TRAINS back on the missing Stourbridge loop

I'm standing for Metro Mayor in the hope it might give a little more attention to passenger trains joining the freight trains on the freight only Stourbridge loop.  It would meet the Dudley Tram at Cinder Bank roundabout where the Light Rail Metro would end and the Very Light Rail (VLR) test track already ends.  Passengers would change onto the tram at Cinder Bank roundabout to continue their journey into Dudley town centre by tram.  This was an official proposal last decade when the tocs were competing for the contract to run the service.  BUT NOTHING WAS DONE ABOUT IT!  This was negligence, yet again.

On this map, the missing loop runs north from Jct station to Brierley Hill and on to Harts Hill that is named at the top of the map, directly above Merry Hill.  Are you able to see it?

On the 'Railfuture full map' you see how the Stourbridge loop freight line is part of the Worcester, Black Country, Derby principal mainline railway ...

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

This is from 2003 but nothing has changed, of course, in 20 years!:-

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

The PRESENT PLAN is to devastate nature, public open space and land down for housing at Merry Hill Shopping Centre to have the Dudley Tram ending at Cottage Street, Brierley Hill, as here:

 WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg

Everything, and much more, is clear felled on the embankment in this photo.  Plus my vertical guerrilla garden!:

 6 glorious white trees.jpg

Speak up TODAY, please for both my idea and the 42 year old plan from Dudley Council and the Combined Authority that they have struggled to achieve since 1981?  Let your readers give an opinion, perhaps?  Electric buses are well able to link the trains from the railway line with the existing bus station at Merry Hill.  And it would save hundreds of millions of pounds, too.  The 400 metre long and high double track tramway viaduct must cost in the region of £100m, even at today's  prices.

Tim Weller   0791 380 4363

ENGAGEMENT AND PERSISTENCE ARE THE BEST CAMPAIGNING TOOLS ...

... and poking gentle fun with my quizzes.  Latest is this (can I count?!):

 12 pertinent questions for quizzical minds! RES...

We vote in a PR mouthpiece to do whatever the CA Leadership Team want!

Both Mayor Andy and Mayor in waiting(?) Richard are 'Yes' men to whatever the CA want.  Both are spineless and have always wanted nice but very naughty, immoral Metro at up to TWENTY TIMES more expensive to construct per Km than rebuilding a railway.  £7 m/Km to rebuild the 50 Kms Borders Railway through the Southern Uplands of Scotland when it opened in 2015.  Contrast that with the scandalous cost of Metro tram Eastside extension at, now up from £133 m/Km to £152 m/Km.  This is sheer greed for a totally unnecessary grandiose tram.  It shows irresponsible financial spending to add to the overspending at the CA.

No money to insulate the homes of the poor because the money is being stolen from them for an impressive but immoral Metro trams to replace/duplicate buses and trains, of all things!

No money to cut finite fossil fuels by implementing the

 Nine Action Points from W Mids Climate Coalitio...

No money to put passenger and freight trains back on our surviving urban railway lines of 106 Kms in the region.  Only for trams at between ten to twenty times the cost!!

No money to address the climate crisis because the funds must go for grandiose projects like the Commonwealth Games in 2022; for 150 miles and 8 lines of Metro extensions by 2040; for the demolition of perfectly sound buildings for the latest architectural fashion ... All accelerate the exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves and climate problems..

The purpose of the Mayor is simply to be the mouthpiece, the PR person for the CA.  The power lies with the CA leadership team of council leaders and their Chief Execs whom I am constantly helping out by guiding and suggesting what they need to do.  But to no avail!!

Tim

Cllr Dave Borley

On Mon, 27 Nov 2023, 07:21 Cllr. Dave Borley, <Cllr.Dave.Borley@dudleymbc.org.uk> wrote:

Dear Mr Weller,

My concerns on the pedestrian crossings on the ring road is that it slows down the traffic from a 30mph to, at many times during the day, to a standstill. You are so right.  I see it as due to a growing population and more of us using our cars all the more.  Hence, since the mid 90s in Brum, I gave up the car for the vast majority of my trips and even for my social work visits and for commuting.  And maintained until I retired at 65 in 2013.

