The Bristol Blogger

Household fuel bills to rise 40%; food up 5-15% depending on who you believe; mortgage interest payments rising by the month; 10% tax rate gone; petrol prices way up. The list goes on …

Meanwhile at Bristol City Council - a Labour administration, remember, whose boss Gordon Brown promised “to listen” - Chief Executive’s pay is up 20%!!! chief officers’ pay is up 10%!!! And the Leader’s pay is up 100%!!!

So how is this all being paid for? Through increased taxation on us of course. Specifically we’re soon going to have to pay for our rubbish to be collected (Blogger Passim) and to park (or not) outside of our own houses. And in the not too distant future look out for that grandaddy of local government revenue raising scams - the CONgestion charge.

But don’t worry because, we’re assured, all these things will only be introduced after meaningful CONsultation with us. Indeed, someone who used to live in London has kindly written to yesterday’s Cancer to tell us how this CONsultation will work:

Having received the recent council literature about the proposal to introduce residents’ parking in Bristol, I would like to ask that when people fill out their consultation forms to consider this: in London, years ago, we had a similar survey and most people I spoke to were against it, but were concerned about the knock-on effect of streets nearby which did adopt the scheme.

As a result, people said no to the scheme, but yes to the scheme if neighbouring streets did it. That means it only took one street to vote in favour for the whole of London to eventually adopt the scheme. My street was in an area away from any local amenities and parking was tight but manageable, a bit like Bristol today. Residents’ parking was brought in and the result was that friends visiting from outside the area were less likely to stop by, delivery vans were frustrated by the need to pay, which often led to a game of “cat and mouse” with the wardens, and yes, there were parking spaces, but it became complete misery for everyone involved.

In addition although we all paid to park in our zone, the zones were so small that you had to pay again if you wanted to drive to the shops, less than seven streets away.

As with all things, this becomes a tax on the poor, as every house can only receive one permit at a cost of £40, so if you are renting a property and sharing with two or more, the second permit would cost £80 and the third a whopping £500. Is this fair?

It is interesting to see how parking problems arise.

In the last few years there have been a large number of properties that have been granted planning to convert into flats, which is of course fine, as there is a housing shortage, but why should the rest of us pay for a problem created by developers and the planning office?

Conversely, can I suggest that as petrol prices rise and with the advent of the new cycle scheme, that before we rush headlong into enormous costs for all, we wait and see whether we really need to go down this route.

The only real winner is the council, which earns a fortune from charges, parking meters and fines, and definitely not you and me.

Zoe Mack, Southville, Bristol.

Charlie Bolton writes in the comments:

Hi everyone

I have seen Paul Smith suggest in a couple of places that we pursue the idea of setting up a trust to take ownership/control of the path.

(I believe this was the basic idea of John Grimshaw)

Do others see this as an avenue worth pursuing?

Our man out on the town (again) reports …

“I was at a party talking to a woman whose best friend’s flat mate’s sister knows someone who works somewhere not unadjacent to chief Bristol City Council transport officer, Colin Knight.

“She was saying that Knight and his team are currently working night and day to come up with an alternative to a BRT scheme that’s not on the Railway Path.”

The climbdown cometh …

And another Labour councillor jumps ship and rejects their own transport boss’s BRT plan for the Railway path …

This time, after only 40-odd years in the Labour Party, Labour’s Lawrence Hill councillor, Brenda Hugill finally manages an entirely sane, rational and commonsensical view on something.

She tells Bristol Indymedia:

“The people of Lawrence Hill are overwhelmingly against this proposal which seeks to destroy one of the few amenities they have. We have already seen the community divided by the M32 and the inner ring road. Now is the time to stop carving this area up.”

Brenda’s joined in her independent media photocall by Easton Councillor Faruk Choudhury and Bristol West PPC Paul Smith.

Smith is once again flogging his tired “This BRT plan’s got nothing to do with the Labour Party, honest guv” line, telling, what he hopes must be some very credulous readers, “The Path has been put under threat by consultants working for the West of England Partnership.”

As if.

Maybe Paul’s secretive consultants entered Bristol under the cover of night in order to evade all known authorities as well? And perhaps they drew up their evil, secret BRT plans using the blood of virgins on parchment made from the skin of innocent socialists from a top secret cave hidden somewhere deep beneath the Clifton Gorge too? And maybe these plans were then passed, via a complex network of agents sworn to secrecy, to those shadowy bureaucrats-of-the-night at the West of England Partnership?

Alternatively it could be that the consultants were invited by our local politicians to draw up the plans on their behalf because that’s how the system actually works.

