GONE FOR A BURTON!

 Always remind the politicians & their servants that they have completely destroyed Dudley railway station at Castle Hill and the Dudley Railway between Derby and Devon, as they build another railway on the other side of Brum! Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill gone for a burton!

Discussion between Cllr Chris Barnett and self

8 December 2020

Hello everyone - to try and influence you all!  Did you see 'Panorama' on Monday night?  It is urgent that we start acting - and not acting the bumbling fool, either!

You wrote:

"I appreciate the direction of your point 4.  To finish the Dudley Railway to Derby via Walsall and Lichfield that doesn't get trams and the 2 Kms test track (8.7 Kms out of 56 Kms).  I understand that current developments will prevent a direct rail connection from Stourbridge through to Derby but despite that there remains opportunity for some of the rail route to be completed.  Yes!  What would be the tangible benefits of doing that?  Less congestion on rail and road.  Lower greenhouse gas emissions - ESSENTIAL, URGENT!  Better transport to work? Yes!  Energy efficient freight handling?  Yes!  And probably needed as, thankfully, Metro trams are no longer going on the Camp Hill Line (Kings Norton, Kings Heath, Moseley, Highgate to Grand Central railway) because those freight trains MAY need to come onto ours!  I'd like to see more of what benefits would be gained from such a development." It will be a world first, multi-modal, train-tram-train railway between Worcester, Black Country and Derby - but, only if you STOP the 2 Kms VLR test track through Castle Hill tunnel to Cinder Bank roundabout.

You are right!  There does remain an opportunity for some of the rail route to be completed but you have to tell Qadar, Malcolm Holmes, Andy Street and Chief Exec Deborah Cadman.  They are fed up with me telling them, I'm sure.  All of you need to speak to each other as to how you can rescue the situation.

I wrote:

5.  Put solar panels on every E, W, S facing roof.  Every building a mini power station for their own energy use.

6.  Insulate every building for minimum heating.

You wrote:

Points 5 & 6 are definitely part of the plan.  At least in some way.  There will be financial, logistical and other issues with doing this in every possible location but it's a worthy target.  All of you, need to listen to Attenborough, Thunberg, Rowlatt and the scientists on yesterday's 'Panorama' and, the Paris Agreement.

I wrote:

7.  Bring in fuel rationing from 1973/4 and the coupons from then - just dust them off!

You wrote:

"Point 7. You got me here.  I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be popular in any way.  I do appreciate the sentiment though.  We all need to be aware of how much energy we are using and take steps to reduce that wherever possible.  Fuel rationing would unfairly discriminate against the least well-off living in energy inefficient homes.  Besides which, I'm sure that you are already aware of how controversial fuel rationing would be?"

"Plans were made for petrol rationing and coupons printed and distributed.  The national speed limit was cut by 20 mph to 50 mph to save fuel.  Then in January 1974 came the announcement of a three day working week."  Andrew Marr, 'A History of Modern Britain', p 340.  Worth reading in full!  Last month, "the Netherlands cut the daytime speed limit for traffic in the daytime to 100 kph, in an effort to tackle an emissions pollution crisis and improve air quality. ... And in October, German lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against a Greens proposal to impose speed limits."

from:

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-urged-to-tackle-climate-change-with-speed-limits/a-51541709

My new car insurance is now based on 7,000 miles for 2021.  It had been 14,000 for this year but I did only 6,000.  That is one good way of making the oil last longer, to reduce dangerous greenhouse gases; as well as cruising at between 60 and 70 on motorways to keep my fuel consumption down to well over 60 and sometimes even over 70 mpg!  I now keep to 70 mph on motorways, unless overtaking and can then, usually, get to 70 mpg.

I wrote:

8.  Bring in Fare-Free Public Transport paid for from abandoning anymore £15 BILLION Metro tram and £106 BILLION HS2 extensions.  Fareless buses, trains, trams as reward/compensation on bus priority roads.  Not just for old crocks like me but EVERYONE!

You wrote:

Point 8. Free public transport would be a huge and very brave political decision for the government nationally.  I think it would be of tremendous benefit to the least well off.  It would do something to address issues of income inequality in the poorest and retired households.  That is brilliant that you agree!  Dunkirk in France, Luxembourg and Tallinn in Estonia do it amongst about 100 towns and cities throughout the world.  Even about 50 in the USA, if I remember correctly.

Can the Climate Change working group be open to observers on Zoom?  I would like to be one, of course!

Where can we see the minutes of what is said and decided, please?

What are the dates?

Matt Rogers: How can members of the public join Zoom committee meetings for the input from the public section, please?

Not Facebook but face to face on Mon 4 Feb 2019

Rough Sleepers and very rough justice  RAISE THE ISSUE ONLINE!