Congestion on the ring road is partly due to Stourbridge residents (and all of us) failing to lobby for the second, and even more important mainline railway 

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

from Stourbridge Jct to be reinstated with commuter, regional, intercity and freight trains up to Derby and beyond.  Some of today's car drivers might be prepared to use the train if the trains were reinstated on the full 120 Kms.

This is my suggestion for road space to be released for essential business users, as I once thought I was as a social worker!

 I'm suggesting a virtuous circle by more reward...

 

We have subways that work fine, for both pedestrians and cycles, but I would recommend a facelift on our subways – make them lighter and brighter, install CCTV, cycle lane signs. Additionally, we should have new CCTV on the ring road installed as well for speeding drivers.  Yes, indeed.  I like subways and always use ours in Laurel Lane, Halesowen.

I remember the Ring Road being built back in the late 60’s – Why was it built? Well please watch the YouTube film if you type in ‘Stourbridge Ring Road’.

Why are we planning to put a new pedestrian crossing in – is it to accommodate a small section of the community who ride bikes or is it to control and blackmail people to use public transport, walk or ride a bike instead!?  The idea is to get that small section bigger by making it safer for cyclists and motorists by more segregation.  My bus/business lane idea is to  bribe, induce, reward car commuters to leave their motors at home and to use Fare-Free Public Transport that I've had for nearly 16 years.  And to give it to everyone.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

It is difficult for cyclists on today’s roads especially from ignorant motorists but that needs more education – TV adverts, more signs on the roads etc.. plus Cycle lanes, where possible and prudent, should be created.

 

Greener transports are gradually coming in and over the next 10 years will become the greater than Petrol and Diesel.  I fear that electric/hydrogen vehicles will still be very dependant on fossil fuels because of the shortage of renewables and other materials needed to make them.  And even our own population is rising with growing demands for cars, let alone in the rest of the world.  

Somebody tell me what the big world polluters, China & India etc, are doing to go green? Are they punishing their people to get to ‘New Zero’ by 2030, 2035 or 2050 – NO!  Roger Harrabin, the former BBC environment correspondent, says that although China is having to build more coal fired power stations to feed the world demand for consumer goods, it is also doing better than any other country in building renewables.  But they also take finite resources, so we really are in a terrible bind!  Snookered!

Why don’t you go, with your eco / just stop oil protester friends, sit in Tiananmen Square and protest. Coal fire power stations are being built in China NOW!

We are lucky that you can protest and live in a free democracy. However, I’d argue that the Woke/Left-wing brigade want to stop our freedoms… Certainly not our freedom to speak out, to disagree and to protest.  Our freedoms will be curtailed by the uncomfortable realities of life.  Of living unnaturally on a natural planet and living infinitely on a finite planet.

The UK has made great strides in getting greener and, especially for the population size we have, we lead the way.  We lead the way in good intentions and in legislation but, in reality, nothing changes.  Economic growth/greed in the face of a planet that is not growing with our ever increasing demands placed upon it, is the politicians top priority.

3% economic growth, year on year, means that production and consumption doubles every 25 years.  Unsustainable.  I've worked it out and it is absolutely true, Dave!

All our vast material wealth is of no use if failing life support systems mean we can't grow our food and get enough drinking water.

"Either we get our numbers and our activities into harmony with the powers of the earth to support life or, collapsing life support systems will do the job for us."  (Green Party manifesto from the  1970s or 80s) 

The Net Zero target of 2050 I do support, and we should aim to do this in a balanced and economic method that is more natural than forced.  We have not the slightest chance of meeting it, I can assure you!

France got it right with Nuclear Power and I’ve always been a supporter of this energy supply.  But of no help if more greenhouse gas emissions are emitted in their construction than the power stations save over their lifetime.                                                                

With regards to your idea on the Trains – I agree with you!

I'M ARGUING AGAINST VERY POPULAR BUT EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE TRAM EXPANSION:

I'M ARGUING AGAINST VERY POPULAR BUT EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE TRAM EXPANSION:

Top priorities, for me, to fund tower block roof solar/wind and for insulating the homes of the poor must come from abandoning the popular conversion of bus routes and railway lines to tramway.  Far too expensive in climate and financial costs.  10 to 20 times more per Km than rebuilding a railway (Borders Railway through the Southern Uplands)

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has the power to do this and is a sensible and easy way to respond to their own declared climate emergency that they have not acted on, up to now.  Hence, the charge of hypocrisy that I level at them.

