I have succeeded and failed by going into the citadels of power

Dear Fran  (Fran Wilde of XR)

First by writing letters, then emails and texts.  But, above all, by visiting the decision makers in their surgeries and offices and their important Board meetings.  By going into the citadels of power when their meetings have been opened to the public and engaging with them in conversation and asking for this, that and the other.

A wonderful Labour councillor and Chair of a Brum CC committee saw me and quickly got Graham Lennard to turn the Harborne Line into a decent and usable cycle-walkway.

After 30 years of asking, off and on, the same was done in Woodgate Valley CP and I now have a six mile traffic-free cycle route into the centre of Power at HQ of everything - 16 Summer Lane!

I've succeeded in turning Merry Hill SC into merry heaven

by my guerrilla garden antics and my own landscape enhancement scheme;

by asking for housing there and getting the homes in the grounds of Merry Hill, on Pedmore Road;

by asking for the corroded metal sheet piling to be covered by nature and getting 16 trees, officially planted round the corner from where I have my vertical guerrilla garden;

for 40 years keeping the 400 metre canal embankment free of the massive 400 m concrete and steel tramway viaduct for the Dudley Tram.  It would have destroyed my guerrilla garden.

I failed to keep the monorail at Merry Hill.  Perhaps, because it was never connected across the final 400 m to the principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance" that should have been re-opened in the 1990s.

Less than ten years ago, HQ of the lot decided to no longer turn the important mainline railway into a tramway through Kings Heath, Moseley and Stirchley.  Instead, by the end of the century, they may have succeeded in getting their now wanted diesel, half hour commuter service twice every working day - with three railway stations, too.  SUCCESS!

I have succeeded in keeping the 106 Kms of wasted or only half-used railway lines at the forefront of their minds.

What do you think of these two fun quizzes - funny peculiar, funny humour or what, Fran?  Tongue in cheek with a serious purpose?  My attempt at poking fun at the mighty powers that be?  Improvements, please.

Your article, 'Seven Principles of Public Life – how do you match up?' 19 Nov 2021

Dear Emily

I have read most of your article that was, indeed is, so necessary and, indeed essential.  My concerns surround the WMCA and the auditing by Grant Thornton's Grant Patterson, if I have the name right.  He reported back to the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee of the WMCA on Monday of this week.

On Monday, WMCA's Helen Edwards was unable to be present but she wrote this to me, today:

"My role is to ensure good governance and safe decision making processes."  Helen Edwards, Director of Law and Governance, 25 January 2023

Is what I am about to write, here good governance and safe decision making, Emily?

May I ask you:

Are auditors meant to check, challenge, question?

Do auditors promote wise spending by their clients?

Is prudence and sensible, careful spending at the heart of all that you do?  Obviously so!

Is audit meant to flag up concerns and certainly irresponsible, wasteful spending of taxpayers' money?  For example, 40 years of converting two mainline railways to trams and two and a quarter mainline stations destroyed.  Is this good governance and safe decision making?  No one in Overview and Scrutiny Committee or in Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee ever expresses any concern over this state of affairs.  It is always business as usual.  What has always been done must continue to be done.

MORE DETAIL

The scandal I have exposed is the obvious destruction of two mainline railways and two and a quarter mainline stations for unnecessary "bus on rails" Metro trams.  I think this is wrong, foolish and incompetent.  Especially, when 106 Kms of double track mainline railways in our region are still without passenger trains and stations!  Is this wrong doing, negligence and the most weird and wonderful, truly eccentric priorities that simply accelerate the climate emergency and failing life support systems?

This has gone on since 1981, too.  Actually, it is 70 years of tram and train destruction in the W Midlands.  And, it continues to this day with the Dudley Tram (Wednesbury, Brierley Hill, Extension (WBHE Phase 2) wrecking Nature, the only public open space at Merry Hill, wasted housing land and my guerrilla garden, also at the shopping centre.  WBHE Phase 1 opens at the end of 2024 from Wednesbury to Dudley bus station.  This really is a totally unnecessary spending of billions of pounds to speed climate breakdown and the exhaustion of finite resources.

But what do you think, Emily?  Have I got something wrong here?

25 January 2023

A cause for concern to Grant Thornton

Thursday, 20 July 2023

A cause for concern to Grant Thornton

Dear Andy Smith

From my attendance at CA public meetings there seems to be a far too cosy a relationship between yourselves, internal audit and the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee of the WMCA.  The WMCA spending appears to be out of control.  Should auditors not be checking, challenging and questioning?