St George West councilor, Ron Stone has now put his opposition to the Railway Path in writing:

My feelings on the issue tend to remain one of severe concern, and at present if asked to support this suggestion I would vote against it.

He also says:

I am due to attend a meeting with Mark Bradshaw the Cabinet Executive Member for Transport on Wednesday evening and this is the major item on the agenda.

So it looks like Labour councillors are meeting to arrange the inevitable climbdown.

And judging from Labour’s Bristol West Parliamentary candidate Paul Smith’s comments on this blog:

The plans are currently drifting in a virtual world of consultants, partnerships and council officers. I am not aware of any ‘political’ meeting that has endorsed these plan.

It looks like Labour are going to try and pretend its’ all the fault of officers who were working without the knowledge of councillors.

Mind you, it’s a pretty sad state of affairs when your best defence is to admit to being an incompetent who doesn’t know what’s going on.

But then we’ve been saying on this blog for some time now that this is a Labour administration in office but not in power

Couple of interesting items on Bristol East Labour MP Kerry McCarthy’s blog.

Firstly, to give you a further idea of the chaotic, leaderless, anti-democratic shambles which is the BRT plan for the Railway Path we get this from Kerry:

I have fired off letters to various people, asking for more info about the West of England Partnership’s plans for the Rapid Bus Link, but haven’t had any formal response yet.

That’s right. Despite having spent a small fortune on CONsultants, council officers’ salaries, feasibility studies, drawings, plans, meetings, Project Initiation Documents, strategies, briefing documents, presentations, reports and god knows what other crap, nobody involved is capable of explaining to a local MP whose constituency contains the path what the fuck is going on!

Our city safe in their hands, eh?

Elsewhere Kerry has managed to run into a little bit of trouble on a couple of blogs over her views on MPs expenses. She’s even had to remove the links to the blogs because they “used incredibly profane language and lots of school pupils look at my website, e.g. in school citizenship lessons.”

Sod that. Here at the Blogger we’ll take the risk that the kind of school pupil with the wherewithal to look beyond the hell of New Labour’s demented school curriculum, its citizenship propaganda and its set texts can deal with the word fuck when they see it. So the blogs in question are here and here.

Anyway, McCarthy ran into these problems after announcing:

I don’t know quite know what the solutions are [to the issue of MPs expenses]

This is pretty extraordinary. Surely someone who’s openly pitching for a job in government - where they would be, at the very least, partly responsible for vast sums of public money - must realise a system of financial accountability based solely on trust is actually a form of institutionalised corruption?

Would anyone put their money in a bank where your money was not properly recorded and you just had to trust the bank staff?

The solutions Kerry seems to find so complex are actually perfectly straightforward. MPs’ expenses simply need to be fully recorded, accounted and independently verified. What does Kerry think every other public organisation publishes audited accounts for? Fun?

But then given her government’s apparent policy of getting any major problems or anomalies with their public sector accounts smoothed out by their auditor over expensive lunches in the very best Westminster restaurants, it’s hard to tell what they think isn’t it?

Stabbed in the back by his own party, now Bristol’s Lib Dems have kicked Bradshaw right in the bollocks!

The Lib Dems have tonight announced their opposition to a BRT route on the cyclepath. Eastville Lib Dem councillor Muriel writes:

Dear Xxxxx,

Please be assured that, all being well, I shall be attending the
meeting. My attendance at these meetings is 100% returning on one occasion from Spain and from a works conference in Bournemouth!

I will be supporting Charlie Bolton’s motion as will my Lib Dem
colleagues. If it fails because of the Tory/Labour pact we will
instigate a named vote so everyone in Bristol will know the
councillors who support the scheme and those who don’t.

I would like this proposal knocked on the head, apart for the obvious heinousness of it I have no confidence that First Bus would comply with any agreement and, like its other service in city, would be a total disaster, would ruin the well loved cycle path, cause a whole lot of demolition - and for what?

You can guess I feel very strongly about this issue!

All the best

Muriel

The Lib Dems 31 seats combined with the six Labour rebels - so far - and Green Charlie Bolton gives the pro-Railway Path councillors a 38 - 31 majority in the council chamber.

Not even Bradshaw’s best political friends Bunter Eddy and the Tories can save him now!

Ha, ha, ha.

BRISTOL LABOUR PARTY ARE REVOLTING!!!

BRADSHAW ON THE PRECIPICE!!!

IT’S A BIG LABOUR NO TO BRT!!!

Dear oh dear. Another week begins with another THREE Labour councillors publicly rejecting their own transport boss, Mark Bradshaw’s BRT plan for the Bristol and Bath Railway path out of hand!