Hundreds of millions in both price and in weight of GHG emissions from tram expansion is worsening the prospects for humanity and all life on earth.  New spending priorities for the WMCA are urgent.

High Scam 2 fast to stop at a single station apart from the airport, plus Metro/Sprint expansion are both increasing the burning of finite fossil fuels, fueling climate breakdown/ecocide and diverting taxpayers' money away from the top humanitarian imperatives.  They are:

• stopping our leaky buildings,
• from central heating to local heating and,
• for every building being a mini power station - like my home (1,000 KWh/year or 3 kWh/day imported from the grid - and, then in the middle of the night when it would otherwise be wasted)!

More public control of buses won't make any difference, will it?

TfWM is the transport team within West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). TfWM works in partnership with operators of public transport within the West Midlands. TfWM provides bus stops, timetable information, park & ride facilities, as well as delivering smart travel passes across the public transport network via Swift.

More about what TfWM does can be found here: www.tfwm.org.uk/who-we-are/. 

to Lichfield Rail Promotion Group

Please explain why foremost Railfuture (and your good selves!) are not campaigning vigorously for the UK's very last, principal mainline railway, "of national strategic significance" - the 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Worcester, Dudley, Walsall, LICHFIELD and Derby - MUST NOT to be turned into a cycle-walkway between Walsall and Lichfield.

Tens of millions in price and in weight of deadly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are being wasted from a ready-built railway, minus the rather vital, intercity, regional, commuter and freight trains.  Now, only for pedestrians and cycles between Walsall and Lichfield!!!

Isn't my Black Country Railway far more important than High Scam 2 fast to be of any help in reducing train overcrowding?!  The Black Country Railway really can increase capacity on our national railway network if only it is USED for what it was built for!

PLEASE REPLY TO   timweller1@gmail.com

ONE WAY OUT OF CONGESTION, POLLUTION, FINITE OIL/GAS RESERVES

PLEASE SELECT, COPY, PASTE, SEND TO  dudleycouncilplus@dudley.gov.uk

Please use the funds from the Mayor's Charities to free up road space, reduce congestion outside schools and increase active travel by:

• Rewarding parents who walk or cycle their children to school by encouraging them to claim, via a form the daily active travel allowance - if they have left their cars at home.
• Council officers should also be allowed to claim for using cycles on official council business - but this money to come from council funds.  Is this encouraged now and does anyone do it?  DUDLEY COUNCIL PLUS, PLEASE REPLY.
• What should be the daily rate for primary school parents and the mileage rate for council officers?
• Does WMCA Cycling/Walking Chief, Adam Tranter claim?   ADAM, PLEASE TELL ME!

Tim      (Weller)

A masterly performance from Mishal and Andrew

Andrew's words of praise for Mishal are so well chosen and put so brilliantly that he, himself, I think also deserves a reward.

He spoke of Mishal's "awe-inspiring calm, dogged persistence ... patient socratic questions ..." are all so well deserved that Mishal MUST win the prize and equally masterly Andrew Ganley's choice of words must be highly commended!

On what day, please was the interview and the time?  I did hear it at the time and thought that Mishal was superb.  THE CLEAR WINNER FOR ME.  The stand out interview.

Network Rail get their infrastructure upgraded for FREE!

"Impartiality is about being truthful ... the truth can hurt."  Jeremy Bowen, BBC International Editor on 'Feedback', Radio 4, released, 1st December 2023.  

FULL ANSWERS, PLEASE:

All the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Extension (WBHE) Metro bridges are being replaced to take heavy rail (HR) freight trains, I have been told, because Network Rail may be wanting to put freight trains on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

in the 2040s, at the earliest, even though they know that they have gifted the line to the WMCA for LR trams (Metro).  IS THIS TRUE?

How can freight trains go on one set of double tracks with trams every 10 to 15 minutes?

Or will the freight trains operate at night?

Why has TfWM/MMA/WMCA paid for Parkhead Viaduct to be strengthened and every bridge to be replaced, with Network Rail contributing nothing?  IS THIS TRUE?

