi Bob

Would you feel able to forward this to the XR people whose names you mentioned this morning, please?  I don't have any XR addresses.

It was brilliant to have XR turn out at the Civic Centre, Wolverhampton on the 19 Nov - and the band, too!  It was so encouraging and helped Bob and the delegation to be seen by Ed Cox and Andy Street.  THANK YOU.

I think we need to maintain the pressure on the Board members and officers to act on cutting fossil fuels to minimise GHG emissions.  I will be trying to catch people, at 9 am as they enter the building for pre-Board meetings (venue to be announced).  I think we need to formally present Bob Whitehead's letter that was an offshoot of last Tuesday evening's Zoom that you were invited to.  Especially, if there is no decent reply by then.  Here it is:

 Bob's WMCA reply on 17.12.21.docx

I am continuing to press for an announcement over their quarterly Public Forums that I would like to start next month.  I want an opportunity to say something to show that we mean business and do have positive, practical and helpful measures to mitigate/lessen the climate emergency.  Mine are here:

 Actions to cut GHG emissions in the medium to l...

and, 

 MY CLUES FOR A CLUELESS, FLOUNDERING, WAYWARD G...

 7 scandals on the 40th anniversary of the W Mid...

Will all you XR activists turn out for another lobby on Friday 14 Jan, PLEASE?  Please reply to Bob and me.

THANKS!     Tim Weller

Your piece on XR

Dear Peter (Rhodes of the Express and Star)

Is it fair for me to liken the Combined Authority/Network Fail to Extinction Rebellion?

You wrote, last week, "when ... Extinction Rebellion (XR) block a motorway they are, in effect, taking over the lives of thousands of other people without their consent."

Over the last 25 years, we have seen more than a doubling of railway passenger numbers to bring overcrowding on our trains and the continuation of 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Station Tagged Along As An Afterthought In The Basement Of The John Lewis Store' as one of the worst railway congestion bottlenecks in the UK (BBC Midlands Today reporter, Peter Plisner but my name for Grand Central station).

In addition, the officers and politicians of the Combined Authority (CA) and the VIPs of Negligent Rail (NR) steadfastly insist that they can only finish the 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" with 6.7 Kms of shuttle trams, a trail of trees and an extended cycle-walkway in rural South Staffordshire.  This, on a mainline railway alongside or near to congested, slow moving traffic on the M5/M6 and main roads.

Therefore, am I entitled to say that our railway and transport authorities are acting like XR on nearly every day by refusing to do something positive, practical and helpful to relieve congestion by putting the much needed commuter, regional trains and stations on the middle 56 Kms of the 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby?  Like your XR, CA and NR even more frequently, make life more difficult for us all by deliberately impeding our progress on both roads and railways.  And nicely enhancing the natural greenhouse effect to copy planet venus.  Not a nice model to follow, unfortunately.