I know that Ernest and Clare are organising an official HGJG meeting for Feb.  This is an additional one for those who are as concerned as I am about injustice, idiocy and ignorance right on our doorstep.

Please come to my home, 28 Hunnington Cres  Halesowen B63 3DJ (3 storey town house with red car) at 7.30 pm on Monday 4 Feb - a week today.  The idea is for us to ask questions on Dudley Council's online forum two days later.  My ideas are below.  Let's discuss all our concerns and, perhaps, get some positive, practical and sensible action from our elected councillors.

"Online forums

If you are unable to join us at a community forum meeting you can still take part through our online forums which take place on the council's Dudley Borough Facebook page and @DudleyMBC Twitter feed, from 6-7pm ahead of each round of community forum meetings. Questions and issues raised via Facebook and Twitter are forwarded onto the relevant council service to be dealt with."  https://www.dudley.gov.uk/council-community/community-council/

For me, Ernest, you are one showing real leadership over what is going so wrong in our borough.  Rough sleepers are the iceberg because they are so visible on our streets.  I think they are symptomatic of inadequate housing provision, of overcrowding and desperate poverty that, regrettably means that voluntary food banks are essential to stop some from starving.  This, in an extremely wealthy nation - in the top five - out of over 190 nations in the UN.  THIS IS A SCANDAL.

Our nation is so obscenely rich, we are now seeing the spending of the grossly immoral £1.38 BILLION to replace only some buses and to destroy any hope of commuter and regional trains from returning, one day, to our own railway "of national and strategic significance" to relieve chronic road and railway congestion in the Black Country and Brum.

QUESTIONS FOR DUDLEY COUNCIL'S 6 FEB ONLINE FORUM - from the comfort of your living room

How about saving the facade of Dudley Hippodrome and building apartments, behind, for first time buyers, and tenants? Or, supported housing for rough sleepers?

What about a new Dudley Central Mosque to replace the shabby, shameful one when the flash, glitzy and glamorous and gloriously expensive trams come swishing by?

Ever thought of putting commuter and regional trains on your wasted railway at new town centre, Castle Gate?  A station there to get passengers to Walsall and beyond and, to Brum by TRAIN!

Is it really just and moral to spend over £343 m to build a most impressive looking electric tram through rundown Dudley town centre when buses are already doing the job just as well and there are many low income Dudley residents who might appreciate free bus use, as disabled and elderly people like me have had for over ten years? Or, the money used for the NHS? Or, free NHS car parks?

In addition, over £2.5 m for each new tram at ten times the price of a new double decker bus.

One disgraceful looking Dudley Central Mosque, a casino, an unusual looking JW Kingdom Hall, a martial arts centre and one wasted Hippodrome are all on Castle Hill dual carriageway. That line of interesting looking buildings is relieved by a smart and most presentable Station Hotel. Yet, the reinstatement of the station, opposite the hotel to relieve congestion and poisonous air and to slow human climate change is not even wanted by our leaders. They only want a piddling little shuttle tram stop to shuttle passengers on our former, half finished, mainline railway to our neighbour's mainline railway at Dudley Port that is in Sandwell!

Tim Weller   Independent candidate for W Mids Metro Mayor 2020 to instil some urgency into how changes in transport policy can reduce the impact of human climate change and postpone Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" warning.

Plenty of good ideas for Dudley Hippo!

Dear Cllr Qadar - and copied to my powerful MP and influential councillors who are meant to decide on TfWM transport policy - I thought!

Dudley Hippodrome turned into "a driverless car testing site" - Express and Star 30 November 2018

Wrong priorities; a diversion from more important matters; and an irrelevance.  Who at TfWM came up with this idea?

Rather than demolishing the 1938 Hippodrome, can it not be used to house the homeless if the front facade, at least, can be saved?  Apartments for low income families and singles to help revive Castle Hill? A refit rather than demolition? A conversion job for housing units?

If it must be demolished, why not use it for something more worthwhile than a driverless vehicle centre?  A driverless car must still have one person in it. He or she might just as well drive the thing, in that case!  I suggest:

1. A research centre into making batteries better at holding renewable electricity from PV solar put on every roof in the borough.
2. Some deep thought into how your very own 120 Kms Black Country Railway can be finished with the final stages to rebuild the stations and to put the regional and commuter trains back through the new Dudley town centre at the foot of Castle Hill.
3. Some innovative thinking into how you can reverse the decline in bus use; bus fares have risen by 13% above inflation since 2010; and bus routes cut.
4. A electric bus and innovation centre for yet more electric bus developments, perhaps?  There is not one electric bus in the TfWM area, is there?
5. A research centre into how we can capture and store CO2 and how to reduce all our greenhouse gas emissions.
6. Or, a new Dudley Central Mosque to replace the shabby and unsuitable present, converted, Victorian primary school building on the same road.  Soon, supposedly, to have the glitzy, glamorous tram running past this blot on the landscape and that of shameful Cavendish House.
7. Again on the same road, use the only feasible site of Dudley railway station, to rebuild it for the desperately needed commuter and regional trains into Brum and on to Derby.  No need for trams first to get the trains later (actually, tram trains that are still trams) where you end up paying twice and still don't get the fast trains back from Derby to Devon via Dudley and Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill.