Tim Weller

On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 at 14:18, Mark Cooper wrote:

Hi Tim,   Just read about the demolished bridge (1849) to make way for the trams from  Wednesbury to Brierley Hill.  Looks like they are going 'Tram Mad' over that way.   Just as a contrast, Dudley Council published the allowances cllrs get for a part time job that goes nowhere?   72 get a basic of £12,143.00 plus more allowances for additional responsibility - so Patrick Harley get another £28, 512.00  Not bad for a non job

Dr Gabor Mate on Israel/Palestine

I agree with you about Israel/Palestine as you know.

I think this is interesting, as it is a well-known Jew trying to understand the Palestinian view and giving an overview of the whole seemingly unsolvable situation.

It seems to me that Netanyahu and his ilk are very much wedded to the Old Testament with its eye for an eye philosophy . They seem quite unable to make even a tiny step towards the NT with its message of Understanding and Compassion toward “the other”.

Without this ability to, at least trying to understand the other sides, there can never be any resolution, it seems to me.

This conversation is titled “Roots run Deep” so we can try to understand the history of both sides and, more importantly, give each our respect and human, empathy which is so much more important than knowing the objective facts, (although they are important too of course.)

Hope you find Gabor Mate interesting (He is a medical Doctor, a Psychiatrist and an expert on individual and collective Trauma ) - and a survivor of the Nazi camps as a very small child.....soo he has the credentials !

With love

Jude 

to Fran Postlethwaite of Better Buses National

Dear Fran

Bus/business lane to more effectively reward instead of enraging our precious car commuters

I was hoping to attend on Monday but my wife, who must be obeyed, wanted to no longer delay our departure to daughter and grandchildren for our weekly help with child care yesterday.

This is a brilliant petition.  However, I remain of the opinion that only by being more radical in our suggestions will we then get, not everything but, something.  I feel that public ownership and control will help but is not strong enough because it did not work last time.  In the W Midlands, there is control over the socially necessary routes with maximum fare of £2 and £4.50 for unlimited daily travel.  My suggestion:

1. Such is our fatal addiction to finite fossil fuels, as a rough rule of thumb, even with more renewables coming on stream, we still have to regard £1 in price = 1 lb in weight of GHG emissions.
2. Vast quantities of steel and concrete are used in constructing tramways ("buses on rails", says UK tram promotion group).  Both are highly energy intensive and that means high GHG emissions.  Bad news for climate!
3. Use that money to upgrade bus provision, as is in our petition.  BUT MUCH MORE IS NEEDED:
4. Bring in charging on radial routes into urban centres for all vehicles that are not essential for work/business but are used, in particular, for commuting, shopping when those drivers should be using bus, train, tram.
5. Essential users must register to avoid the charge.
6. Financial inducements MUST be used to reward car commuters and shoppers who leave their cars at home and use bus, train, tram.  Therefore, FFPT - Fare-Free Public Transport for all and not just my age group is essential.
7. To accompany the above, big campaign by the authorities to make it as socially undesirable to take the car into town/city centres as it is to smoke in public places.  But the rewards must be emphasised.

What do you think, Fran?

Best wishes

We vote in a PR mouthpiece to do whatever the CA Leadership Team want!

Both Andy and Richard are 'Yes' men to whatever the CA want.  Both are spineless and have always wanted immoral Metro at up to TWENTY TIMES more expensive to construct per Km than rebuilding a railway.  £7 m/Km to rebuild the 50 Kms Borders Railway through the Southern Uplands of Scotland when it opened in 2015.  Contrast that with the scandalous cost of Metro tramway Eastside extension at, now up from £133 m/Km to £152 m/Km.  This is sheer greed for a totally unnecessary tram.  It shows irresponsible financial spending, to add to the overspending at the CA.

No money to insulate the homes of the poor because the money is being stolen from them for impressive but immoral Metro, of all things!

No money to cut finite fossil fuels by implementing the Nine Action Points from the W Mids Climate Coalition.

No money to put passenger and freight trains back on our surviving urban railway lines of 106 Kms in the region.  Only for trams at between ten to twenty times the cost!!

No money to address the climate crisis because the funds must go for grandiose projects like the Commonwealth Games in 2022; for 150 miles and 8 lines of Metro extensions by 2040; for the demolition of perfectly sound buildings for the latest architectural fashion ... All accelerate the exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves and climate problems..

