Dear Simon
Unfortunately, occasionally, we each have to have the courage to blow the whistle on clear and obvious wrong doing - as now
We each have a conscience and a duty to do the right thing. As the Nazis found at the Nuremberg trials or pilots in the RAF who carried out the saturation fire bombing of Dresden when the outcome of the war was 99% certain, obeying orders is no excuse. The MMA, on instructions from the TfWM/WMCA, is thoughtlessly wiping out, not Dresden but the UKs very last, mothballed, principal mainline railway that Network Rail and the DfT insist is "of national strategic significance". Therefore, your action is not very clever when it is needed for freight and commuter/regional trains to help out the pre-Covid congestion on much of the national railway network. Do chat it over with your colleagues. Do read this letter from the DfT, especially this paragraph from:
"I have sought clarification on the situation from Network Rail, who inform me
the corridor would allow for continued freight growth given that the other SW-
NE route (via Bromsgrove) is already at full daytime capacity. From a
passenger perspective, safeguarding a heavy rail corridor across the Round
Oak-Bescot route is of value as this is the only corridor which could accept
freight traffic displaced by further passenger flows into central Birmingham. I
understand from Network Rail that recent discussion on the project has
therefore focused around how best to balance the interests of freight and
passenger rail traffic."
Should you be saying something, Simon? Your job is to represent the public, of which I am one, to Patrick and Andy Street. When there is an obvious and colossal blunder being perpetrated and you fail to do your duty as a good citizen to point that out, you are as guilty as those directly responsible.
