Monthly Archives: November 2014

CITY COUNCIL CUTS WATCH: MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS YOU LIKE!

Annoying-noise-001Black Friday was the start of a new Christmas tradition in Bristol. Welcome to Make-as-much-noise-as you-like-at-night-in-the-lead-up-to-Christmas-time (is there not a catchier title for this? Ed.).

In an unprecedented move, Bristol City Council are allowing everybody to make as much noise as they like at night until the 15 December because there will be no environmental health officers workings evenings!

This appears to be a direct result of mayor “Uncle” George Ferguson’s cuts that “will not affect frontline services”.

Know of any more council cuts that have affected frontline services? Get in touch!

 

 

AVONMOUTH BACK ON THE STREETS AS COUNCIL RENEGES ON DEAL!

Red pants aflame Mayor, “Uncle” George Ferguson and his large collection of turds (surely highly trained and skilled officers? Ed.) have RENEGED on their deal made this summer after some high-profile protests to hold monthly meetings with the residents of Avonmouth on POLLUTION ISSUES.

Protestors and the Avonmouth Dust Forum were told earlier this week by council officers that tonight’s pollution meeting was CANCELLED and that pollution issues could be dealt with by the TOOTHLESS, council officer-run Avonmouth Neighbourhood Forum instead.

And indeed it came to pass, no sign of any council officers at tonight’s meeting.

SOD THAT! It’s hi-ho, hi-ho back on the streets we go. Starting on DECEMBER 3 with a Bhopal/Avonmouth special. Come along. We’ve even been promised hot dogs and burgers!

Microsoft Word - bhopal.docx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY SAGA: #1 WHAT IS A SECTION 216 OFFENCE?

The original name was the BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY, 42 per cent owned by Mayor George Ferguson, which went into full liquidation in February 2013.

A new name appeared between January 2 2013 and April 2013 – FERRYBOATS OF BRISTOL. One of two directors was IAN “BUNGLE” BUNGARD, a former director of the insolvent BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY. This is the company that never had more than £2.00 in assets during its existence.

A third company, set-up by “the gang” appeared in April 2013 – BRISTOL COMMUNITY FERRY BOAT COMPANY.

The very long arm of Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 on “Phoenix Companies” says:

Prohibited name

Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 defines the circumstances in which criminal and civil liability can be imposed on a director who acts, without proper notice being given or the leave of the court, for a company or even an unincorporated business which is known by a prohibited name.

A name will be prohibited where it is the same name that the liquidating company was known as at any time in the 12 months immediately before it went into liquidation, or where it is sufficiently similar as to suggest an association with the liquidating company.

This includes a trading name.

Criminal liability:

Where a company trades under a prohibited name an individual can be guilty of a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment or fine, or both for:
• acting as a director of the company; and
• taking part either directly or indirectly in the formation, management or promotion of the company.

An individual can also be liable under Section 216 for being involved in a business using the prohibited name, even if it is not a company.

Civil liability

Under section 217 of the Act, a person will be personally responsible for the ‘relevant debts’ of a company if he is involved in the management of the company in breach of section 216, or if he is involved in the management of a company and takes instructions from a person he knows to be in breach of section 216. The relevant debts are those debts which were incurred whilst that person was acting in contravention of section 216 or taking instructions from a person he knew to be in contravention of section 216.

What interesting times we live in …

FERRIES: MEET THE GANG

Ferry Boat owners

A document emerges listing the founders of the BRISTOL COMMUNITY FERRY BOAT COMPANY, the third of the Bristol ferry boat operations. This one appeared in April 2013 and currently owns the boats and runs the routes in Bristol docks.

You may recognise some of the names and not be surprised to learn that many of them are close to the Mayor, George Ferguson, who owned a 42 per cent stake in the BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY LTD that went bust in autumn of 2012.

We’re also pleased to see that, Sue Learner, described in the company’s promotional material as “Phillipa Bungard’s midwife” is among the gang!

Phillipa Bungard is of course of the ex-wife of IAN ‘BUNGLE” BUNGARD another director of Ferguson’s failed BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY LTD. He briefly ran yet another ferry boat company between December 2012 and April 2013 when this gang stepped in.

Ian Bungard’s FERRYBOATS BRISTOL was a mysterious entity that when wound up recently revealed it only ever had £2.00 worth of assets, which makes you wonder how it managed to function as a business and who owned the boats Bungle was chugging around Bristol docks for four months

The plot thickens …

FERRY QUESTIONS #3

ElizabethA boat was put up for sale recently. If you have a spare £15K you can buy it. It is called THE ELIZABETH.

Is it a coincidence that this is the same name as one of the boats previously owned by the now collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company?

