to Stuart Richardson

COPIED TO Customer Services for any factual error to be put right, please when you reply

Thanks, Stuart.  Yes, indeed.  You are quite right about the reporting back.  Simon emphasised joining a campaigning group.  I was wanting more of our individual responsibility to act, in all good conscience.

It is over 100 towns and cities, worldwide that have FFPT, I believe.  Dunkirk and Luxembourg in western Europe are our nearest.  It's a carrot, not a stick like CAZ and, would end the woeful discrimination against the young and middle-aged.

MY SUMMARY for campaigning against Metro:

1. Metro is a wealth flaunting, self-aggrandisement, vanity, 'solution looking for a problem' project.  NOW BEING INDEPENDENTLY REVIEWED by the light rail industry after so much has gone so very wrong -  for years!
2. Construction is ten times more expensive per Km than the rebuilding of Scotland's Borders Railway in 2015.  This alone should be Metro's death knell.  Scandalous.
3. Metro has destroyed two mainline railways, nearly a third; caused deaths from accidents and turned a Wolverhampton principal railway station into a conference and events centre.
4. 11 different bus routes are now inconvenienced by being pushed out into narrow back streets on a diversion because priority is given to trams.
5. Five Ways underpass is blocked by the two most colossal concrete crash barriers I have ever seen.  Only the tram can use it.
6. Every bus has to join the traffic jam and traffic lights on the Five Ways roundabout.
7. Public transport is made worse. Simply for prestige and a cosmetic, all style over substance sham.
8. It is unreliable and every tram has been out of service since 13 November for at least four weeks.
9. Diverts attention and money from addressing the climate crisis by doing these things:
    MY CLUES FOR A CLUELESS, FLOUNDERING, WAYWARD G...

MY SUMMARY for being against Sprint -

• the bus that thinks its a tram on its own dedicated bus lane without the railway tracks;
• fewer stops than Platinum buses but they must be retained for all the stops that Sprint speeds past;
• grass, trees and front gardens get taken, so yet more concreting of Nature;
• prestigious, flash, new and absolutely irresistible to the car commuter who will gladly flock to the new, smart-looking Sprint bus, of course;
• yet more splashing out on unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions to speed us to merry extinction!

Tim

Edgbaston tram but its BUSES that need the tender loving care and attention!

Dear John - and copied to Fare-Free Public Transport pioneer and UK expert witness on the issue, Bob Whitehead who lives in Brum.  Copied, too to the Chair of the Transport Delivery Committee of Transport for W Midlands.  KATH - please could you comment?

Thanks for writing.

So our question was read out, then, was it?!  That's great news.  Can you confirm for me, please, whether or not Andy read out what I had written, John?  Did he mention my name?

You mention "a statement of the social-economic case in non-technical language. No doubt this has been done but I don't have the material to hand." 

Here is something that Bob Whitehead wrote about FFPT - clearly written, authoritative and all sources are referenced. Are you able to open them?

 The Case for FFPT in Birmingham.pdf

 BIRMINGHAM – A FFPT PIONEER?

Should the least well off without cars, and everyone, not just the elderly, be rewarded with, and compensated for the slightly higher risk of getting Covid when travelling on bus, train and tram, by being given Fare-Free Public Transport?  About 100 towns and cities around the world have it, including Dunkirk, Luxembourg and Tallinn, Estonia.

I feel that the £15 billion to 2040, going into mainly underground and overground Metro trams to replace some buses and trains, should be used to pay for it all.  And, thus, raise the status and attractiveness of bus travel that is, far and away, the most well used mode.

Andy is very keen on trams because it adds to the public transport pool of different ways of getting about on public transport.  He calls it multi-modal public transport.  Unfortunately, it ends up being multi-mixed up; and, with yet more changes and slower journeys between the different modes.  It is much better just to stick to bus and train.  Simpler, quicker and fewer changes.

AN EXAMPLE for those who come in to the city centre on Hagley Road:

Those who come in by bus down Hagley Road now get diverted on a longer and slower journey into Colmore Row via the Arena.  And, the bus no longer uses the underpass at Five Ways which is given over to the tram.  If we change for the tram at 54 Hagley Road, we then have to cross the busy main road and wait for the tram (opens next year).  Again, a slower and less helpful journey to hardly encourage people to give up the car and use the bus!  And those without cars are penalised, once again.  So give them FFPT as a reward, on bus priority roads!

WMCA Faith Communities

"These sessions have a faith and public health focus, but they will also offer an opportunity to address some wider issues affecting our communities." (my emphasis)

Therefore, I have submitted this question:

How do our faith leaders interpret our theme of 'giving' when it comes to being biased to the poor or the least well off in our community?

Should the least be given more than those with the most?

How would this play out when it comes to public transport?

Should the least well off without cars, be rewarded with, and compensated for the slightly higher risk of getting Covid, with travelling on bus, train and tram for free?

