Monthly Archives: April 2016

A LETTER TO THE HOUSING BOSS:

An open invitation for Bristol City Council housing boss, Nick “DROOPER” Hooper to confirm in writing that he’s happy at the conditions Anthony Palmer and his son are currently living in.

Also an invitation to Drooper to identify the non-existent bits of housing law his department are quoting:

From: steven norman <s-norman123@hotmail.co.uk>
Sent: 30 April 2016 10:59
To: Nick Hooper
Subject: Re: POLITICAL OCCUPATION 44 RICHMOND TERRACE AVONMOUTH

Dear Mr Hooper,

 

Thank you for your email and the information you have provided. It has been noted and passed on to our legal representative. On Thursday the 28th April  I attended a meeting with Mr Palmer.

Present at that meeting were Mr Palmer’s Social Worker, Health Visitor and a lady from the housing department (Housing Support Worker), who I have to say I felt rather sorry for as she was clearly the messenger of nothing new. I assume this is the contact to which you refer in your email?

I would now like to deal with what I was able to ascertain from that meeting. The support worker mentioned a move to another hostel called Windermere in Southmead which would bring Anthony closer to his support network and also give him a front room bedroom & kitchen.

At this point it looked like there was a glimmer of hope of a move in the right direction. Only to be told in the next breath there were no current vacancies but we will put you on the list!

When challenged over the waiting period he could expect to wait, it became a case of how long is a piece of string? So nothing substantial was being offered other than ifs, buts and maybes, which seems to be how your department is run these days.

There are three factors that concern me a great deal. Firstly, the child has a serious health problem with eczema that requires him to be bathed in emollients. Something that Mr Palmer is unable to do. He is currently sitting him in the shower tray, having to hold the shower head as one minute it goes from warm to a temperature that could scold the child. Secondly, the development of the child is being held back as stated by both the social worker and health visitor.

Thirdly, the preferences for ex-servicemen that automatically takes Mr Palmer up a band from band 2 to band 1: I noted with interest the comments made by the housing support officer where she stated that this did not apply because Mr Palmer had left the Army some 7 yrs ago and that Bristol City Council had set the criteria for this at 5 yrs.

I challenged this and I was informed this was set down in the Housing Acts (1996) and the (2012) amendments by government allowing local authorities to set there own criteria and length of time between discharge.

To this end I have been unable to locate such a clause within the Acts. Can you please advise as to what section of the Acts covers this statement for my reference?

Unfortunately I have come across statements like this in the past within Bristol City Council only to find it is a bit of a Peter Pan world or wishful thinking on the part of Bristol City Council. I usually find a quick Legal Action remedies such statements before we even get to issuing court proceedings.

A synopsis of where Mr Palmer currently stands is as follows:

1) If, but and maybe in terms of another hostel.

2) Bristol City Council feel they have no Statutory or Legal Duty in terms of his son’s health problems and how they are exasperated by his current  housing condition

3) Bristol City Council feels it is okay to ignore the advice of another organisation involved with his and his child’s welfare

4) A possible Peter Pan World in terms of him being put in the correct banding

Now without wishing to sound facetious, I think it only needs me to ask when you will be placing a member of yours or Mr Ferguson’s family in to such conditions?

Certain people within society of certain political persuasions would like to push the great unwashed back in to the squalor of the 1800s living with rats and cockroaches while they get rich off the selling of council houses.

Will you and your department please confirm in writing that you are happy at the conditions Mr Palmer and his son are currently living in?

I look forward to your immediate reply

Yours Sincerely

Mr Stephen Norman

Local Independent Candidate Avonmouth & Lawrence Weston Ward

MEET THE COCKROACHES

IMG-20160308-00193-3Here’s the little critters ex-serviceman Anthony Palmer and his 18 month old son have to share their ONE ROOM publicly funded hovel with.

All paid for by YOU, dear reader, at the rate of around £300 a week. A sum happily dished out to the landlords of this revolting shithole by housing boss Nick “DROOPER” Hooper and Bristol City Council.