THE SCANDAL - idiocy, incompetence and ignorance:

• Not one railway line has reopened since the WMCA was formed in 2016 and only one tram line of 2 Kms since Andy became Mayor in 2017 (from Grand Central to Edgbaston Village).  And that started well before his 2017 election, anyway.
• 3 transport projects were suspended or curtailed 12 months ago because they went or, were going, over budget.
• One of them is the 700 metre extension that is taking seven years to complete.  STILL NOT OPEN.
• Another is a truly enormous replacement station at Brum University to befit the equally prestigious buildings of both the university and hospital on either side.  It sees 95% use by the university and hospital only but, still, rush hour traffic jams on the roads!  Will the bigger, grander station make any difference?
• The third transport project suspended, the Dudley Tram, broke up the UK's very last principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance".​
   "of national strategic significance".pdf
• ​It is expected to be half completed by the end of next year.  Phase 2 has insufficient money.
3 Kms of new tramline opened in 24 years!
Very premature track replacement in Corporation Street.  A second in Bilston.
5 railway stations planned for years are still not finished.  STILL to this day as I re-read this on 22.01.2026.  A third mainline railway was going to be a tramline but will, eventually, have a 30 mins diesel shuttle service into Grand Central.  This is the important Camp Hill line between Brum and Bristol.  STILL not open on 22.01.2026!
The 1986 Dudley bus station gets replaced when work on the ground starts next year.  STILL, not open on 22.01.2026.
But the 1886 (not quite!) Kidderminster bus station is like something out of a poverty-stricken Third World country.  What a slum disgrace of a shelter.
Nearby, is supposedly a bus shelter but, it looks like a Victorian coffin rest shelter.

Worcestershire County Council is a neighbour of the WMCA.  Important because transport has easily the largest slice of the financial pie in the CA budget.  What is more, it is not a meagre proportion!  Out of the enormous amount, since 1981, hundreds of millions of pounds has been spent on the staff working on achieving one Metro line of 23 Kms of which 19 Kms is on the first mainline railway destroyed by Metro trams!  This was because it ran between (the now wasted for years platform 4) at Snow Hill station and St Georges Sq in Wolverhampton - not even to the bus station, mind you, let alone the railway station to which Snow Hill was connected so successfully for 100 years!

The vast expenditure was supposed to have brought us ten tram lines over 200 Kms by the year of our Lord, 2000 CE.  By then, 23 years ago, we had 20 Kms.  In 23 years it has stretched to the mighty length of 23 Kms in total.  Wonders will never cease!  By Christmas 2023, it will be extended even further - all of 700 metres to the bus station and and railway station in Wolverhampton.  Finally opened very, very late, in 2024.

Yet, we have my nearby town of Kiddi having the most dreadful, disgraceful, slum of a bus station I have ever seen!  Broken roof panels, no seating, but a lovely graceful curve of a sort of very long bus shelter with two roof panels missing to shower the passengers with rain and, with the drivers on their rest break standing and smoking at one end and the poor passenger (only ME!) at the other end!!  Poor signs and information, too.

When there is so much money swishing around for highly prestigious and stunning-looking trams at £4 million each, is there any way you might like to use your power and influence to get a few funds for Worcestershire County Council?  To repair or, God forbid, even replace the slum to get a proper, modern bus station like we have in Stourbridge and Halesowen.

Below, in bold, is why we have to have the bulk of the money spent on the Black Country and Brum for "bus on rails" trams to take over from buses directly on roads without the rails but mainly taking over mainline trains.  Do we really need to support the Metro trams replacing buses and trains when the money could be used to get a Kidderminster bus station that is not a slum and a disgrace but up to date and attractive?

Wednesday, 21 June 2023 blog post

4 reasons why we all love trams

The trams are attracting people out of their cars and onto public transport.

For the last 70 years of tram and train destruction, there is only evidence that it is that policy that has made public transport worse, less attractive, caused road congestion, crammed trains and worsened the climate emergency.

They also make public transport users feel like they are not second-class citizens. 

First class citizens like lawyers and other VIPs all use public transport.  It was 10th rate work by our councillors and transport planners who are responsible for the complete wipe out of the trams in the 1950s followed by the double tragedy of urban commuter railway lines being turned into trading/housing estates, roads, innovation centres and test tracks that is STILL going on in this decade in Dudley.

They beat buses for speed and comfort.

In fact, 95% of bus stops are request stops but the tram MUST STOP at every tram stop.

Trams beat buses for speed only when you have the former mainline railway turned into a tramline running parallel to the traffic choked A41 between Wolverhampton and Brum.  Even then, the average speed is only 15.5 mph for the trams and 12 mph for the vehicles.

Comfort is also a misnomer when my posterior comes to a sudden juddering halt as I sit on a tram seat with only a thin piece of cotton between my bum and the very hard plastic seat!

I think it is a good investment in local infrastructure.