I have had free travel since I was 60 years of age.  Can you give Fare-Free Public Transport to every age group?  About 100 towns and cities around the world have it, including Dunkirk, Luxembourg and Tallinn, Estonia.

More pleadings for the decision makers to act sensibly and responsibly

 Dear decision-makers, one and all - pictures to make you smile if you get down that far!

The hundred of millions for diesel Sprint and £15 BILLION for mainly trams to 2040, means yet more rising greenhouse gas emissions that are threatening all life on earth with runaway climate change, this century.  The more we spend, the quicker finite fossil fuels become exhausted and, the quicker we give ourselves a runaway greenhouse effect like our twin or sister planet, venus.

Far better to avoid making earth as uninhabitable as venus by using the money to give everyone (not just my age group) Fare-Free Public Transport in the W Midlands, like Luxembourg, Dunkirk and Tallinn in Estonia.

Fare-Free Public Transport is also compensation for there being a higher risk of getting Covid when using bus, train, tram.

Far better to redeploy Sprint staff into reversing the continuing waste of the Black Country Railway by using the wasted 56 Kms in the Black Country and south Staffordshire for commuter and regional trains.

Use Sprint staff to put passenger trains on freight-only lines.

It is unfair for Solihull to get both Metro trams and Sprint diesel buses.  For the west of Brum, we get a slower and longer journey by bus into the city centre, changing either to the tram for the final section or, staying on the diverted and slower bus route that no longer uses the Five Ways underpass!

STOP ADDING TO THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT!

STOP COMPLICATING LIFE BY MAKING YET MORE CHANGES BETWEEN DIFFERENT PUBLIC TRANSPORT MODES!

START ACTING RESPONSIBLY.

Nearly £2 BILLION (to 2026) to replace diesel buses with diesel Sprint buses and using electric trams to destroy the UK's only mothballed mainline railway!

TO THE STAR

24 May 2019

Nearly £2 BILLION (to 2026) to replace diesel buses with diesel Sprint buses and using electric trams to destroy the UK's only mothballed mainline railway!

In the 1990s, I was told in all seriousness by the Leader of Dudley MBC, Cllr Fred Hunt, that the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Extension (WBHE) would be open by 2000.  It was not. In March of last year, I was told by the Black Country Director of Transport, Stuart Everton, that work was due to begin in the summer. It did not. The official start date for the main works is now the third quarter of this year.  Therefore, there is still time for cooler heads to prevail.  You three journalists are distant and independent from the fray.  If you think I am on to something here, please write a little more so that the blunder is further delayed to enable a review of the scheme.  If I am wrong, please tell me!

Metro One was opened in 1999.  That meant the permanent closure of Low Level principal station and a loss of passenger services, I believe, to Shrewsbury and possibly Crewe (I would like that confirmed or corrected, if you are able, please).  WBHE is even more devastating on heavy railway services for growing freight and passenger services, that are at full capacity now, in the Black Country and Brum. Platform 4 at Snow Hill station is still unused and wasted!

£55.7 billion is being spent on HS2 to increase capacity.  The politicians’ £449 million for WBHE is soon to be spent to reduce capacity!

All political parties are still wanting the 1981 decision to have a network of electric trams to replace some diesel buses and diesel trains.  This, when electric buses and electric trains would have been more sensible, financially responsible and with lower greenhouse gas emissions. Not one public statement condemning the scandalous destruction of urban railway lines that continues to this day.  No public statement on the sheer stupidity of converting the 120 Kms Black Country Mainline Railway into a piddling little shuttle tram line over 6.7 Kms. No public statement on the matter of this important railway "of national strategic significance", having a Very Light Rail Innovation Centre, a trail of trees and, in south Staffordshire, a new extended cycle-walkway.  All on a nationally important, mainline railway!!

From the powers that govern us, there has been:

       NO discussion or debate in any of the seven council chambers on spending nearly £2 billion.

       NO vote, of course.  There was, however, in Edinburgh, in March, over their tram extension.  And in went ahead: 36 to 26 councillors voted in favour.

       NO democracy - in the land that goes on (wrongly) about being the Great Mother of all Parliaments and the best democracy in the world!

       YES to improper but powerful influence at Transport HQ by the national tram promotion group that wants trams everywhere, regardless of the cost.  That lobby group also has its HQ in Transport HQ.

       YES to collusion + complicity = corruption at 16 Summer Lane.

       YES to continuing to squander nearly £2 billion over the next seven years.  This, at a time of continuing austerity causing suffering for the NHS/social care and, the £2 billion resulting in a worsening climate catastrophe of £2 billion of totally unnecessary greenhouse gases to hasten planet earth turning into our 'twin' planet, venus.

I think the green transport policy is free bus travel for all and not just the disabled and elderly, like me.  Dunkirk and Luxembourg are going down this route with total free public transport. Many eastern European towns and cities are already doing it.  £2 billion would pay for this and the no 9 bus route experiment, I have proposed elsewhere.

