Phew!

What a relief for us all.

Isn’t it lucky that Bristol City Council employed a new Chief Executive and gave them an inflation busting 30% pay rise just last year?

It’s even luckier that this Chief Exec then spent the last year dishing out similar inflation busting pay rises to her ’strategic leadership’ team who were already earning six figure salaries.

And we can only cheer and praise the lord that they’ve handed similar pay rises to the next tier of officers down.

Plus what a joy it is that our “frugal”, “no frills” Chief Exec also spent £122,000 on her personal office space so she can pretend she’s working in the West Wing.

And all this before they all noticed they had a £30m ‘black hole’ in the finances and need to save £20m a year through staff cuts.

This means about 800 plus lower paid staff (about 5% of the workforce) will have to be made redundant over the next three years then.

It’s an especially nice touch that the council’s £140k a year Deputy Chief Exec – that copper from Sheffield who doesn’t know where Easton is – thought it’d be a good idea to announce these staff cuts from the front page of the Evening Cancer on Thursday without bothering to tell his staff or trade unions first.

What a nice chap. Isn’t the greedy bastard due a pay rise?

Tesco: value range vagueness from the Dim Prawn

Lucky recipients of South Bristol MP Dawn Primarolo’s ‘Hear From Your MP’ e-newsletter will have already read the Prawn’s fence-sitting on Tesco’s at Ashton Gate. But here it is for the rest of you:

ASHTON GATE SITE

Several residents have contacted me about the future of the Ashton Gate site. As readers will know, Bristol City have announced proposals to move to a new stadium in Ashton Vale. The football club have confirmed that they are in negotiations with Tesco to sell them the current site of the stadium. Planning applications will be submitted in the coming months, and it’s absolutely essential that local residents are given every opportunity to have their say. Whilst I support the ambitions of the club, I do appreciate that some residents have concerns about the impact of a new Tesco store. I will be doing all I can to make sure that Tesco and Bristol City keep residents informed, and that the Council’s planning department ensure that they engage local people, and take note of their views.

Using my rapidly developing Tescological interpretive skills I’d say the Prawn is broadly against but is a bit shit scared of rich boy Stevie Lansdown and his populist World Cup schtick.

World Cup footBALLS of confusion

Are we in need of the Council House equivalent of a Kremlinologist to explain what the Lib Dem leadership’s view of the proposal to build a Tesco Extra on Ashton Gate might be?

A couple of Lib Dem cabinet members have been on this blog to express a view on the subject.

Gary Hopkins told readers:

Clearly North St would be damaged by the Ashton Gate Tesco but there is of course no certainty that it would even deliver the world cup.

It would be against current local guidelines and of course Asda and Sainbury would throw every legal spanner in that they could.

If the path were not cleared very early the world cup will not come to Bristol.

This sounds like he’s against doesn’t it? Jolly Jon Rogers, meanwhile, appears a little more circumspect:

My position as Exec Member for Transport and Sustainability means that I have responsibility for the Planning Department within my portfolio, but that responsibility is to see that it applies the law in making it’s decisions.

If I do otherwise, then any decision made would immediately be open to appeal.

We can and do debate the framework for those planning decisions. These are set out in National and Local planning statutes, as well as in the emerging Local Development Framework (which has cross party input) and in various SPD Supplementary Planning Documents.

These do include the concepts of environmentally and sustainable neighbourhoods (though not yet as much as we would like) and a Local Plan which indicates broad development aspirations for areas of the city.

A little vague sounding maybe? Non-committal even?

Possibly. But what Jon perhaps doesn’t make clear – although Gary does – is that the planning framework as currently laid out through the local plan, the city’s retail strategy, the City Wide Retail Study, local transport plans and through the local strategic partnership and Bedminster’s Neighbourhood Partnership, among others, strongly militates against building a supermarket on the site.