Such a good investment that in over 40 years of rebuilding the tram network on the railway network, we still have only ONE tramline between Brum and Wolverhampton St Georges Sq, not even to the bus station, let alone the railway station.  200 Kms was promised by 23 years ago. What a truly pathetic performance for the hundreds of millions spent and £15 BILLION MORE by 2040!

Such a good investment that the 2nd Brum mainline, after 40 years, is no longer to get trams but is still awaiting its commuter trains and the 3 stations (Kings Heath, Moseley and Stirchley) - now delayed 12 months!!

Such a good investment that all work on current Metro extensions (£1.3 billion) have had to be suspended or curtailed, since 12 mths ago.

FROM Nick V:

The original trams ran in the roads. SELF: Yes. The new trams mostly reuse disused railway lines, keeping them apart from the buses, cars and bikes. In the W Mids, very nearly all railway lines are used for trams. A lot in Manchester, too. Hence, the very poor railways in northern England.  They chose trams over trains that we are copying. Far better to put the trains back on the urban railway lines at a fraction of the cost in both  price and in weight of greenhouse gas emissions. If they had maintained the old tram network then the roads would have had to be changed. Nonsense. 100 year old successful railway lines were turned into roads.  They should have been mothballed for future use.  Although the Black Country Mainline was officially safeguarded "as of national strategic significance" but that made not a scrap of difference!  Complete idiocy. Buses were a better alternative at the time.  They were most certainly not! All other European nations modernised their tram networks over the years.  Eccentric England, once again.  England always has to be the odd one out in Europe.

The train network was cut as it was uneconomic. Yes. Beeching was right in closing railways seeing very few passengers as we all went out and bought cars.  He did not expect his closed railway lines to be wiped off the face of the earth.  English folly!  What idiocy! If it had not been cut then the rail network would probably not exist at all today. No! Beeching only cut the loss-making services. Our transport experts and train spotters, ever since did and still do, the real destruction.

Best wishes

Tim    (Weller  0791 380 4363)

PS bonus in the best tradition of British satire/humour - my pathetic attempt:​

 (1) Multi-choice answers for this fun quiz

​continued on​

 (2) QUIZ: Select 5 given answers to 5 questions

​

to Cllr Nicky Gale re Kiddi Slum Bus Station

Dear Cllr Nicky

Your County Council is a non-constituent member of the WMCA.  Important because transport has easily the largest slice of the financial pie in the CA budget.  What is more, it is not a meagre proportion!  Out of the enormous amount, since 1981, hundreds of millions of pounds has been spent on the staff working on achieving one Metro line of 23 Kms of which 19 Kms is on the first mainline railway destroyed by Metro trams!  This was because it ran between (the now wasted for years) platform 4 at Snow Hill station and St Georges Sq in Wolverhampton - not even to the bus station, mind you, let alone the railway station to which Snow Hill was connected so successfully for 100 years!

The vast expenditure was supposed to have brought us ten tram lines over 200 Kms by the year of our Lord, 2000 CE.  By then, 23 years ago, we had 20 Kms.  In 23 years it has stretched to the mighty length of 23 Kms.  Wonders will never cease!  This year, it will be extended even further - all of 700 metres to the bus station and and railway station in Wolverhampton.  This is taking seven years and is sill not opened.

Yet, we have my nearby town of Kiddi having the most dreadful, disgraceful, slum of a bus station I have ever seen!  Broken roof panels, no seating, but a lovely graceful curve of a sort of very long bus shelter with two roof panels missing to shower the passengers with rain and, with the drivers on their rest break standing and smoking at one end and the poor passenger (ME!) at the other end!!

When there is so much money swishing around for highly prestigious and stunning looking trams at £4 million each, is there any way you might like to use your power and influence to get a few funds for Worcestershire County Council?  To repair or, God forbid, even replace the slum to get a proper, modern bus station like we have in Stourbridge and Halesowen.

Below, in bold, is why we have to have the bulk of the money spent on the Black Country and Brum for "bus on rails" trams to take over from buses directly on roads without the rails and mainline trains.  Why does Worcs CC enthusiastically support the Metro trams instead of a Kidderminster bus station that is something other than a slum and a disgrace?:

Wednesday, 21 June 2023 blog post

4 reasons why we all love trams - especially Worcestershire County Council

The trams are attracting people out of their cars and onto public transport.

For the last 70 years of tram and train destruction, there is only evidence that it is that policy that has made public transport worse, less attractive, caused road congestion, crammed trains and worsened the climate emergency.

They also make public transport users feel like they are not second-class citizens. 