First up, from deep inside the old Labour territory of St George West, we have Councillor John Deasy writing on behalf of himself and his fellow St George West councillor, influential backbench old-stager Ron Stone:

—– Original Message —–

From: “John Deasy”
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 11:23 AM
Subject: Re: Bristol Railway Path

Xxxxxx,

This idea was first put forward in the late 1980s, it failed then because of the same reasons being put forward by opponents today.

This issue has generated the largest amount of interest in St. George West we have seen for a very long time. No one has contacted either of us to give support to this idea - so it is logical that Ron and myself represent the interests of the people of St. George West and oppose this proposal.

From a personal point of view I have cycled on the track ever since it was opened and I would be very unhappy if it was disturbed in any way.

Best wishes

John Deasy

Then we have this from yet another Labour backbencher, Frome Vale’s Bill Payne:

Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:59:39 +0000
From: “Bill Payne” bill.payne@bristol.gov.uk
Subject: Re: Railway path

Hi Xxxxxxx,

many thanks for your email. I will, of course, pass on your concerns to Mark Bradshaw, the Executive Member for Transport. I have already spoken to him to express my own concerns and fully support your opposition to the proposal.

I would remind you that that is all it is at present, a proposal. It was one idea among several put forward in a report from a group of consultants.

There have been no decision made and my own feeling is that this particular proposal is a non-starter, there are too many difficulties (bridges etc.) to make it economically viable. However, we need to make it clear to the planners that this proposal would not be acceptable.

Again, thanks for your email; if there is anything else I can do don’t hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes,

Bill.

Cllr. Bill Payne
Councillor for Frome Vale
Tel: 07894 994 600

That’s now SIX Labour councillors against Bradshaw’s plan that we know of. It’s game over Mark. Quit now or you’re headed for a very public humiliation indeed sonny …

Two new films about the Railway Path here. Both, in their own way, are far more representative of the traditional left than unwashed hippy “Green Protestors” the Cancer would have you believe.

One features Labour’s prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol West, Paul Smith; the other has been made by Bristol’s Respect Party.

And there’s fighting talk from Smith who openly raises the issue of class: “I think a lot of the green public spaces that serve the wealthier parts of the city would never even be considered for having one blade of grass touched.

“I don’t think anyone would propose putting anything like this on the Downs. This path is as important to the people of Lawrence Hill, Easton, Eastville and Fishponds as the Downs is to Clifton …”

Respect meanwhile have got out and interviewed some of the path’s users and also started asking questions about the effect the BRT scheme may have on Bristol’s inner city communities:

“Documents obtained from the West of England state ‘the route performs well in terms of patronage and deliverability and will include careful design to ensure it will interact sensitively with new developments in the Temple Meads and Temple Quay areas’.

“But we’re concerned it doesn’t appear to be interacting sensitively with local communities like Easton, Greenbank and Fishponds …”

More on the campaign: http://www.railwaypath.org/

The back of a bus and the council’s new chief exec.

A reader writes … (Made me laugh anyway)

Sir,

Have you noticed the resemblance between our new Bristol City Council Chief Executive, Jan Ormondroyd and the back end of a bus? Are they by any chance related? I think we should be told.

Indeed, would it not be possible to extract some added value fr om our £180,000 a year for Ms Ormondroyd by attaching some kind of guide rail to her and running her up the Railway Path at weekends?

I understand this to be what is referred to as a “win-win” situation in local authority circles.

Councillor Bradshaw would get his guided bus, the Railway Path would remain untouched and Ms Ormondroyd would have an excellent opportunity to perform a clear public service role each week.

Yours etc.

I C Taxwasting (Miss)
Westbury On Trym
Bristol.

And in further “Junket” Jan Ormondroyd news, we are presently unable to confirm the rumours that Jan will be working exclusively from an upmarket office block situated by the Thames in Southwark in order to easily access the city’s decision-makers …

And finally …

Following yesterday’s Evening Cancer report that mad scientists at UWE are developing tiny robots that can think for themselves, the paper ran a vox pop sensibly asking locals: “Do you have problem with robots that can think for themselves?”

Good question.

Jean from Longwell Green wisely pointed out, “there is a risk these intelligent robots could take people’s jobs.”

While Lizzie from Downend was concerned that “we run the risk of losing control - just like in all the films!”

Mark Packer from Kingswood meanwhile thinks the robots “may even do some of the jobs we don’t want to do.”

And the Bristol Blogger said, “I’d love to see Kerry McCarthy think for herself.”

Have a good weekend … And if you can’t be good be safe.