As a 42% shareholder in the now collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company perhaps the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, can explain why it seems to be registered to the Tobacco Factory?

http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=379828

 

FERRY QUESTIONS #2

Ferry3

A Bristol Ferry Company Boat called THE MERCURY was sold by Royal Colonnade Initiatives, a company wholly owned by George Ferguson. Copies of two of the four dockets of sale are below, dated 31 October 2012 and signed by the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson.

While this boat is not amongst the seven or five boats owned/and or auctioned by the Bristol Ferry Boat Company, selling boats that this company had owned little more than two weeks before his beloved Bristol Ferry Boat Company collapsed, is ‘odd’ ‘strange’ and extremely peculiar to say the least. Can you explain this @GeorgeFergusonX ?

NOTE
The website URL link to the picture used to be this. However, after a whistleblower told Bristol City Council officers two days ago about this peculiarity and asked for questions to be answered by the city council officers, someone must have told the Bristol “Community” Ferry Boat Company as they have immediately taken down the picture off their website.

Funny that*?

* We’ve now received a cached version of that dead link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A9vdJt4js1xkJ%3Abristolferry.com%2FourBoats.php%3Fboat%3DMercury+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

Ferry1 Ferry2

FERRY QUESTIONS #1

There were seven boats belonging to the collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company, according to its 2012 accounts that summer, when it bid for a fare paying passenger ferry route.

But only FIVE boats made it to auction when the assets of the collapsed company were put up for sale in December 2012.

As a 42% shareholder in the company do you have any idea why that might have been the case @GeorgeFergusonx?

Ferry accounts

BOOMTERRAGATE: MORE STINKS IN AVONMOUTH!

From our Avonmouth correspondent

For once it’s not a product from one of either Boomeco, Churngold, New Earth Solutions or Wessex Water’s latest ventures with the Evading Agency that’s creating A STINK down in Avonmouth but it might be closely connected.

It would seem that our old friend Councillor WAYNE “DEE” HARVEY, protector of the faithful and lickspittle to ‘the boys in the boardroom’ at his other employers the BRISTOL PORT COMPANY, might have misinformed the public about his involvement in the recent VICTORY by Avonmouth residents who stopped the Nexterra biomass plant from getting planning permission.

Even local MP “CHARDONNAY” CHARLOTTE LESLEY congratulated Wayne for his spandex stretching heroics in apparently forcing planning supremo “KING PRAWN” CALABRESE to stop dealing with this matter under his self-awarded delegated powers. And knowing Chardonnay’s penchant for bandwagons and publicity, we applaud her selflessness in standing slightly out of the limelight to allow Wayne some much needed glory before he blunders toward his next POLITICAL DISASTER.

Admittedly Chardonnay had been crowing about her own efforts to get permanent air quality measurements in place at Avonmouth and her success in getting some form of analysis for “another year”. So she probably thought she could chuck a bone to Wayne before he commits POLITICAL SUICIDE the next time someone lets him out to play unsupervised.

Residents understand that BCC will only be extending the monitoring for NINE MONTHS at ONE site yet to be identified. And after listening to the woeful air quality study put forward by BCC’s in-house ‘air quality expert’ at the Nexterra planning meeting, residents expect this study to be handled with the same forensic, laser-like focus as the current one.

We therefore anticipate the project will run thus; FUCK it up, COVER it up and SHUT UP about it.

However, unfortunately for Wayne, as the chair of Planning Committee ALEX “DEAD” WOODMAN indicated before a packed Council House last Wednesday night, his claims are, er … utter bollocks! Tweedle Dee had NOTHING to do with getting this application before a planning committee as the time for a councillor to do this had lapsed. The plans were called in by a council officer, possibly ‘KING PRAWN’ although we await clarification about that.

BCC are truly amazing in their depth of knowledge though aren’t they? The peasants of Avonmouth should feel privileged we have the gigantic minds of people like DR MARK “NOT QUITE” WRIGHT (what’s he a doctor of? Ginger beards?). He told the planning meeting that wood dust was fine because his experience of constructing flat pack furniture that weekend after a week designing an incomprehensible IT strategy for the abysmal telephony and data management systems in place at BCC, indicated that BACON, yes BACON, was far more carcinogenic than the tonnes of unsuppressed dust settling on any unfortunate Avnomouthonian daring to eat a butty between zero hour contracts.

To be fair, another Councillor did point out that you have a choice about eating bacon, which might skew DR NOT QUITE‘s expert analysis of respiratory cancer anomalies and the huge variance from the national average of heart attacks and strokes in in non meat eating and non-christian or multi-faith but no-bacon-thank-you Avonmouthians in the coming decades. Until then, we suggest he can sod off and stop belittling the absolute nightmare his policies are causing far from his own leafy ward.