First class citizens like lawyers and other VIPs all use public transport.  It was 10th rate work by our councillors and transport planners who are responsible for the complete wipe out of the trams in the 1950s followed by the double tragedy of urban commuter railway lines being turned into trading/housing estates, roads, innovation centres and test tracks that is STILL going on in this decade in Dudley.

They beat buses for speed and comfort.

In fact, 95% of bus stops are request stops but the tram MUST STOP at every tram stop.

Trams beat buses for speed only when you have the former mainline railway turned into a tramline running parallel to the traffic choked A41 between Wolverhampton and Brum.  Even then, the average speed is only 15.5 mph for the trams and 12 mph for the vehicles.

Comfort is also a misnomer when my posterior comes to a sudden juddering halt as I sit on a tram seat with only a thin piece of cotton between my bum and the very hard plastic seat!

I think it is a good investment in local infrastructure.

Such a good investment that in over 40 years of rebuilding the tram network on the railway network, we still have only ONE tramline between Brum and Wolverhampton St Georges Sq, not even to the bus station, let alone the railway station.  200 Kms was promised by 23 years ago. What a truly pathetic performance for the hundreds of millions spent and £15 BILLION MORE by 2040!

Such a good investment that the 2nd Brum mainline, after 40 years, is no longer to get trams but is still awaiting its commuter trains and the 3 stations (Kings Heath, Moseley and Stirchley) - now delayed 12 months!!

Such a good investment that all work on current Metro extensions (£1.3 billion) have had to be suspended or curtailed, since 12 mths ago.

​FROM Nick​ V​:

The original trams ran on the roads. ​SELF: Yes. The new trams mostly reuse disused railway lines, keeping them apart from the buses, cars and bikes. ​In the W Mids, very nearly all railway lines are used for trams. A lot in Manchester, too. Hence, the very poor railways in northern England.  They chose trams over trains, which we are copying. Far better to put the trains back on the urban railway lines at a fraction of the cost in both price and in weight of greenhouse gas emissions. ​If they had maintained the old tram network then the roads would have had to be changed. ​Nonsense. ​100-year-old successful railway lines were turned into roads. Complete idiocy. Buses were a better alternative at the time.  ​They were most certainly not! All other European nations modernised their tram networks over the years.  Eccentric England, once again.  England always has to be the odd one out in Europe.

The train network was cut as it was uneconomic. ​​Yes. Beeching was right in closing railways seeing very few passengers as we all went out and bought cars.  He did not expect his closed railway lines to be wiped off the face of the earth.  ​English folly!  What idiocy!​ ​​If it had not been cut then the rail network would probably not exist at all today. ​No! He only cut the loss-making services. Our transport experts and train spotters, ever since did and still do, the real destruction.​

Best wishes for some action, please Nicky - and a decent, professional explanation over your weird and wonderful priorities.  Many thanks.

Always cars and trams loved but never buses

Dear Fran and Norman

Do you recall that you were the UK government, nationally with the Conservatives, from 2010 to 2015?  Your very own LibDem member and MP, Norman Baker was the Transport Minister who gave the rather large funding for the tram in Brum centre that was supposed to have linked Snow Hill station with Grand Central station.  In fact, from the outset, we all knew it was bound to bypass Snow Hill station, a terminal, hit the buffers, station. The Bull Street tram stop is now the official tram stop for Snow Hill station - a walk of 300 metres back to platform 4 that the tram was using from 1999, at the station instead of boring trains to Wolverhampton.  We were all lied to and your LibDem Norman was deceived into authorising it.  Fran, Did you approach him to stop that misspending and for it to go, instead for a proper, magnificent Kidderminster Bus Station worthy of the town and for Fare-Free Public Transport for Everyone to justify a fine new bus shelter of a station?  Your Norman certainly had the money then.

It does seem that you top quality Kiddi politicians love cars (and trams) more than buses and have fully supported the many billions going for a High Speed railway network in the UK since 2010 with your LibDem Coalition Agreement with the Conservatives.

"In pursuit of the (LibDem) parties' policies on creation of "a low carbon and eco-friendly economy", a range of measures would be adopted.  In transport, a high speed rail network would be established."  Wikipedia

This, on top of fully supporting the totally unnecessary 200 Kms of Metro trams in the West Mids that was to be built by 2000 - 23 years ago but nowhere near achieved, even now.  It is now to be 150 miles by 2040, 8 lines, 380 tram stops all for £15 BILLION.  Again, fully supported by our LibDem friends.  £1.3 BILLION going into tram extensions, right now.

Therefore, dear Fran, how do you justify all that massive expenditure over the decades when your very own Kiddi bus shelter of a bus station, quite apart from bus use, have all been in a shameful state over all that time?

Do you think you might need to address your weird and wonderful priorities in order to get bus use and train travel as excellent as at least the average on the mainland of Europe?  Or, are you LibDems no longer good Europeans?