Meanwhile others among the city’s Lib Dem leadership seem to be taking an entirely different tack and have jumped aboard City Chairman, Stevie Lansdown’s slightly incautious world of cheese Evening Cancer-led World Cup PR campaign that’s running with the gung-ho strapline “No stadium. No bid. No World Cup in Bristol.”

When Lansdown’s Bristol City FC Chief Exec Colin Sexstone spoke to the the Cancer two weeks ago, he said

The timetable is tight. Planning permission for the redevelopment of the Ashton Gate site will be submitted at the end of July, leaving the planning committee until late October to make their decision.

It will be an independent decision. But Bristol’s World Cup ambitions, £100m of investment, eight years of promotion and a festival of previously unseen proportions in this city hang completely on that decision.

So there’s little doubt then that Lansdown and Sexstone are tying any Bristol World Cup bid directly to Tesco at Ashton Gate.

Enter Lib Dem leadership duo of Janke and Cook and their utterly bonkers Lord Mayor Chris Davies …

Last week the Cancer gushed:

“While the Lord Mayor of Bristol, Christopher Davies, continues to thump the drum for the city’s cause as the “capital of the West”, councillor Simon Cook and council leader Barbara Janke are getting on with making the dream a reality.”

Jesus. Pass the sick bucket. But wait. There’s more:

Mr Cook and Mrs Janke are deep in the detail of how to best impress the visiting FA dignitaries on July 13 and what “host city” status could grant to Bristol in terms of an anticipated £100 million of investment.

Mr Cook, who is leading the bid at Bristol City Council, told the Evening Post: “If we won it would be fantastic, so we are putting a lot into it.

“It’s a huge challenge but a very exciting one. The development of Ashton Vale will be well placed in terms of helping the regeneration of south Bristol and acting as a regional stadium.”

Quite clearly this little lot are right behind the stadium and World Cup bid.

And as Sexstone and Lansdown have already told us, the stadium build depends on the Tesco deal. So are the Lib Dems for against the Tesco at Ashton Gate?

Fear not. Because Jolly Jon turned up again on here to explain:

On the BCFC new ground development I am with Barbara [Janke] and Gary [Hopkins].

So that’s cleared that up then.

Glossary of Bristol City Council terms: new

New:

Anything Bristol City Council does that features in a press release is new. See also innovative, exciting.

Entertainment news

Three weeks now and our old friend, Farooq Siddique, the Evening Cancer’s outspoken ‘A Muslim in Bristol‘ columnist is still keeping his counsel on what is surely the big Islamic issue of the day. Namely what’s going on Iran?

Instead, Farooq, for the first couple of weeks,was rabbiting on about cricket’s 20/20 World Cup. Then this week he joined the national stampede – after Michael Jackson’s death – to add his own unique contribution to an oeuvre of such astonishing piffle that in the space of just a few days it’s collectively managed to become far and away the worst journalism ever published in British newspaper history.

For the record, Farooq tells us, “Michael Jackson was probably the greatest entertainer that ever lived. Of that there is little doubt.”

Which certainly a represents a radical departure for Farooq, who last autumn fired off column after column about Palestine in the wake of the Israeli assault on Gaza. So now why the sudden and complete silence on the Iranian elections – a globally significant event in the Muslim world?

Perhaps Farooq, without his usual international cast of pantomime villains – Zionists, neo-cons, the United States, the CIA, the IDF etc. – to blame is at a loss about what to say about it all?

Or perhaps like his ragbag of fellow-travellers – the Stalinists, stoppers, conspiracy nuts and Taliban with whom he has shared a platform in the past – he supports Mr Ahmadinejad and the hardline Iranian theocracy over the reformers?

I think we should be told.

Perhaps it’s also worth remembering that Michael Jackson’s music was banned for many years after Iran’s theocratic revolution in 1979 and as recently as 2005 Ahmadinejad ordered Iran’s state broadcasters to stop playing “decadent” western music and to favour “fine Iranian music” instead.