The conditions this vulnerable family are forced to live in by our council and its clueless upper middle class tosspot of a housing boss are DISGUSTING and INTOLERABLE.
IMG-20160314-00196
Why is this being allowed to happen? How is this property considered fit for human habitation at all by the council? Why are the landlords of this vile shit pit being handed public money? When is this going to be stopped?

Our housing department have lost leave of their senses.

44 RICHMOND TERRACE, AVONMOUTH – YOUR MOVE MARV

Richmond Terrace-largeIt’s becoming increasingly apparent that Steve Norman, John Langley and all the other political occupants of 44 Richmond Terrace, Avonmouth – the family council home sold last week for £140k to a private bidder – will not be evicted from this house prior to the mayoral election on May 5.

This means the problem will fall firmly in the lap of the new mayor, likely to be Labour’s Marvin Rees. What will he do?

Having condemned the sale of these perfectly adequate homes to private interests, will Marvin execute a typical politician’s u-turn and rubberstamp, regardless, the eviction of a homeless former-serviceman and his 18 month old son badly let down by the council’s homeless service, housing service and social services?

And let’s be clear here. Any eviction will involve the highly visible use of force and thuggery to remove this vulnerable homeless ex-serviceman and his child from the empty home.

Will Marvin resort to force to return Anthony Palmer and his son Kai to a revolting Southville doss house favoured by Nick “Drooper” Hooper’s housing department at a cost to us of £300 a week? Or will Marvin do the decent thing and sort this mess out properly?

This will be a very early test for Marvin. He can rest assured the city will be watching and first impressions are everything aren’t they?

SKUMMY SKANSKA SKAM

skanskaOur old friends over at wealthy Skandi uber-developers, SKANSKA, are working a new skam on Bristolians.

In an effort to get fashionable and down wit’ da kidz, the building firm with lots of local interests decided it wanted any hoardings around its HIGH VALUE LAND HOLDINGS at Temple Meads – now the subject of a new SECRET FINANCING DEAL with Bristol City Council – to be painted by local artists.

So out went the call from the multinational, which turned over HALF A BILLION POUNDS last year and earns a good slice of £73m a year from PFI deals with Bristol City Council alone, to a variety of edgy Bristolian street artists.

A few artists even responded. And some even asked how much they were gonna get paid by Skumska for their work? “NOTHING,” came the reply. “But you will get some great  exposure”!

These wealthy Skandi skum are taking the piss out of us aren’t they?

MARVIN SAYS “LET’S GET ‘EM ON”

MARVIN SAYS “LET’S GET ‘EM ON”webMarvin “Luther” Rees, Labour’s increasingly deranged mayoral candidate, has decided to CLOSE DOWN all the strip clubs in Bristol. The SOCIALLY CONSERVATIVE Christian confirmed on International Women’s Day that this will happen as soon as he becomes mayor.

This means he’ll be THROWING HUNDREDS OF YOUNG WOMEN OUT OF WORK. Local stripper Esme Worrell has already branded the idea “SHORT-SIGHTED” and “PATRONISING” after it turned out that Marvin hadn’t actually bothered to speak to a single stripper about his brilliant plan. So how does he know that the city’s strippers want him to protect them from exploitation? Does he visit them after office hours?

Of course, strippers earn pretty GOOD MONEY. So what does Marv have planned instead for these newly unemployed and unexploited sisters? Working minimum wage on the checkouts for his corporate mates at ASDA? Or how about doing care work for Marvin’s morally superior council? There the unexploited can drive around for work and NOT GET PAID for their traveling time and earn even less than the minimum wage!

Of course, as council employees, they could also look forward to a pay rise as high as ONE PER CENT this year thanks to the unceasing work of those tough anti-exploitation campaigners from Marv’s Labour Party and his union friends. This pathetic below inflation pay rise is generously being handed out by Marv’s new moralising army of council managers raking in SIX-FIGURE SUMS after awarding themselves a tasty 20 PER CENT pay rise. All happily signed off by Marvin’s Labour Party and the council’s unions, natch.