Best wishes

Tim    (Weller - from heavenly Halesowen with our very high tech bus station with its automatic sliding doors)

to WCC re Kiddi bus station

Hi David and David - and even more powerful and influential Mike Rouse and Leader Simon

It also stands in stark contrast to the £1.3 BILLION being spent by your neighbouring WMCA, of which you are an important non-constituent member, on replacing perfectly good buses and trains with Metro trams on your very own Worcester, Black Country, Derby railway "of national strategic significance"

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

David Ross and Mike need to urgently lobby against the further destruction of that railway by trams and for commuter and regional trains to return to the 50 Kms still left to finish the 120 Kms Black Country Railway between your own county town and Derby.  It will then be a world first, mighty wonderful train-tram-train railway between Worcester and Derby through the Black Country.

SOURCE:

"We are part of the Midland Metro Alliance (MMA). The MMA also includes design experts and rail construction specialists. Together we’re building £1.3 billion of new tram extensions in the West Midlands."

from - https://www.tfwm.org.uk/who-we-are/what-we-do/west-midlands-metro-tram-extensions/

If you are a Conservative councillor, Cllr David this is your very own national government that authorised the spending of £1.3 billion to replace or duplicate buses and trains with trams.  I think, irresponsible over-spending.  You should have been asking for buses to be upgraded and made very much more popular through Fare-Free Public Transport; something that I've had for 15 years, I'm so ancient.  Kiddi bus station should have been improved decades ago.  You have been fast asleep at the wheel, my councillor friends for many decades.  At the wheel of your car, I fear since everyone important, like yourselves Cllr Simon, Cllr David and Cllr Mike, get around by car when the climate emergency would have been considerably less critical if more of us used better buses and walked to and from the bus.

Please lobby WMCA and your county MPs for the money for the Kiddi bus station.

Best wishes for successful begging, Simon, David and Mike.  But your party is the one in power, holding the purse strings and will listen to their members.  Please speak to Conservative Mayor, Andy Street for the money instead of highly extravagant and expensive trams.  But a lovely luxury we cannot afford.  Andy's spending £15 BILLION by 2040 on 150 miles of tramways, with 380 tram stops.  Nothing is planned for poor relation Worcestershire, however.  You have to be the 2nd Class member to the First Class West Midlands and its very wealthy Combined Authority.

to Laura Shoaf

Dear Laura

You spoke very well on Monday morning but, I would expect that from a Chief Executive of your standing.

Both you and Dan spoke about a partnership with the public and of an intention to engage with the public.  Therefore, what exactly do you intend to do to foster and improve public participation other than by the Citizens' Panel and the usual brochures, leaflets and press releases?

Would a new partnership with the public extend to allowing, officially, climate activists like Chris Crean and me to each have one three minutes comment slot in meetings where the public are allowed to attend?  Such a concession is extremely tame, anything said is easily ignored and is precious little in the light of rising temperatures, floods and out of control wildfires around the planet.

Four years on from your declaration of a climate emergency but I still see that your HQ gets only an 'E' rating for energy efficiency.  It should be at least a 'C'.  This behaviour invites a charge of hypocrisy and of fiddling while Rome burns - record temperatures for them over the next ten days I have just heard on national news.  And, a charge of not just no leadership but of wrong leadership from your continuing destruction of the region's very last mainline railway for a tramline, of all things, to worsen the climate crisis.

I would urge you to listen to Chris Packham and Lord Deben speaking for seven minutes on the 'Today' programme on Saturday 8 July at 1:39:00.  Here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001np1h  Available for 24 days

Lord Deben said, to each of us:

"Are you doing what is necessary to fight climate change? ... The Climate Change Committee has shown how you reach net zero."

When will you do what Lord Deben is urging and take Chris Packham seriously?

Best wishes for some urgency in this worsening climate crisis and in shortages of vital resources - even water with wrong action and apathy/negligence, over decades, from the water companies.

Deception from HS2 people. The LIE of High Scam 2

Stephen Smith, head of consultation and engagement for HS2’s Phase 2b programme, said: "Extending the HS2 network to Manchester will vastly improve connectivity between the UK’s major towns and cities, while freeing up vital capacity on the existing rail network for more local and regional rail services.

How can High Scam 2 give us more trains and railway services on even nearby lines when it only stops at the 3 terminal stations, at the 2 airports and some trains at ONE other station, Crewe?  Stephen Smith is lying.

Lying, too over "vastly improving connectivity between UK's major towns and cities".  It only connects London and Manchester, no others apart from some diverting off into Brum!

Therefore, do you not still need the existing intercity services for all the other stations that High Scam 2 is far too fast to stop at?