Outstanding questions that need to be asked around this bizarre planning application episode include:

    • Why did Councillor Wayne “Dee” Harvey claim to have intervened in a planning process which he had previously endorsed despite multiple objections from residents? In fact neither Wayne, the local MP nor the other Councillor Matt ‘Dumb’ Melias objected to the application in the first place despite strong objections by residents. This begs the question of whose interests they actually serve if not the residents of the ward?
    • Was the original attempt to rubberstamp the application through delegated powers legal or lawful? As we understand it, the application should have by its content and impact on the community been put before a planning committee for scrutiny and not been considered under delegated powers in the first place. We await BCC’s response about the ‘extra training’ or other such outcome from their investigation into ‘King Prawn’s’ professional conduct as a public servant in this matter.
    • Why have the Bristol Evening Post not printed a retraction of their story despite their own reporter being present at ‘Boomterragate’ last Wednesday evening and witnessing the exchange with her own eyes? A serving Councillor seemingly misinformed the public via a newspaper article. This was clarified via a formal question by a member of the public to the chair in the public chamber. The public record needs to be corrected. It would be nice if the Post could devote the same size content and position within the paper to allow Wayne to clarify his position but we’ll settle for two sentences sandwiched between Gimp costume suppliers in the small ads if that’ll help. A conversation with one of the reporters at the Post promises to bear fruit so we’ll give them the benefit for the meantime.
    • Is the appointment of an employee of the Port, as a non-executive director looking after BCC’s (and therefore residents) interests ethical or legal? Doesn’t the Councillor have a massive conflict of interest? Another recent incumbent non-executive director also had some interesting business connections and held positions of public office whilst presiding over the introduction and development of the wood chipping industry that sprang up at the Port during her tenure. An industry with such stellar names as Boomeco, Churngold, Stobarts Biomass, EGNI International, A&A Recycling and AW Jenkinson forest products. An industry that was prised tooth and claw from their positions of near immunity granted by the Evading Agency and BCC pollution control staff. Regulators who seem more interested in killing off fledgling businesses on the other side of the city with actions that could be construed as malfeasance in public office, rather than taking on multi-million pound industry players to protect the health and wellbeing of the public they are paid handsomely to serve.

Planning law seems to be a hot topic in CHERNOBYL, sorry Avonmouth at present. It has now emerged that Councillor Dee Harvey’s latest PET PROJECT to shore up his woeful performance in building community spirit after the civil unrest in the summer may be going off piste at an alarming rate.

It seems that Tweedle Dee has neglected to consult with the community he apparently serves and has decided that he will personally ensure that Avonmouth is put firmly on the map, well Google Earth at least ,with a MASSIVE XMAS TREE parachuted into an Avonmouth park probably by Chinook at 3am.

We understand that this Avonmouth Park, or the ENCHANTED WOOD as it shall be known going forward, will require a hard standing and electrical supply to be installed to support the illuminated tower of power Councillor Harvey has helped to secure via an anonymous benefactor from the Port.

However, it seems this development hasn’t been near the planning department and no public consultation has taken place as far as we can ascertain. Given the short space of time before the event is scheduled one wonders if ‘King Prawn’ will be called upon to grease the wheels of government after his recent successes with power stations and highly toxic ash storage within meters of residential homes,

We’ll have to wait and see. BCC officer APRIL RICHMOND of some local partnership quango or other indicated that because ‘it would be hidden’ in some sort of Tracey Island kind of way, the advice she had been given was no planning application or lawful process needed to be served; we can only hope the advice didn’t come from ‘DR DEATH’ MARK WRIGHT after a weekend building a shed.

Although, if they’re wrong, it sends out a very poor message indeed if the city’s planning authority doesn’t see the need to bother getting planning permission.

On a positive note for the west country, Swindon got twinned with Disney, Avonmouth gets BHOPAL.

Anyway, time to sign off from Avonmouth as I need to decontaminate my kids before bed.

LAUGHABLE TAKEDOWN NOTICE FROM INCOMPETENT COUNCIL LAWYERS

We just got this off some third rate interim council lawyer, presumably just out of college?

Disclosure of Exempt information
Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk> 5 November 2014 17:55
To: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>
Cc: Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Dear Sirs,

You have recently published an extract from a report to Bristol City Council’s Cabinet concerning AVTM/Metrobus.

The part of the report you have published is not for publication by virtue of paragraph of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006). This is because the information contained therein is information relating to the financial or business affairs of a particular person (including the authority holding the information) ie it is commercially sensitive information relating to the value of a contract yet to be awarded.

In the circumstances, publication of this information seriously jeopardises the project and the Council’s ability to deal with this matter in the best interests of the people of Bristol.

