Glyphosate banned, mowing of sight lines only and removal of the residential designation on Daniels Land

Hello Ros, Andrew, Cat and Peter - and Democratic Services.  And copied to Leader, Patrick.

I am cancelling my plans for tomorrow morning and will join you at 12.30 pm at Mary Stevens front entrance in Worcester Street.

I want to ask Cat and Andrew if they would support me in asking Cllr Peter Dobb who is the Chair of the important Climate Change Select Committee, if they would join me in asking for a full discussion by all members and then vote of councillors only, to decide on this proposed package of measures, as Dudley Council's first response to their self declared 'Climate Emergency' in 2020.  This suggestion to be the first item on the agenda and incorporated into the 30 mins 'Public Forum' to allow members of the public to speak in the forum.  I'm asking that this be at the next meeting of the Climate Change Select Committee on Thursday 14 September at 6 pm - please.

1. Glyphosate to be banned, as other councils have done but, work to start immediately, on being allowed to use the nature friendly but effective alternative from 2024.
2. Mowing of sight lines only, with roundabouts and the central reservations, as at Manor Way, Halesowen to be allowed to naturally grow carbon capturing wild flowers, shrubs and trees and then managed, as they grow, by officers as they are well able to do.
3. The 'residential development' designation to be immediately removed from Daniels Land, Merry Hill and a professional ecological survey to commence, asap, to determine what level of nature designation it should be.  Plan here:
   
    WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

I understand that Dudley's Cabinet would have to approve the changes, if passed by the Select Committee councillors.

Best wishes

email to VIPs

 Thank you for acknowledging my full support over your totally unnecessary and wrong replacement as leader of the city council.  You remain a VIP and of considerable respect and influence.

We first met at your surgery when you kindly gave me some of your time; I think it was in 2019 or 20.  You read an important document from the TfWM officers that, presumably, countered the points I was making since the 1990s over the folly of rebuilding the tram network on what was left of the urban railway network of disused lines, that had not yet been built on to be permanently lost to both trams and trains.

Could I please have sight of that very important document that I fear was misleading?

I am anxious that you now use your extra time but, your continuing important status and influence, to stop WBHE Phase 2.  In this way, you will

1. Save, literally hundreds of millions of pounds in both the price and in the weight of deadly greenhouse gases.
2. Save nature and these trees
   
   
   

3  Save the only public open space that is actually used by the public

4  Save my own developing guerrilla garden, from the 1990s, directly beneath the planned, 400 metre long concrete and steel Metro tram viaduct as it,

5  takes the NW segment of High Plateau that is all designated for housing, as in this document:WBHE plan

6  ALL of High Plateau is desperately needed for 1/2 bedroom apartments for the most badly housed who do not own a car.  But, they must be cheap to run by being highly energy efficient, must be solar powered and, with car parking only for emergency vehicles and visitors.

7 Change the designation of Daniels Land, in the plan above, from residential to possible SSSI status because of its many decades of being totally untouched by human development that has allowed nature to run riot.  It includes a wetland habitat that might include newts and even great crested newts, as are found at the Pensnett SSSI, 2 Kms north.  Dudley No 1 Canal is in the foreground of this photo of the wetland that is looking west towards Brieley Hill and away from Merry Hill Shopping Centre.

It would be easier for you to understand the importance of what I am writing if you would, please, meet with me on site to see for yourself what I am arguing for.

Many thanks and best wishes

Tim

To my personal, v young, ward councillors

Good to meet you both at the last community forum.  As a retired old gentleman of leisure and pleasure, I'm still available at any time and any date to show you:

• where the short-lived 1990s monorail went and how it fell short of a vital connection that only added to the tragic incompetence of the scheme;
• the one and only monorail station that can still be seen and is preserved for occasional, anniversary viewing from inside the shopping centre;
• my guerrilla garden up against the rusty, metal sheet piling that is due to be destroyed by the 400 metre concrete and steel viaduct on top of it;
• the route of the devastation wreaked by the Metro across the only public open space at Merry Hill and this:
  
   6 glorious white trees.jpg
  
  
• 10,000 sq metres at Daniels Land and High Plateau designated for housing but has nature now got the upper hand at Daniels Land and should it be left to enrich biodiversity?

Tim

The HS2, Metro, Sprint, Grand Central Shopping Centre Syndrome!

The authorities are so well-meaning, sincere and want the very best - so think HS2, Metro, Sprint, Grand Central Shopping Centre are the most essential and desirable projects since sliced bread.  But they are sincerely wrong!

The already very well-paid love their wealth flaunting, out to impress, flash projects like these.  In contrast, nearly 40,000 desperate migrants have boated across the Channel, just this year, and remain in almost equally desperate straits with their wretched accommodation in England.  This is shameful!

And the UK is near the bottom of European nations in taking asylum seekers.  We do the least - almost!

Fleeing war, famine, and environmental degradation from climate consequences, we would do the same if we were in their plight.  And only the Ukrainian refugees get quickly housed with UK families, it seems.

It does not matter what subject is talked about at the Green Forums, we can still talk about the even more desperate need not to waste money as they are doing but to get the brownfield sites like High Plateau and Daniels Land at Merry Hill given to the most desperate and not to immoral Metro "bus on rails" trams.

We can still talk about the grossly extravagant, greedy HS2, Metro, Sprint and the desperate need for a more sustainable, more eco-socialist, the poor first and foremost emphasis.

This is urgent: Very low cost to run, highly energy efficient apartments, small housing units with their own rooftop solar PV to make the electricity for warmth and food for the worst housed.

The millions of pounds in price and in weight of GHG emissions must, like the staff, be redeployed into these new priorities.

Tim Weller