HS2 is another wealth-flaunting, vanity project to accelerate climate disaster, like West Midlands Metro that has to be built to be an appropriately prestigious link to take passengers on and off the High Scam trains at Curzon St station in Brum.  An ordinary bus will just not do.  Of course not.  Silly me.

6 July 2023

BirminghamLive, Economic Development report:

“As HS2 enters its next phase, the Government remains committed to unlocking all the benefits of this flagship infrastructure scheme – increasing rail capacity, connecting communities and growing the economy.”

It does NOT increase capacity.  It only adds one railway line between the edge of London and Manchester after the destruction of one mainline up the backbone of England and one on the W side of Brum between Worcester and Derby.  A foolish and stupid piece of idiocy, incompetence and ignorance.

It ONLY connects the communities of London and Manchester and some trains will stop in Brum and at Crewe.

It is mainly for plane passengers to give them the choice of either flying through the air on land or in the air.

In growing the economy it grows GHG emissions and, therefore so nicely accelerates climate catastrophe and human ecocide.

If foolishly enhancing the natural greenhouse effect by our explosion of travel and war, alongside the prodigious consumption of finite resources and an expanding population, doesn't do us down, then collapsing eco-systems (life support systems) will.

12 July 2023

to Bob W.

HS2 and Metro and Sprint are all examples of the flawed 'green growth' agenda of stinking wealth and vanity projects to make Brum like Milan, Tokyo or Paris.  None are green because of the vast expense in money, finite resources and in GHG emissions.  All are wrong priorities and wealth flaunting when the money and resources must go into getting regular bus and railways as least as good and as popular as the average on the mainland of Europe.  Starting with FFPT.  Do you agree, Bob?  And the transport staff at 16 Summer Lane must be redeployed into fireproof energy insulation of the homes of the poorest and getting their apartments built on the 23,000 sq metres at Merry Hill.  Is that right, Bob?

The authorities, since 1981, only 20 years after finishing destroying the first tram network then set about destroying what was still left of the surviving railway network in Brum and the Black Country by building a second tram network on it!  Altogether, about 100 Kms of the railway network are gone for good with roads, buildings and trams that is continuing to this day with the region's second mainline railway going the same way as the first.  The first was Metro One, opened in 1999 on the Snow Hill, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury mainline.  Phase 2 of WBHE is still planned to destroy more of the second mainline railway and taking land for housing, nature, the urban forest and my vertical guerrilla garden at Merry Hill.

Hundreds of millions of pounds in both price and in weight of GHG emissions are being spent on the immoral, foolish tram expansion that they failed to get last century but are even more determined to get this century with Street's 8 lines, 150 miles and 380 trams stops for £15 BILLION to 2040!  Last century, it was 200 Kms by 2000 AD/CE.  They got precisely 21 Kms of which 19 Kms is on the first mainline railway now lost, including the first mainline station - Wolverhampton Low Level that is now a conference and events centre.

Andy, in six years as the powerless figurehead of the W Mids Comedy Authority, has failed to get a single railway line reopened, let alone tramline.  The extremely expensive extension to Edgbaston Village started before he was elected in 2017, in the days of Centro.  WBHE is nowhere near finished but may open in 2024 but only as far as Dudley town centre!

I have spent my own money on circulating to officers and members our Nine Action Points, as here

 Nine Action Points from W Mids Climate Coalitio...

even though there is no mention of the vital importance of returning the trains to the 106 Kms (now 100 Kms!) either mothballed or freight only.  One of them is your own Kings Heath railway, Bob.  Now delayed for another 12 months, it was announced by TfWM last week!

THE BEST BUS STATION IN TOWN

Dear Cllr Emma

I jumped at the opportunity to speak to you on Monday because you are now a member of the important Transport Committee of the WMCA, of which your council is a non-constituent member.  Important because transport has easily the largest slice of the financial pie in the CA budget.  What is more, it is not a meagre proportion!  Out of the enormous amount, since 1981, hundreds of millions of pounds has been spent on the staff working on achieving one Metro line of 23 Kms of which 19 Kms is on the first mainline railway destroyed by Metro trams!  This was between the now wasted for years, platform 4 at Snow Hill station and St Georges Sq in Wolverhampton - not even to the bus station, mind you, let alone the railway station to which Snow Hill was connected so successfully for 100 years!

The vast expenditure was supposed to have brought us ten tram lines over 200 Kms by the year of our Lord, 2000 CE.  By then, 23 years ago, we had 20 Kms.  In 23 years it has stretched to the mighty length of 23 Kms.  Wonders will never cease!  This year, it will be extended even further - all of 700 metres to the bus station and railway station in Wolverhampton.