You are therefore required to remove this document immediately.

Failure to do so may necessitate the Council in having to take further legal proceedings.

To confirm, once the contract has been awarded then information that will assist the public in understanding the decision making process, will be published.

I do hope that you can understand why this information should not be in the public domain at this particular time and will assist us by removing it immediately. Please confirm by return that you will be doing this.

Yours faithfully

Sanjay Prashar
Interim Service Director Legal and Democratic Services
Bristol City Council
Parkview Office Campus
c/o City Hall
College Green
Bristol BS1 5TR
DX: 7827 Bristol
Tel: 0117 92 22839
Mobile: 07775227302
E mail: Sanjay.Prashar@bristol.gov.uk

Here’s our response:

The Bristolian . <bristoliannews@googlemail.com> 5 November 2014 21:47
To: Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk>
Cc: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>, Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Hi Sanjay,

Could you confirm on what basis you will be taking your “further legal proceedings” please?

Obviously it is not by virtue of paragraph of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006) since this is NOT a gagging or confidentiality clause and it does not prohibit us disclosing information in the way you appear to be claiming.

Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006) is an exemption clause that simply allows the authority not to disclose the information as required under Part VA of the LGA 1972.

What’s that to do with us?

We look forward to your response.

Toodle pip!

And, er, here’s the dickhead lawyer not understanding how to use email and admitting he has to get his boss to write his letters for him!

Re: Disclosure of Exempt information
Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk> 5 November 2014 21:58
To: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>
Cc: Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Who is this joker!
Shahzia-Could you draft a response for me to send please. I suspect it won’t make an iota of difference unless we can identify the perpetrators and take them to court.
Thanks
Sanjay

And Sanjay will be taking us to court for what exactly? We await the reply with interest …

***CORRECTION***

After further research it appears that Sanjay Prashar is the Service Director (and monitoring officer!) for Bristol City Council Legal Services and therefore the unfortunate Shahzia Daya’s boss. Yes, this is the oaf now in charge who replaces Liam “Malfoy” Nevin. Perhaps he should focus a little more on making sure the council’s delegated planning decisions are constitutional and a little less time making a fool of himself with crap threats?

 

Inspector Knacker’s COP WATCH

Sweeney

We were amazed to read recent reports from the cops that due to funding cuts victims are now expected to INVESTIGATE CRIMES THEMSELVES. Including, we’re told, crimes like burglary and criminal damage.

Rumours of speedily constructed gallows in various parts of the city have yet to be confirmed.  Although, here at The BRISTOLIAN  we would be amazed if burglaries aren’t investigated in CLIFTON or WESTBURY ON TRYM before we all start getting our balaclavas and gloves out.

But this has been the case for many years in some areas of Bristol. Try getting police support in HARTCLIFFE, EASTON or ST PAULS.  Give plod a ring because someone has torched your mini and see what happens: nothing normally.

This reminds us of an old story.  A young single mum living in the INNER CITY phoned the police after hearing and spotting someone in her back garden. She was promised support within ten minutes.

When it failed to arrive she rang again. She explained she was on her own in her house with two small children. More worrying, the intruder had got it into the shed where the tools were. She was given further assurances …

Another ten minutes with no sign of plod, she rings back to say, “don’t bother, I’ve SHOT HIM”.
Lo and Behold! Within two minutes an ARMED RESPONSE unit arrives!

They questioned her for several hours before departing. Needless to say, they had lost all interest in the theft from the shed.

We’ve also heard this week on national news that due to cuts the constabulary are struggling to police more SERIOUS CRIMES.  This includes having enough trained officers to investigate CHILD SEX INTERNET CRIMES and FRAUD.  Both are extremely serious and we we’d wager that the vast majority of Bristolian readers would identify the detection and arrest of NONCES as a primary objective of police forces.

However, we hear Avon and Somerset’s finest have been out serving warrants on some internet users.  Paedophiles? Major fraudsters?  Robbing Bankers?  ‘Fraid not. Just the email account of a, er … local RADICAL BOOK SHOP!

So while there’s a deficit of trained cops to tackle perverts, in Bristol they’re busy seizing and searching old BOOK ORDERS, STAFFING LISTS and lists of MAIL ORDER ADDRESSES!

No doubt identifying “POLITICAL RADICALS” and other undesirables who read books. Fuck me, I’ll feel safer sleeping in my bed tonight!!!

The BRISTOLIAN has its eyes peeled and continues to investigate FRAUD and CORRUPTION among Bristol’s high and mighty.  We’ll then hand details to the Old Bill, and see what they do.

If you know anything, drop us a line and we’ll chase it. Lets turn their austerity measures around.