Building a grey, unsustainable, dead end society

Thanks, Josh for the email and all the very useful stuff I've read!  What great work you are all doing.

My own green (actually grey) transition is attempting to get others to join me in pointing out the bleeding obvious to get a more sensible dead end, grey, unsustainable, totally ungreen society.

It is nothing to do with worthy causes like renewables, net zero, low carbon, energy efficiency or being nature/planet/future friendly.  Simply about, when you start a project you don't leave it hanging in mid air - but you actually finish it - unbelievable!  But everyone else is totally unmoved, unshockable and honestly believe it's the most ordinary, normal and sensible thing to do!

For example, these photos:

20 years since the bridge was built but it is still wasted, unused, empty of trains as we all sit in traffic jams on the adjacent roads in the middle of the uncompleted 74 miles of railway with trains at the top and bottom ends but not in the middle 56 Kms where the worst congestion is!​

 M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

​​I'm talking of the 120 Kms Worcs, Dudley, Derby principal mainline railway bridge completed in Dec 2003 when the M6 Toll opened.  But they forgot the trains.  Soon one line​​ was nicked by metal thieves!​

 M6 Toll 03.jpg

​OR, this

​Empty, wasted railway lines leads to trams, instead at a cost second only to High Scam 2 and the planned destruction of the ​whole of this 400 metre canal embankment!​

 6 glorious white trees.jpg

​​AND,

the part destruction of 23,000 sq metres at High Plateau, desperately needed for low cost, highly energy efficient, solar powered, 1/2 bedroom apartments.​

 WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

​FINALLY,

the 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway - the UK's only urban-rural-urban business, commuter and leisure route for food fueled, no longer fossil fools, active travellers by cycle, horse and by walking!

Does any of this give you any ideas for you to pick up on and run away with to your heart's content, Josh?!!

 

All the best

Tesco, Asda and the High Street

For many decades, some have been prophesying the death of the High Street - first, in the 1970s from too many building societies, then from too many charity shops and, in the last 20 to 30 years, from superstores like Tesco in Stourbridge and Asda in Halesowen.  In the early 1980s we had the rise of Merry Hill Shopping Centre.  In Halesowen, in the last decade, Lidl came and Aldi next to the new Travel Lodge on Earls Way/Whitehall Road.  However, the High Street remains as vibrant as ever, thanks to coffee shops and tea rooms, pound shops and our Farmers Markets in Halesowen and Stourbridge.  The passing of the years has shown that there is room for many small businesses and large superstores in our High Streets up and down the land.

The great thing about Merry Hill, of course, is not the free parking but the enormous car parks that make us get out of our cars and walk for really great distances for those who are normally so wedded and welded to their cars and sofas - no more parking outside the shop you want to pop into and back into the motor and away (except for High Street, Stourbridge that completely destroys my argument!).  All thanks to pedestrianisation and Merry Heaven and the nirvana of economic growth!!

I remember that Oldbury in Sandwell was a real dive in the 1960s and 70s - dilapidated and down at heel until the superstore, Sava Centre heralded the town's revival and transformation.  It, now even has Sandwell MBC's prestigious Council House.