Yet, we have my nearby town of Kiddi having the most dreadful, disgraceful, slum of a bus station I have ever seen!  Broken roof panels, no seating, but a lovely graceful curve of a sort of very long bus shelter with two roof panels missing to shower the passengers with rain and, with the drivers on their rest break standing and smoking at one end and the poor passenger (ME!) at the other end!!

When there is so much money swishing around for highly prestigious and stunning looking trams at £4 million each, is there any way you might like to use your newly found power and influence to get a few funds for Worcestershire County Council?  To repair or, God forbid, even replace the slum to get a proper, modern bus station like we have in Stourbridge and Halesowen.

More lies from High Scam 2 - in the best tradition of Boris Johnson

Stephen Smith, head of consultation and engagement for HS2’s Phase 2b programme, said: "Extending the HS2 network to Manchester will vastly improve connectivity between the UK’s major towns and cities, while freeing up vital capacity on the existing rail network for more local and regional rail services.

How can High Scam 2 give us more trains and railway services on even nearby lines when it only stops at the 3 terminal stations, at the 2 airports and some trains at ONE other station, Crewe?  Stephen Smith is lying.

Lying too over "vastly improving connectivity between UK's major towns and cities".  It only connects London and Manchester, no others apart from some diverting off into Brum!

Therefore, do you not still need the existing intercity services for all the other stations that High Scam 2 is far too fast to stop at?

Another wealth-flaunting, vanity project to accelerate climate disaster, like West Midlands Metro that has to be built to be an appropriately prestigious link to take passengers on and off the High Scam trains at Curzon St station in Brum.  An ordinary bus will just not do.  Of course not.  Silly me.

Biomass concerns

Are you certain that for every tree cut down another is planted in its place?  And, how long before another is planted?

Do we need organic material to enrich the soil to grow our food?

Peat is drying out and giving off carbon dioxide.  Is that right?  Can organic material help rather than be burnt to give heat and warmth that we can partly get by living more simply, wrapping up warmer and using solar for electricity?

BI-MODAL NOT MULTI-MODAL TRANSPORT

Dear Helen, Laura, Anne, Ed and Dan - and I would like a response, please.

JUST STOP ENERGY HUNGRY MULTI-MODAL TRANSPORT - keep to regular buses and trains reinstated, only

I would still like to read the slide presentation that Dan gave to the Transport Delivery Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Monday.  However, the change seems sensible provided that elected members really do the research and study of all points of view, including my own - not so likely!  I very much doubt this amount of work is done by either retired people like me who have many more attractive alternatives in our final years of life or, are so busy with work and family commitments that take priority.  Therefore, everyone trusts the experts and leaves it up to them.  Hence, perhaps, the tragedy of transport over the fifty years I've lived here! 

Thank you for cutting the number of committees - but is it just the one Transport Scrutiny that has gone?  However, it is the councillors who should have been constructively criticising your decisions and not just me - the role of scrutiny that I felt never happened, anyway.  It seems, the members have been rubber stamping whatever you officers have wanted.  For example, I have never heard one member raise the serious matter of the 'independent' review into Metro never being published.  Was it ever written, in fact?

I expect, there has never been any question asked about the serious over-spending into many big transport construction projects that has caused suspensions and delays.  Is that right?  Never any questions over the enormous costs.  Never any scrutiny over acting on your own declared climate emergency with positive and helpful action, it appears.  Four years have gone by but, has anything been done to slow the exhaustion of finite fossil fuels and to slow the rapid rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?

Has there been any movement towards the W Midlands Climate Coalition 'Nine Action Points', here:

 Nine Action Points from W Mids Climate Coalitio...

They do involve burning oil and gas but only to make for less dependency on fast depleting international oil and gas reserves in the long term.  One day, renewables will be all we will have.  Yet, we live in a fantasy world where we behave as though oil and gas will last forever.

My own insistence is that you must immediately abandon Metro and Sprint extensions and very light rail and ultra light rail new projects and use up our remaining oil and gas reserves to make our bi-modal transport (bus and train) as least as good and as popular as the average on the mainland of Europe.  Easy to say, I know.  However, 100 Kms of mothballed or freight only railway lines remain in our region and south Staffordshire.  I've also suggested a bus/business lane trial on Hagley Road for two years to free up road space and slow GHG emissions.  And, my own five pledges to pressure the authorities also help (5 questions quiz, below).

In order to respond to the climate crisis, I would urge you not to continue with the Citizens' Panel or a London-like Assembly.  Our representatives, the councillors, are the elected members of the public.  To save energy and GHG emissions, simply encourage the members to be up to speed on the uncomfortable realities of having to live more sustainably on a finite planet subject to nature and natural laws.