With shit like this on offer is it any surprise that some enterprising people look to sex work to make some decent money and get treated with far more respect? And this is where Marvin should be CONCENTRATING any fight over inequalities for women. Not FORCING women out of work. If he thinks women are being forced to strip then get the old Bill in. If he thinks they could be doing something better, then SHOW THEM THE MONEY.

Marvin claims that his bonkers plan is backed by the mayor’s WOMEN’S COMMISSION who have told him to ban stripping. So who the fuck are this lot? Only a bunch of self-appointed, well-paid, middle class public sector professionals, led by the council’s own Alison “FOUR JOBS” Comley scraping by on well over £136k a year from the public purse.

Just because this small clique of WELL-HEELED WOMEN would not dream of stripping does not mean that they can look down their noses at those that do and threaten their livelihoods. This is just a load of SANCTIMONIOUS SHITE, from a bunch of wealthy muppets who aren’t fully engaged with the reality they help to create.

Marv should concentrate on real issues that affect Bristolians, like shite housing, low wages, rubbish politicians. Come on Marv, fight real inequalities … Get yer tits ooout!!!!

UNIONS DEMAND MARV BACKS THE BRISTOLIAN!

georgebookfair

Another candidate supporting vibrant news reporting

The “TRADE UNION VISION FOR BRISTOL” sounds like one of the most boring documents ever. Published by local unions to support Marvin “Luther” Rees in his effort to become mayor in May, it actually contains a few gems. Not least its call for Luther Rees to back The BRISTOLIAN!

“A DIVERSE AND STRONG MEDIA is essential for the lifeblood of Bristol. Local newspapers are under severe pressure and need the support of civic leaders,” thunder the union bureaucrats.

“We want a mayor who will: champion Bristol’s creative and cultural life; be an ambassador for Bristol’s arts and creative industries,” and … Wait for it … “support local media and a VIBRANT REPORTING OF NEWS and events”!

We’ll assume the cheque’s in the post then Marv …

COCK UP BRISTOL

COCK UP BRISTOL webThe BRISTOLIAN has been contacted by an angry reader who read about our European Green Crapital and the mysterious holes in its finances.

His family were contacted in 2014 by WARM UP BRISTOL, a green capital initiative to improve homes and cut energy bills. They promised to clad the external house walls of their home and gave a quote for the work. He tells us, “the quote was really good. We were going to get the house cladded and we were convinced that Bristol City Council would do it for us.”

He waited … and waited … and watched … as Bristol was awarded European Green Capital status … and lots of money. Then he realised that the company was going BUST and any money had been spunked up the wall on CORPORATE BACK SLAPPING and JOLLIES.

So far he has paid TWO deposits, had THREE surveys, spent hours on the phone and has sent HUNDREDS of emails while Warm Up Bristol try to ignore him. They are now REFUSING to do the work be claiming there are cracks all over the house and the internal walls are damp.

No shit Sherlock! He knew the house needed work on it but the council had promised to do it and put in an excellent quote. So he waited. Now his kids have got WATER RUNNING DOWN THE WALLS and the Council are telling them to fuck off.

But it’s not a complete disaster. The family got a letter from Warm Up Bristol recently, signed by his Red Trouseredness George Bleeding Ferguson. He THANKED the bemused family for being part of the Warm Up Bristol scheme and sent them a STICKER you could put on your bin and a stupid little Warm Up Bristol PLASTIC FLAG. What’s the family supposed to do with that? Stick it up Ferguson where the sun don’t shine?

Worse, someone, somewhere GOT PAID with Green Capital money and your council tax to sit in a room and decide that it would be a good idea to send stupid little plastic flags to people who have been ripped off. They then PAID to get them made and PAID to get them posted to poor, long-suffering families still waiting for work to be done. What a load of bollox.

The BRISTOLIAN has the contact details of this angry local. If you are experiencing similar shenanigans either phone or email us and he will get in contact. He has some good ideas on how to force them to do the work.