The Bristol Blogger

In case you missed it - which is highly likely as the only place it’s advertised is buried in a PDF document in an obscure corner of the city council’s website - there’s currently an “ongoing” public consultation for the West of England Partnership’s TiF (Transportation Innovation Fund) bid.

This is the council’s idea of letting you have your say on their BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) proposals, including the Bristol and Bath Railway Path plans (Blogger Passim), and on congestion charging.

If you have an opinion call 0800 0193235 between 9.00am and 5.30pm Monday - Friday.

Wonder why they’re not promoting this to the public at all themselves? No doubt there’s a simple explanation …

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?

By Chris Hutt from the Comments

It all started so well, with Charlie Bolton’s original motion getting beefed up by a Lib-Dem amendment which he accepted. Railway Path supporters cheered and clapped. It looked for a few moments like we were finally laying the ghoul of BRT to rest.

But then came Labour’s wrecking amendment which got through with Tory support. The voting was 33 for, 30 against (all Lib-Dems and Charlie Bolton) and 2 abstentions (both Tories I think, presumably the ones who recognised what a sordid business it was).

The Labour amendment is another example of Bradshaw’s weasel words, seeming to be pro walking and cycling but effectively keeping the door open for future bus rapid transit. But instead of using the Evening Post as his gullible mouthpiece this time he used Terry Walker, who almost seemed to believe that he was offering us something better.

The full resolution is as follows -

“Council notes the strength of feeling expressed by the citizens of Bristol against the possible shared use by rapid transit of the much loved Bristol-Bath cycle path.”

“Council further recognises that walking and cycling are vital components of the strategy to encourage more sustainable and healthier travel behaviour in our city.”

“While fully recognising the vital importance of improving public transport, Bristol City Council will oppose route proposals which undermine the current and future expansion of walking and cycling in Bristol, and, in particular, will oppose any threat to the current or future use of the Bristol to Bath cycle path.”

“Council requires further information about the various route options, including those on roads and for these to be the subject of full public consultation.”

“Council fully supports the Executive Member for Access & Environment in making these views known to the West of England Partnership.”

The weasel words are “undermine” and “threat” - who is to say if a route proposal “undermines” walking and cycling or “threatens” the Railway Path? Why, the Council of course. So they simply decide that a route proposal won’t “undermine” cycling and walking and that it isn’t a “threat” to the Railway Path and away they go with BRT on the Path, or anywhere they like.

Please note moderated comments were for 1 April only. 

Oh. And our man wandering around the Council House not doing very much passed the press office earlier and says Bristol City Council are preparing a press release about the path this very day … Ho! Ho! Ho!

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 …