The purpose of Mayor is simply to be the mouthpiece, the PR person for the CA.  The power lies with the CA leadership team of council leaders and their Chief Execs whom I am constantly helping out by guiding and suggesting what they need to do.  But to no avail!!

to WMCC to ask for train and bus spending and climate justice

Dear all

The biggest single item of WMCA spending is, I believe, on transport.

The biggest single transport development spending must be Metro LR extensions, together with VLR, ULR, and Sprint roll out.  This highly expensive spending is totally unnecessary, accelerates depletion of oil and gas reserves, accelerates GHG emissions and hence the climate crisis to threaten all life on earth.  It diverts attention away from climate justice when top attention must be given to buses.

It has also ruined two mainline railways now given over to trams and, the surviving urban railway lines are still having to play second fiddle to LR, VLR, ULR and Sprint.  THIS IS MADNESS!!

My standing as an Independent candidate for Mayor, in May, is simply to use it as a platform to get the abandonment of these very wrong priorities, to show the more sensible and life affirming measures to spend money in the short term to get justice for the poor and much less spending on finite fossil fuels in the medium to long term.

Once again, my £5,000 goes not to this wayward, clueless, floundering government but to three international humanitarian charities.

Does anyone disagree with what I have written here, please?

Am I totally out of my mind with these priorities?:-

 7 priorities/pledges for you lot to rival Rishi

Can there PLEASE be a discussion on Tuesday about what I have written here?  No more polite silence, apathy, acquiescence!!

8 highlights of my Merry Heaven Tour

Hi David

I'm inviting you to a 1 hour walk from the squat clock tower between the Merry Hill massive car park and the 400 metre Dudley No 1 Canal embankment buried by the tramway viaduct.  PHOTO that features the clock tower:​

 6 glorious white trees.jpg

​

VISIT:

• Dudley's premier, No 1 Canal, with magnificent views from Netherton Hill to the Clent Hills and Wychbury Hill - spoiled by the tram viaduct.
• View the possible site of Great Crested newts and therefore, perhaps, SSSI - planners want to build on this undoubted nature paradise, untouched by human hand or foot for decades.  A very important wetland habitat, even if there are no newts.
• Inspect my vertical guerrilla garden that hides the rusty metal sheet piling holding up High Plateau - complete obliteration by the viaduct that thunders over the top.
• Walk over part of the massive 23,000 sq metres of housing land, called highly forgotten High Plateau.  The tramway cuts through a corner, as in this plan:​
   WBHE plan for Merry Hill.jpeg
  ​
• Mark the contrast between my efforts to hide the corroded looking iron wall and the site owners round the corner.
• Visit the Waterfront Marina and then on to view, from the road bridge, the mighty wasted and forgotten 120 Kms Black Country Railway and Round Oak Steel railway freight terminal in the near distance.  This section is freight only from Port Talbot.
• View part of the route of the 25 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway that goes through Merry Hill from Saltwells NNR on its way to NW Wolverhampton.
• View one station and the route of the 1990s magnificent monorail, built privately but, possibly snookered/sabotaged by wicked Centro!

I'll treat you to coffee at the marina or in the shopping centre after the tour.

Rich Israelis; poor Palestinians either side of their wealthy Israeli neighbours

Dear James

I am horrified by the supposedly civilised and advanced nation of Israel flattening homes and tower blocks of apartments with, possibly, everyone of their inhabitants still inside!  This is being truly barbaric by our Western friends in the Middle East.  It is truly cruel and brutal behaviour by our close ally, Benjamin Netanyahu and his people.  Please tell me what you are doing about it, James.  Would you like to live in Gaza?

Rich man in his castle, poor man either side at two gates. Has this been ordered by God - perpetrated and perpetuated for 75 years in the most unholy Holy Land?​

Verse 3 of 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' - hardly bright and beautiful for the Gazans, is it James?:

​The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

F​ROM Wikipedia:

The verse ​"asserts that their social positions have been ordained by God. It has been interpreted as an expression of the theological view that society is ordered and upheld by Divine providence.​"

 ​"Percy Dearmer omitted this verse from The English Hymnal (1906); he was sympathetic to Christian socialism and stated that the words reflected the "passivity and inertia at the heart of the British Establishment in the face of huge inequalities in Edwardian society".^[11][12] Dearmer questioned whether Alexander had remembered the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31),​"

SELF:

We are so entitled to finite fossil fuels.

