To Chris Crean re FoE's Metro Mayor Climate Action Plan

I have read every single word in the FoE Climate Action Plan.  It is extremely good.  Except for three things: for "mass transit", your support for trams and failure to support the vital Fare-Free Public Transport for all and not just for me and my ilk!  I suspect mass transit means Metro trams that are the second most expensive and, therefore destructive, mode to construct after HS2, as evidenced here:

 Like for like comparison of infrastructure buil...

In my opinion, there needs to be a mass staying at home and not mass movement of people!  We need to lockdown for Covid and lockdown for Climate for many years to come, to keep as much or our remaining finite fossil fuels in the ground, as we can.  Scrub mass transit, please!

I am very strongly against your "accommodating joint running with the Metro where required".  Joint running is very expensive and difficult, is spoiling and is a complete waste of a mainline railway that should be dedicated 100% to commuter, regional and freight trains, only.  Never trams!  The main work for WBHE does not begin until later this year.  They are still designing it, would you believe!  What has already been wasted on preparatory works, plus the less than £200 m to finish the 120 Kms mainline railway would still be a fraction of the £449.5 m, plus cost overruns of the foolish WBHE scheme that destroys the UK's very last mothballed and, virtually ready built, 120 Kms Black Country Railway.

You wrote, "taking measures to reduce the need to travel".  This needs to be made clearer by saying, "... reduce the need to travel by car."  Although, because of Covid, perhaps, never being completely eradicated and, definitely for ecological reasons anyway, we need to travel less even by bus, train, tram.  And, certainly never by HS2 or plane!

In the 2020 BBC film, 'Extinction: The Facts', Attenborough said,

"Scientists have even linked our destructive relationship with nature to the emergence of Covid-19."

For me, Covid is part of the Climate, Ecological, Nature emergency.  Covid is yet another sign of humans messing things up.  All the time we react and react far too late, rather than preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.  As happened with Covid, we are very complacently in denial until, finally, it comes and hits us in the face.  By then it's all too late, of course!

Anyway, I look forward to meeting with you and others over Zoom and being put on the spot.

Rowdy scenes; largest town without a railway station; pros/cons of WBHE

Dear Gentlemen - a proposal or a suggestion follows for a one hour discussion.  Please read on.

I was in the public gallery for some of the time at the last full council meeting.  However, I left before the climate emergency motion.  I did not approve of the rowdy scenes and would never have interrupted proceedings if I had been there.  Because it lays you open to the charge of hypocrisy, I am not entirely happy with the declaration of a climate emergency when hundreds of millions of pounds of greenhouse gases are emitted in constructing tram lines to duplicate and replace buses and trains.  Buses and trains should have top priority and not trams, if we are going to be serious about reducing our fossil fuel use.  And that is what declaring a climate emergency should really be about.  I want you to quickly start acting on our FoE's 'Climate Action Plan'.  The declaration must be stitched up beforehand between Chris Barnett and Simon Phipps, in my opinion, so that at full council it is quickly passed with the minimum of fuss.

My wish to lessen or minimise greenhouse gas emissions, explains my strong opposition to our principal mainline railway that was so successful for 100 years in bringing passengers to and from London and the south east, being relegated to a piddling little shuttle tram line to take Dudley passengers to the mainline railway in Sandwell at Dudley Port - on our mainline railway!

Many call it a shuttle tram line to connect Dudley to the national railway network.  Many do not realise Dudley town is already on the national railway network, minus the trains.  I don't think they know that Dudley is the largest town, by population (79,300), without a railway station.

Trams mean no direct service to London or Scotland from Dudley town without going via Brum.  For 100 years, Dudley was a busy railway station at the foot of Castle Hill, served by the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway Company line.  Plenty of passengers must have come directly from London to Dudley via Oxford by train.  It could be so again but NOT with the tramline!  All the 56 Kms of double tracks are still there but unused between Stourbridge and Burton on Trent, on the 120 Kms Worcester, Black Country, Derby principal mainline.

Once the conversion from mainline railway "of national strategic significance" to tram line, no-one will want to come from London with a change from fast train to slow tram at either Stourbridge or Brierley Hill to get to Dudley.  It spoils a good railway!

 DUDLEY AND SANDWELL TRAMS MAKE THE 120 KMS PRI...

NOW MY SUGGESTION for a one hour discussion:

Would you four members of Dudley Council be prepared to meet with someone from TfWM and/or Midland Metro Alliance, to really examine the pros and cons of the WBHE and get some facts and figures; and with me presenting the other side of the case?  Out of the seven councils, not one has ever had a debate and vote, in 39 years, to approve Midland Metro tram extensions.  Edinburgh City Council certainly has before their tram schemes went ahead.

Cars went on as soon as M6 Toll was opened in Dec 2003.  The TRAINS are still waiting, because of Metro mania!

 M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

The rusty down track.  The up track was stolen!

 M6 Toll 03.jpg

Best wishes