Could I please be granted an appointment, urgently, to see you to discuss these more sensible ideas, Cllr Qadar?

Thanks and best wishes

Tim

This Land is Made of Money

3 October 2018

Should this be called stealing from the nation's taxpayers?  And an abuse of trust?

In a time of continued austerity, hundreds of millions of pounds (£1,380 million to 2026) are being spent on converting some lengths of main line railway AND bus routes into tram lines.  Other bus routes are being turned into super special Sprint diesel bus routes with limited stops that mean today’s, less flamboyant buses will still have to be provided for the stops that the Sprint misses out.  Both Metro trams and Sprint, "Metro's little sister", are phenomenally expensive to buy and install. At over £60 m/Km for replacing buses, electric trams are the second most expensive transport mode after HS2 (apart from two Japanese maglev lines).  See my ‘Transport costs per kilometre’.

In addition, buildings are still planned for the tracks and the ONLY feasible site for the re-opening of Dudley Castle Hill main line station.  This idiocy, mind you, on a principal line that Network Rail and the Department for Transport maintain is "a railway of national strategic significance" (letter to self, dated 8 March 2018, from Network Rail and Dept of Transport).

Today, the Shropshire Star has highlighted how West Midlands Railway has caused travel chaos with too few trains and one that broke down.  Would there be more trains to and from Shropshire if the line from Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level had not been turned into a tram line, with the attendant loss of platform 4 at Snow Hill, Low Level station closed, plus 4 or 5 Kms of track?

I call it stunning ineptitude, corporate stupidity and financial illiteracy to disregard the costs of trams for taxpayers when the 120 Kms Black Country Railway desperately needs the return of its commuter and regional trains and stations - NOT  “bus on rails”, trams. It is criminal theft by the governing elite. If they cannot be more honest, they should be locked up. The stolen money should go to extend free bus travel for all (not just the young, the disabled and elderly, like me) and to give electric buses for all.  NO MORE ELECTRIC TRAMS!

Tim Weller (full contact details at the very foot)

timweller1@gmail.com 0791 380 4363       6 October 2018

Are our taxes being wasted on the Hippodrome and Metro?

Dear Sarah, Helen and FoI team.  Could Sean, at 16 Summer Lane, also help with the answers to the financial questions, please?

"Curtain up on many more years of misery"  Halesowen Chronicle dated 29 March 2018

Could you please give me the answers to these questions?

1. For how much money did Dudley MBC buy the Hippodrome Theatre?
2. When did the council buy it?
3. What company or organisation or individual did you buy it from?
4. Why did you buy it?  What was the original intention and plan?
5. What were Cllr Patrick's "exciting plans" for the Hippo that would end "years of misery"?
6. Was it to create a leisure and tourism hub to rival that of the four at the foot of Castle Hill?
7. How many years or months after the purchase was the decision made to demolish it?
8. Why was it not sold to the private company who wanted to buy it for £8 m?
9. Please name the private company.

Metro trams will revive Dudley town centre with investors pouring in to make their wealth

1. For how long has Cavendish every window smashed House been empty?
2. What are the plans?
3. When will the plans for the site start to come to fruition?
4. For how long has the other huge office block in Flood Street been empty?
5. Are there any plans for it?
6. Am I right in thinking that the flash, glitzy, "all that glisters is not gold", Metro tram will run down both Flood Street and past Cavendish House?
7. When did the last investor move in to Dudley town centre on hearing the good news that trams were finally going to arrive, after 37 years of trying?
8. Is it true that, from a newspaper report in 2016, Dudley was the fifth worst town centre of its size for empty shops - more than 20%?
9. What is the most recent figure?
10. Is there evidence to suggest that it is very largely only local people who shop in Dudley town?
11. What research has been done to find out what proportion of Dudley town's people shop at Merry Hill Shopping Centre?
12. Has there been any market research done to find out how many Dudley folk will jump on the tram for shopping at Merry Hill?
13. When did Beatties department store move out?
14. When does a town centre officially become a ghost town?
15. Do the two huge, largely empty car parks that the trams will run past indicate that Dudley top town is, in fact, now a ghost town?
16. What is the latest figure for the cost of building "bus on rails" trams to pour into Dudley town centre at the rate of six to ten trams an hour?
17. In 2016, it jumped from £310 m to £343 million, plus cost overruns from unforeseen difficulties.
18. Of the new figure, how much are council taxpayers in the West Midlands paying?
19. How much of the second devolution deal will be going to pay for Dudley's extravagant and inappropriate 11 Kms WBHE?
20. Can over £31 m/Km to block, for ever, any hope of finally finishing the 120 Kms Black Country Railway be regarded as prudent, sensible expenditure?
21. Does Helen Martin now regard Dudley low town at Castle Gate as being regenerated and high town as a 'rundown centre'?