Shirley and the coconuts (legal mix)

There’s been a fairly understandable level of uproar across the city since the city council published then unpublished and then republished its report (pdf) into Lib Dem councillor Shirley Marshall and her notorious ‘coconut’ slur (Blogger passim).

The crux of the problem seems to lie in the rather odd conclusions council officers have drawn from their investigation:

Having studied the various Statutes and case law, I am of the opinion that the term ‘coconut’ undeniably has a racial element to it and is offensive and insulting.

We’re told. Then:

my conclusion is that although the term ‘coconut’ undeniably has a racial element to it, its use in this particular context does not constitute racial abuse. It is, however, an offensive and insulting term.

So they somehow conclude an offensive and insulting term with a racial element does not constitute racial abuse. And:

If I am asked to recommend a sanction then I would say that NO FURTHER ACTION is required.

This perverse conclusion certainly pissed off Cancer editor, Mike Norton, who produced an uncharacteristically brutal editorial on the matter:

The report which recommends no action against Ms Brown is gutless and depressing.

He thundered.

Reject it for the absurd piece of lily-livered, fence-sitting that it is and throw it in the bin.

He continued.

Norton does have a fair point. The conclusion is bollocks.

But wait. Check carefully and you’ll see the report was written by Shahzia Daya, an employee of Bristol City Council. Shirley Marshall and her Lib Dem leadership are this woman’s bosses.

Is Ms Daya really in a position to state the conclusion that we all want hear – ie. “kick this racist cow out of public life”?

Not if she wants to have a career she’s not.

Perhaps the ‘independent’ Standards Board, made up of members of the public whose mortgage payments aren’t riding on the result, might see things differently?

Marshall’s hearing in front of the Standards Board is on Tuesday at 9.30am at the Council House.

Glossary of Bristol City Council terms: investment

Investment:

The same thing as income, turnover, expenditure, profit or loss depending on circumstances and the PR message being delivered. After all, it’s only someone else’s money innit? See also business.

RED TROUSERGATE: land still not sold, another bloody CONsultation in the offing …

The Red Trousergate saga continues …

David Bishop’s dodgy deal with George Ferguson last year to sell off protected public park land on the Bristol and Bath Railway Path still rumbles on.

These are some questions and answers from tonight’s Cabinet meeting:

Q1. Can you confirm that Bristol City Council has sold to the developers a plot of land on/adjacent to the Bristol to Bath Railway Path that includes the 150 metre (approx) hedgerow referred to and that the Liberal Democrat administration authorised this sale?

Q1 Reply:
No land has yet been sold. The Cabinet believe that, on balance, the redevelopment of the derelict Chocolate Factory site will bring substantial benefits. This will inevitably have consequences for the land adjacent to the Railway Path. However, we are not persuaded that the design solution currently proposed represents the best balance between regeneration, environment and use of the Railway Path, and we are therefore seeking the public’s views as to the respective merits of shared or individual access from the ‘cycle houses’ to the path.

This administration is also concerned that there remain aspirations for Bus Rapid Transit along the Railway Path. We are therefore also reviewing the terms of the access arrangements between the Railway Path and the Chocolate Factory development to protect the Path.

Q2. Did the Bristol Liberal Democratic Party at any time in the last year appeal to the developers to modify their cycle house plans so that hedgerow loss was avoided?

Q2 Reply:
Yes. Liberal Democrats (and others) have raised concerns about the placing of the cycle houses so close to the Railway Path and the consequent loss of hedgerow. These concerns were raised as part of the planning process and in earlier consultation.

So back to CONsultation it all goes again, despite the last expensive CONsultation courtesy of the private sector overhwelmingly rejecting removal of the hedgerow and sale of land to Ferguson and developer Square Peg.

World Cup footBALLS: doing the math

“The World Cup could pump up to £100 million into Bristol’s economy if the city becomes one of the football tournament’s host cities,” the Evening Cancer assured us last month.

Could? If? These are conditionals aren’t they?

So where did the Cancer get this impressively enormous figure from then?