With best wishes

IAN AUSTIN'S ARTICLE ON CHURCHILL

Dear Ian - copied to Express and Star reporters who published your piece and to your assistant Cllr Keiran and to former Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo for comments/correction, please.

You are as enthusiastic for dear Winston as Andrew Roberts.  We all have our prejudices! But do take a look at Andrew Marr's book, 'A History of Modern Britain'.  My own thoughts on Britain's Greatest Briton are these that gives a different perspective and are influenced by Marr and the 99 year old interviewed on the 'Today' programme earlier this month.  I think we are all a mixture of good and evil and of hero and villain. We are all frail and flimsy. Please hear both sides of the argument.

1. Churchill loved action, militarism, imperialism, nationalism and the thrill of warfare.  He loved nothing better than a good scrap.
2. He would have loved the British empire to have lasted "for a thousand years" to rival Hitler's Third Reich.  But both were no more after the one World War in two halves. Winston's greater love for war did it for Empire - both Germany and ours.
3. He was a leading protagonist for war in the Cabinet discussions up to 4 August 1914 declaration of war, from what I have read.
4. Yet, this was a war that was nearly lost, by our side, in the first few weeks.
5. This was war, more than once, that could have gone either way.  Only the USA intervention in 1917 turned it in our favour.
6. There was a 'peace' treaty that seems to have failed to recognise the above facts. It was hardly a treaty that was magnanimous in victory - a wonderful phrase attributed to dear Winston.  Akin to "justice tempered with mercy."
7. Even IDS, the former Conservative leader, has spoken of how that disastrous war led to its sequel in 1939.
8. According to Marr, on the 28 May 1940 at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, if it had been only Conservative politicians present who wanted to cut a deal with Hitler, Churchill would have been outvoted.  The Conservative Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax had found "Hitler most sincere and Goering frankly attractive." However, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, the two Labour men in the Government of National Unity, "were solid for fighting on and so, by a squeak, Churchill had his majority." (Marr)
9. Marr has most of the Establishment and many Conservatives, looking on Churchill as "a rather ridiculous, drunken, dodgy man with a penchant for wild speeches and silly hats.  Behind their gloved hands, they called him the rogue elephant, even the gangster." In Labour circles, he was seen as an enemy of the working class, a pink faced toff who called in the army against strikers.  Tonypandy, first time?
10. When he won his majority for war on the 28 May 1940, Churchill told the full War Cabinet, that they were all to fight on to the death.  There would be no parley or surrender. "Let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."
11. Therefore, twice, Churchill wanted all out total war to the death.  The first half imperial war led to the second half in 1939. Surprisingly, two Labour MPs gave him his majority for our nation to fight on after Dunkirk.  One was the Labour leader, Attlee and the other was Arthur Greenwood.  The Conservatives, Halifax and Chamberlain wanted to parley and surrender.  It was the Labour Party that won the war (and lost the peace) and not the Conservatives!!
12. Much later, Attlee led us into the Korean War that had disastrous consequences for that peninsular to this day.
13. It was Attlee who gave us our own deadly WMD with their amassment and renewal by every government, including Labour, ever since.  So much for Labour politicians being wimps for glorious, heroic war! Only in 2015, did the latest new Labour Party leader pronounce that, for him, "war must be the last resort".  And the man still hangs on to this day. Extraordinary!
14. For Churchill and the War Cabinet, when victory was certain for our side in February 1945, it ended for 24,000 Dresden residents not in blood but in fire, flame and burning flesh.  Listen on BBC Sounds. My e-mail to Ian on 14 Feb, here: "Did you hear that 99 year old hero soldier, Victor Gregg, from the 2nd World War who was interviewed on Monday 11 Feb on the 'Today' programme?  He survived the war solely because Churchill and Harris ordered the fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945. His book is called 'Dresden: A Survivor's Story'. His interview starts at 0742:50 hrs."
15. Churchill might easily have lost the war in 1940/1 but the USA came to our rescue in 1941.
16. Radar was an important factor in us winning the Battle of Britain, together with the young pilots and not Winston's magnificent, morale boosting oratory.
17. As Margaret Thatcher was so lucky with her enemies (Galtieri and Scargill), Winston was lucky with his friends in North America and the Empire that won it for him.  Give credit where credit is due.
18. Was it Churchill who thought up the idea of convoys to protect our merchant shipping?  That was a real brainwave.
19. There was Hitler's massive mistakes, of course that helped the Brits and Americans and, the Empire to win.
20. The Soviet Union and Stalin diverted the Nazi war effort onto the Eastern Front.  Did Churchill ever formally thank the USSR for their invaluable help and sacrifice?
21. 20 to 30 million Russians died defending our shores from Hitler.
22. Have you ever bowed your head in silent remembrance of the death and sacrifice of those millions of evil Commies, Ian?
23. Correlli Barnett wrote something like, "In 1945, we were psychologically victorious but, materially defeated and economically bankrupt."

​Anyone is welcome to correct my history or to expand on these notes, here - please.