Please tell me if I am wrong, here! Or, simply reply!

Please tell me if I am wrong, here!  Or, simply reply!

I am anxious to know if you think I am wrong in saying and writing that the more we spend the more we emit greenhouse gases.  Am I right or wrong, here?

£s spent = finite fossil fuels burnt = greenhouse gases = runaway greenhouse effect = earth turned into venus = THE END.

If I am right, should we be opposing unnecessary expenditures like extensions for HS2, Metro and Sprint that are extremely large greenhouse gas emitters because of their colossal expenditure?

Do you think I am wrong in insisting that we must put fossil fuel expenditure into projects that will cut greenhouse gases in the medium to long term?

Therefore, electric buses (not "bus on rails" trams on roads), all the obvious bus priority measures and FFPT.  Is that right?

Not trams on railway lines but commuter and regional trains.  Is that right?

The ending of demolition and rebuilding - like Centenary Sq rebuilt three times in less than twenty years and many examples of unnecessary demolition and rebuilding, eg Dudley Leisure Centre moved all of 1 Km to sit next to the flash, new tramline in Flood Street, Dudley?

Do you think that these jobs are the wrong jobs?

Do you think the right, green jobs are to insist that existing buildings are insulated, inside and out; should have URGENT installation of PV solar on every east, west, south-facing roof?

Are the right, green jobs to campaign for the major, 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway to be professionally finished and upgraded with a wider and this time, all-weather surface to allow all fossil-free users to actually use the thing?

Am I right in wanting expenditure to put a cycle-walkway alongside the Dudley Southern Bypass, opposite the tramline?

Am I right in wanting green jobs to finish the 47 Kms of the UK's last and only mothballed mainline railway that has not yet been completely destroyed?  Finished with commuter and regional and freight TRAINS!

Do we get green jobs from light rail trams (LR), or very light trams (VLR) or, the ultra-light rail Stourbridge Shuttle tram on the missing 6 Kms (out of 120 Kms former and remaining throughout mainline) railway link between Stourbridge Jct and Brierley Hill?

Do green jobs mean putting passenger trains on the 106 Kms of mothballed or freight-only railway lines in the W Mids?  Now being reduced to 100 Kms with the Metro, WBHE, going on 6.7 Kms in two nibble-sized bites and the VLR test track on 2 Kms to bring it down to 98 Kms!!

Am I on the right lines, here?  Or, please tell me if I am wrong.  Not one person ever tells me I am wrong and, certainly, no-one ever writes back to tell me I am right - just complete apathy, acquiescence and silence!  I've had the best and longest support over the years from a train driver who has now resigned from his union in disgust over their support for railway destruction!

to Bishop Martin Gorick - does discipleship involve challenging, querying Dudley's decisions?

"The church playing its part in the regeneration of Britain’s heartland in the West Midlands"  Bishop Martin

Would it be possible, please to have a little time with Bishop Martin to discuss the recent past that has brought about these ideas of mine, below?  I was the old man in the yellow cycling jacket that approached you at the close of yesterday's lovely service.

My wife and I attend Hasbury Christian Fellowship in Halesowen.  When Bishop David Walker was in residence, I attended a weekly Bible study over the years that some took turns to host.  It included Bishop's House that David's wife, Sue hosted.

1.   Regeneration of Dudley town centre by encouraging Dudley Muslim Association to go, once again, for a purpose built Dudley Central Mosque.  To replace the shabby, disgraceful looking, down at heel Victorian primary school building they have to use.

2.   Regeneration of Dudley town centre with the reinstated 120 Kms principal mainline railway on the full 56 Kms for the commuter, regional, intercity trains between Worcester, the Black Country and Derby; instead of the 10.7 Kms tram line that is due to go through Dudley bus station and down Flood Street.  Still time for a rethink.

3.   Regeneration of Dudley town centre with highly well insulated, energy efficient, small to medium size housing for the badly housed, for those on benefit or low incomes and, first time buyers and renters.  At Flood Street instead of having the relocated Dudley Leisure Centre from Wellington Road to Flood St.  All of a 1 Km walk away, Google maps told me! 

4.   Responding to the climate emergency by asking for cycle-walkways down both sides of the Dudley Southern Bypass.

5.   The major 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway for fossil fuel free transport from Brierley Hill DY5 Enterprise Zone to NW Wolverhampton.

6.   Major Jewish/Israeli concern over holocaust denial and antisemitism but much less concern over very poor relationships with Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims.  Would one help the other?

7.   Bishop Martin's opinion on why the railway line between Stratford and Honeybourne was never reopened.  Or, is it more useful as a cycle-walkway, NCR5 and as a main road? 

Any chance, please?  I would like to hear what he thinks.  To get feedback and to see if there is any support for these ideas.  A one off chat about Dudley politics and priorities!  The Bible in one hand and the daily news feed in the other, following Archbishop William Temple.

With best wishes and every blessing to you both

Oddities galore from very odd and dud, Dudley Council!

More ODDITIES from Dudley borough:

1. The Muslims were palmed off with a shabby, old, Victorian school as their Dudley Central Mosque on Castle Hill, Dudley.  For many more years than ten, as was reported on BBC Radio 4!
2. At the bottom of Castle Hill is Station Hotel but, NO inter-city station for 50 years!
3. For the previous 100 years passenger trains from all over the UK called at Dudley Castle Hill Station.
4. The transport officials and councillors in Dudley now want this inter-city, double track line to be a test track for a Very Light Rail tram to be developed by Warwick University.
5. When tried and tested on this forgotten but nationally important line, it will shuttle passengers to the Virgin trains at Dudley Port station on the West Coast Mainline.
6. But, Dudley people don't want a DIRECT connection with London and Scotland that they used to have - for about 100 years!   How strange is that?
7. As far as I am aware Dudley, for about 50 yrs, has had the only major roundabout (30 metres in diameter) in the UK, that is totally tarmac with not even a single weed growing on it.  How very negligent not to landscape it!
8. 5 or 6 years ago it was moved, all of one or two metres, with one approach lane blocked to widen the little used pavement.  But they must have known it would slow left turning commuter traffic (with only one lane instead of the previous two), on its way to the M5 and Birmingham!  How very odd to deliberately increase congestion and carbon emissions!
9. How peculiar for Dudley to build a monorail at Merry Hill Shopping Centre but not to connect it to the Beeching closed national rail line that should have been re-opened at the same time.
10. Not surprisingly, the monorail never got its rail passengers from all over the UK and has been closed for years.
11. Only Cllr Les Jones (interviewed by Eddie Mair on Monday, 23 March on 'PM') seems to have shown any concern about re-opening our 72 Km of double track, freight only lines in Brum and the Black Country, all of which had passenger trains for about 100 years - until the bizarre Beeching cuts axed many train services even in growing urban areas.
12. Dudley no 2 Canal in Leasowes Park supposedly 'restored' at a cost of £200,000 but then, the job was done so incompetently, it could only be partially filled with water because, if filled to the top, the whole high canal embankment might collapse!  The whole job was supervised by, and the responsibility of, an engineer at Dudley Council.
13. Dudley Southern Bypass was opened in the 1990s but, even then, there was never a cycle/walkway built alongside the new road for zero carbon travel!  How very negligent and odd is that?