Er, Bristol City Council. Or to be even more precise from Stephen Wray, who now masquerades under the soppy and pretentious title of ‘Partnerships Director’ at the council on a six-figure salary after being removed last year from his post as Head of Culture and Leisure Services for being useless.

And strangely enough he was particularly useless at sums and arithmetic involving large amounts of public money. Because this is the city council director that assured us in November 2006 that the new Museum of Bristol project would cost us £18m.

A couple of years later, at the last count, the cost of this project was a little under £27m, which means Wray was only out by about 50% on that one.

So where did his figure of £100 million in revenue for the World Cup come from then?

The Cancer refers vaguely to a combination of gate receipts (which will be shared by FIFA, the FA and Bristol City FC not the city council or any other local businesses), a fan park (there were 39 fan parks in Germany attracting a total of 18.4m fans at an average of 470,000 people per fan park) and tourism receipts.

England’s official world cup bid site mentions a rise of €400 million (£340m) in tourism receipts for the whole of Germany for the whole of their World Cup tournament. It also refers to the 3.36m fans who actually attended the live matches spending €20 million (£17m).

So extrapolating a ball-park figure for Bristol based on 5 games at 100% capacity (210,000 fans) plus an average size fan park gives us a figure of less than £9m, nowhere near Wray’s £100m.

To put this into perspective, the Bristol Harbour Festival has been running for 35 years, will cost £400,000 this year and will bring in 200,000 – 250,000 visitors in three days, yet the City Council has no real idea how much revenue it brings into the city so how can anybody have any idea about a one-off event like the World Cup?

The answer is they don’t. But why let the truth get in the way of a crude PR campaign?

However what the council should be able to tell us – but aren’t – is how much of our money they’re prepared to spend to host a World Cup.

Because have no doubt it will cost. The infrastructure demands for a major international event like the World Cup are huge.

But how much? Where’s the money coming from? And when will we be told?

Surely the city council have done the sums and worked this all out before embarking on their gushing PR campaign for the benefit of the FA and the local press?

And surely Mr Wray, when he presents Bristol’s bid to the FA in November, won’t be presenting them with a blank cheque underwritten by us?

Let’s remember too that FIFA and their big business backers are some of the most voracious and skilled deal makers around who undoubtedly have the skills and the leverage to run rings around Wray and the business amateurs at Bristol City Council.

So Mr Wray how much is this going to cost us? Perhaps we could clear up this minor detail now please?

Extra! Extra! Extra! Tesco Ashton Gate latest

Been reading through the presentation about this proposed new store Tesco and Bristol City FC propose to build at Ashton Gate again.

It’s all there …

It’s a “sustainable development” and even “A Sustainable Store”. “Offering a further choice of shopping destination”, which “has the potential to provide further economic and community benefits to the area”.

Naturally there’ll be “sustainable transport routes” because Tesco are “committed to playing a leading role in tackling climate change”. And “Tesco have built a number of environmental stores” already would you believe?

There’s almost a bucolic feel to it all isn’t there? It’s like they’re proposing some sort of local village post office crossed with a convenience store where they’re generously installing some bike racks for the old maids on their way back from communion and a convenient extra aisle of value baked beans to help the poor.

Alas not. Let’s be clear. The proposal is actually for an 80,000 square foot Tesco Extra with 600 plus parking spaces.

Tesco promote this as a one-stop shopping destination, usually open 24 hours a day. As well as food retailing, it also stocks a range of non-food items, and often includes a post office, a pharmacy, photo processing, electrical goods, soft furnishings, cookware, and other homeware products, clothing, toys/games, garden furniture, diy materials and power tools, plus a cafe/restaurant and creche.

As well as this, it is likely to include a Tesco Bank, mortgage advice, estate agent services, loans and all the other services Tesco have added to their portfolio.

In short, it is not just a food retail store it is an entire ‘High Street’ complex being built next to an “under threat” district centre.

Who’d have guessed?