My suggestion, that I think is far more important than yet another layer of bureaucracy, and a talking shop, with a Citizens' Panel, is to allow any member of the public, at public meetings of the CA, to have a 'Have Your Say' item at the beginning of the agenda of every public meeting.  Dudley Council has done this for many decades, giving us three minutes to have our say.  Please adopt it.  Dudley also has community forums that allow the public to have their say for longer than three minutes - and even meet with councillors.  Wonderful!

My text, scatter gun broadside on the rich in power!

SIMPLY DO THE ESSENTIALS

STOP destroying our railway lines.

USE  them for railway TRAINS, not super expensive, glamorous trams.

TRAMS are a wasteful, silly solution looking for a problem. 

Instead, use your generous BILLIONS to bring in FARE-FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT that I've had for 15 years, FOR EVERYONE, not just old geezers like me. 

So ease your conscience and help the poor.

THE POOR FIRST  -  PRESTIGE LAST.

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.)

Kingswinford Academy

Dear Ian Moreton

I was the old guy who turned up for last Friday's Any Questions discussion on a bike from Halesowen.  It was a lovely ride through Saltwells National Nature Reserve and Pensnett SSSI (for Great Crested Newts).  You kindly let me use the Gents toilet.

Out of sheer self interest, I'm trying to get your nearby cycle-walkway upgraded and more popular for cyclists who share with care to avoid upsetting walkers.  I'm wanting it to be like the wide, hard surfaced one in Woodgate Valley Country Park that I use when cycling into Brum from home.  That council upgraded it last decade and it is now more popular with walkers and cyclists.  We, in the Black Country, get left out over railway reopenings and old railways like the Kingswinford Railway Walk being transformed from what I call the Russells Hall Hospital and Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway (especially in its Dudley section).  It is convenient for hospital staff and visitors to encourage them to leave their cars at home.

I wonder if you have a member of staff who might like to do a project with pupils on the history, geography, nature conservation and potential for the Kingswinford Railway Walk to be similarly upgraded, like the Brum ones, for active travel.  It runs from Fens Pool Avenue in Brierley Hill to NW Wolverhampton and far beyond, via Wombourne.  I call it the UK's longest and only urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway and the most important for its potential to help cycle commuters and all active travellers to leave their cars at home.  And, therefore, upgrading would reduce the twice daily crawl of car commuters and the cocktail of poisonous gases from our cars with their greenhouse gas emissions to worsen climate breakdown and, all too soon, bring oil reserve shortages.

The cycle-walkway goes through three nature reserves, has two old stations as cafes and one Woodland Trust property.

To explain my own lifestyle choice: I gave up my essential car user status to take to the food fueled bike for nearly all social work visits in the mid 90s!  I did have to use the car, at times.  My reward was 15p/mile on official council business.  It went up to 20p/ml before I retired as a working cyclist and commuter at 65.5 years, ten years ago.

Do let me know if you think this is a suitable matter for a group of your youngsters to work on in school.

Many thanks and best wishes

Dear Mr Weller

Thank you for your email and for attending Any Questions on Friday.

The Kingswinford railway walk is a lovely thing to have on our doorstep. Having run along it recently, I totally agree that the section from Wombourne towards Dudley is definitely not suitable for bikes, particularly in the winter months. 

We have a group of students here at Kingswinford who are involved in sustainability (Eco ambassadors). Unfortunately, the member of staff who supervises them is leaving for Australia in the Summer, therefore I need a new supervisor for September. Once this is sorted out I'd be happy to pass your details on and to see if we can help with this as a potential community project. We certainly have access to the local MPs who could lend weight to the project.

Best wishes, and very nice to have met you on Friday

Kind regards

Ian Moreton

Headteacher

to Ellen Robottom

Hi Ellen

Many thanks for your prompt reply to my scattergun broadside to all and sundry, from my bed, as I woke up this morning, feeling so fresh and full of the joys of spring!

I live in heavenly Halesowen in the blackest, darkest, the bleak, backward and barren Black Country that destroys two of its mainline railways for flash, wealth-flaunting, prestigious, all-style-over-substance, trams.  We are a 1 million population on the W side of 1 m population Brum.

The billions comes from our splashing out on £15 billion to 2040 for 8 Metro tram lines, over 150 miles and 380 tram stops to go one better than Manchester, our rival for UK Second City (empty) status.  In the 1980s, it was to be 8 lines over 200 Kms by the year 2,000 AD.  Long since gone and never achieved!

I've read and re-read the Transport chapter in 'Climate Jobs: Building a workforce for the climate emergency'.  Everything in the book is brilliant.  I am not so happy about the lack of opposition to highly expensive and thus high GHG emitting tramlines, in their construction, that are so popular to replace buses and trains.