The Scandal, the Scam and the Sin for faith leaders to address

I want our Christian and all faith leaders to speak out against this immorality and, quite honestly, plain stupidity.  Will YOU do so?

THE SCANDAL

In 42 years, only 23 Kms of Metro tramline are open, costing £100s million of taxpayers' money in salaries of office staff, purchase of trams and in construction.  200 Kms was wanted by 2000, 23 years ago!

18 Kms of those 23 Kms were on a former mainline railway that was never connected to even the bus station let alone the railway station in Wolverhampton that was the case for 100 years with the trains!

An even more important mainline railway "of national strategic significance" is being used for trams on only 5.5 Kms out of 56 Kms that is STILL without the commuter, regional and freight trains between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent.  This is the Worcester to Derby Railway on one of only two N-S lines between Brum and the Irish Sea!

There remains 99.5 Kms, in Brum, the Black Country, S Staffs that are mothballed for eventual trains or, are freight only!

THE SCAM

High Scam 2 trains only stop at 3 terminal stations, two airports and some will divert into Brum and Crewe.  A branch into E Mids Parkway is hoped for.  PUT TRAINS ON THE RAILWAY LINES WE STILL HAVE!

Therefore, every intercity train must remain in service for all those towns and cities that High Scam 2 is far too fast to stop at!

Capacity is increased only from providing a high speed line between the N edge of London and two other cities and their airports.  Yet, it results in the destruction of nature, more pressure on water supplies - costing tens of billions of pounds in price and in weight of greenhouse gases.

Another SIN of omission!

For over 15 years, I have enjoyed free public transport throughout the West Midlands and, in all of England as regards buses.  I really don't need it!

Yet, I get held up on the bus as rush hour cars take commuters into Brum city centre when they do not need the cars for their work.

These people should have the Fare-Free Public Transport since they must travel into work and, in so doing, would free up the road space for essential vehicle users, like mobile/shift workers, the work bus and regular buses.  FREE education, health and regional rail/national bus use.

Very expensive land is taken for car parking for commuter cars that could be used for apartments for the badly housed, migrants and our own children.  Save the countryside for food grown to feed us all.

to Sir John Armitt

We all sit in traffic jams or on crowded buses and trains while our great National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has allowed the destruction of about 100 Kms of railway lines in the W Midlands.  It has allowed the powerful councillors and officers to have the bizarre, a truly eccentric policy of running roads and every kind of building imaginable down our urban railway lines. And, now, tram construction has wrecked part of the UK's only mothballed, supposedly safeguarded, principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance" on the former Oxford, Worcester, Wolverhampton Railway Co line and on the former, mothballed South Staffordshire Railway Co line between London and Stafford through the Black Country.

When will you act, Sir John Armitt?  I asked him a very similar question to the above, in a meeting at the NEC, outside Birmingham, last decade and he gave a wonderful, silver-tongued reply that showed he had no intention of taking responsibility as Chair of the NIC.

When it came to failing old water supply pipes and sewage discharges into rivers and seas, Sir John did admit this on 28 June on the 'Today' programme, at 2:16:00 in:-

Interviewer, Martha Kearney or Mishal Husain:  "What is your solution?"

Sir John: "I think the reality we have to face is that there has been under investment for a very long time.  SELF: Investment in Midland Metro since 1981 and in High Scam 2 since 2009!  The focus from government on the regulator has been to keep bills down.  There has been no real increase in bills at least over the last ten years across the sector."

Sir John:  "We have to get the balance right and that is the regulator's job."  SELF:  So your balanced priority is to fully support High Scam 2 then for £100 billion?

Interviewer, Martha or Mishal:  "Your bread and butter is infrastructure and that is one of the massive problems with this, right?"

Sir John said, "Yes."  SELF:  So why are you supporting the wrong infrastructure spending?

Martha or Mishal said, "We do not have the pipes, we do not have the capacity to deal with sewage overflows and the level of rainfall."

Sir John:  "By 2050, the Environment Agency and the water companies believe that about £50 billion needs to be invested to get sewage overflows down to an acceptable level ... and we have previously estimated that we need £20 billion to ensure that we have sufficient water by 2050.  You are talking very large sums of money to restore, to enable our water and sewage infrastucture to be fit for purpose."  SELF:  Never a problem in getting the BILLIONS for High Scam 2 and Metro trams, however!

"As a society we have to decide what level of infrastructure - water, roads, railway, energy - we require and then decide how we pay for it."

SELF:  Therefore, why has your priority and, certainly, with your full agreement, been on High Scam 2 and on £15 BILLION for 150 miles of Metro trams in the West Midlands by 2040?

Ask me why I call HS2 fraudulent, like trams.  (CLUES: The more money we spend the more it will ease road traffic congestion and pollution and deal with the climate crisis!  The HS2 lie, to justify its construction, is that it will give more trains and train services on other lines - the magic "it will increase capacity on the network" lie.)

Twitter challenging Ashvir and Sophie

Please let me know what you think with the seven-fold increase in transport expenditure since Andy Street became the powerless, the figurehead, the PR representative of the Combined Authority.  And my wife and I have voted for him twice, now!

Sophie Zumbe

@SophieZumbe

·

15h

32% turnout for the mayoral elections in the West Mids. Depressingly clear indication of how disengaged most people are with local politics.

Replying to @SophieZumbe

"All politicians and the people are not questioning the scam, the fraud, the lie of trams destroying the 120 Kms Black Country Railway and, now in Broad St and at Five Ways making public transport worse for the 11 bus routes that used that quick route for decades. Will you, Sophie engage?"

MORE:

Andy says "seven-fold over the four years compared with what was previously spent." He said this, as though he is so proud of what he has done. But it was nothing to do with him. More to do with the devolution deals in the last decade to give the W Mids the most scandalously expensive transport mode to construct after the ruinous HS2 construction. And more to do with the light rail, "bus on rails" tram national promotion group that shares its HQ with Andy's office, Transport for the W Mids and the Combined Authority - another scam/corruption/improper influence!

Best wishes

Tim