So entitled to as much as we like for as long as we like.

So entitled to jump in our motors, as big and as grand as we like. 

To speed into the sunset at 80 mph

Or, to jet off to far flung corners of the planet to spend our savings.

No thought for tomorrow or for others. 

OUR immediate happiness and fulfilment are all that matters and now.

Oil and gas will never run out, just like stone never ran out to end the Stone Age.

Why vote blue to go green when we are all environmentalists now?

We think the Metro trams are green. So smooth as they glide around on electricity and steel rails embedded in tons of concrete.

Never mind the vast quantities of CO2 emitted in making such energy intensive tramways to destroy for ever two mainline railways - and existing bus routes. 

Never mind the other greenhouse gases spewed out in giving us the most extravagant and expensive transport mode after High Scam Too destructive of Nature.

WOT! We part of Nature?

Nature does our bidding and yields to OUR greater science and technology. 

WE concrete, brick and tarmac everything in sight for WE are masters of the universe.

And Masters of our own destiny.

Scientists tell us that it may have been the runaway greenhouse effect that helped make our twin planet venus uninhabitable. That may explain why it is hotter than Mercury even though it is further away from the sun than mercury.  We are doing the same to earth.  But we resolutely up the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to feed our greedy, avaricious life styles.

Tipping points are being reached and breached as we all defiantly see one climate record broken after another.

WMCA is increasing the production of fossil fuels by

WMCA is increasing the production of fossil fuels by

converting buses and trains into trams, unnecessarily and at vast expense in both price and in weight of GHG emissions.

“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels is moral and economic madness.”

(Antonio Guterres, August 2023)

Getting out of gas is complete with the meter taken out on 30 Nov '23

Our transition from gas to 100% electricity is now complete.  We had our gas meter removed, for free by Octopus, yesterday.  Now on 100% solar power and cheap grid electricity in winter, only, to help balance the grid.  I strongly recommend Octopus.  Though the company is not doing so much, if anything, on wind - I think!

The almost zero carbon home

Just seen, over last 12 months:- 2.6kWh/day of electricity imported from world oil, gas reserves. Our legacy is this low cost, energy efficient, solar powered home for a descendant to live in!

Last 12 months has seen gas used for water heating throughout the year and some for cooking. Next 12 months will be electricity for everything, so will be higher than 2.6 kWh per day. In the summer this house is a MAJOR mini power station.

Every building should be like this.

Project for the New American Century

I do find it suspicious that it is always the Christian West that is so good and perfect, except for Hitler of course, and the Muslim Arabs are always so wicked.

Four-star General US Army (retd), former NATO Supreme Commander, Wes Clark said "We should have attacked Afghanistan."  He wanted to attack seven countries in five years as part of the Project for the New American Century, with Richard Perl, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.  Afghanistan was to be the first of the seven and had the full support of the Labour government in 2001!

"The purpose of government/military is starting wars and changing governments, to destabliise the Middle East.  Not to deter conflict but to invade countries and to have a Pentagon hit list."

from Ed Conduit re WIND POWER

Big numbers 

World energy is 82% fossil fuel - steady. 

CO2 is 422 ppm at Mauna Loa - up 1.2%. 

New UK residents 672, 000 - up 1%. 

UK wind power was 25.5 gW peak in 2022 - up 3.5 gW, but stalled by AR5.

How many 13 mW turbines to just catch up with population growth? Maybe 10 today and every day

If we build 100 every day, we can cap some gas and oil wells.

Ed

to Mal Drury-Rose

Mal, Please reply  - very few do!

Do an HS2 style swap, so Metro millions get used for freight and commuter, regional trains to finish the railway that Network Rail and DfT call "of national strategic significance". Which one do I mean?

 

Do an HS2 swap to finish electrification. Or, to restore our 100 Kms of mothballed or freight only railways in the region. Or, to get electric NOT hydrogen buses. Or, to insulate the homes of the poorest ... 101 more sensible and responsible  projects are URGENT! (Climate and nature catastrophes slowly unfolding that trams worsen - how?)

 

Tim