Dudley Central Mosque

1. To promote good community relations, does your council give any time or, even any thought, to the Muslim's community long standing wish for a purpose built mosque in or next to Dudley town centre?
2. Has it occurred to you that the smart, flashy tram will run straight past the present unfortunate building that is the mosque?
3. What are the present plans for the Hall Street site that was denied to the Muslims?

With thanks for your help in these matters.  Like two years ago, I will refer the matter to the Local Government Ombudsman if there is no complete and full response by the end of this month.

Best wishes

Tim Weller

Letter to Peter Lowe, Leader of Dudley MBC

Dear Peter

I am really sorry that I find it necessary to speak/write like this.  I don't like doing it.  However, only your good self and Khurshid can put a stop to this nonsense, below.  The sooner you do so, the quicker you will shut me up.

How is it that you and all your councillors have no sense of shame, let alone guilt, for your odd behaviour?

First, you keep express and local trains off your very own railway line for 50 years.  This is the Black Country ICE (inter city express) Line that runs literally alongside commuter congested main roads in places from Stourbridge, past the Waterfront and on to all of our Black Country tourist attractions at Castle Hill.

Next, last December, you announced that you were going to use one track for a shuttle service by a still to be developed Very Light Railcar on one mile of your 13 miles Black Country Line to shuttle passengers to the next inter city express line in your neighbouring borough of Sandwell.  Not to run your own smart, sleek ICE trains, mind you but, to rely on the next line that crosses yours one mile down the line in Sandwell!

The second track, for all of one mile, will be a test track for this university based project.  Elsewhere in Dudley is a much more suitable site for the Warwick Manufacturing Group to develop the Very Light Railcar.

However, our dear councillors' stupidity is now capped by your intention to put a speedway stadium on Halesowen's farmland and Green Belt.  You don't want our food grown on fertile soil but, instead, even more greenhouse gases from motorbikes racing round in circles to further mess up our climate and threaten, eventually, our very existence.

Can these councillors' abnormal behaviour get anymore weird and wonderful in their work on our behalf?

Will just one councillor resign to disassociate him/herself from these peculiar antics?

Yours sincerely

The tram train on the Black Country Rail Line

Here are my points for being apprehensive over ultra light rail going on the Black Country Line:

1. It gives you all an excuse for further delay to get down to increasing rail capacity, especially when it is so important to take the pressure off New Street Station.
2. Once ultra light rail is in place, it will be very difficult not to extend it in bite sized chunks, as was the intention with Metro.  The bite sized chunks business never materialised for Metro, so that is a bad omen for very light rail.
3. Once ultra light rail is in place, it will be difficult to then rip it up and replace it with heavy rail.  Better to put back the everyday, well tried and tested, heavy rail trains, with stations.
4. Heavy rail can be put back quicker than an innovative tram train that still needs much development.
5. Nick Mallinson confirmed that what his WMG is developing is unheard of on the mainland of Europe that is generally considered to have an excellent rail service from Spain and Italy to Scandanavia.
6. Ultra light rail would be ideal for urban areas that have no heavy rail tracks already in place.  Best to use existing heavy rail tracks for heavy rail trains.
7. Nick wants one track as a test track and the other one for a shuttle service for the tram train.  From John Parry's experience in taking very many years to put his already tried and tested PPM on the Stourbridge branch line, it is bound to take a similar number of years to get permission for the tram train to be able to be safe for a public service.
8. John Parry had his own circular test track for many years at his business address in Cradley.  Should Nick not be using that?
9. In other words, it will take years for the tram train to be safe and sufficiently reliable for a public paying shuttle service between Castle Hill and Dudley Port.
10. There are two possible better locations for an innovative vehicle to be tried and tested.  One might be the open space that once took the Dudley to Wolverhampton rail line before it was built on, further on.  There is space there for them to test the tram train between Station Drive and on to the rear of the Black Country Museum and directly to the Dudley Canal Trust.  The other might be the old line, branching off the Black Country Line, from Silver End in Brierley Hill, through Brockmoor to Pensnett.