Monthly Archives: May 2016

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE: BELLYFLOPPING BAILIFFS SPELL END OF COUNCIL RESISTANCE

Useless twats employed by senior council bosses fuck off after failing miserably

A PATHETIC attempt by the council’s bailiffs, accompanied by THREE coppers, to evict the occupiers of 44 Richmond Terrace this morning at 5.00am has resulted in a flurry of activity from Bristol City Council.

FIVE bailiffs arrived this morning at dawn at Richmond Terrace causing an unholy racket as they unsuccessfully tried to batter the door of number 44 in. Having FAILED at this pretty basic task for bailiffs, the gormless quintet then attempted to drill the lock out of the front door.

When this, too, was entirely UNSUCCESSFUL, the bailiffs beat a hasty retreat along with their cop bodyguards. Although they did successfully manage to call the occupiers and the entire street, who were by now wide awake and watching the entertainment, ‘WANKERS‘ as they departed. Classy stuff from the forces of law and order there.

To add to the general feeling of wholesale PATHETIC FAILURE for Bristol City Council, the local BBC kindly made their ludicrous bellyflopping bailiffs headline news all day!

By noon, a thoroughly DEFLATED and DEFEATED council, had made an offer of a council property to ex-serviceman Anthony Palmer and his 18 month son. This happened soon after Anthony – the original cause of the protest – was mysteriously handed the BAND ONE housing priority the occupiers have been demanding since 20 April to reflect Anthony’s ex-services status.

The latest RUMOUR is that the council are now in the process of helping the buyer of Richmond Terrace to quickly pull out of the purchase of the home that they have not wished to buy for, at least, two weeks.

The end may be in sight …

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

5 Replies

In the cat and mouse game of political public relations, it’s sometimes worth looking at what your opponents are calling you and then asking WHY?

So this really caught our eye on Wednesday from Marvin “THE REVEREND” Rees’s PR boss, Tim “ZOMBIE” Borrett and his brain dead council communications team about the occupiers of Richmond Terrace:

“During the course of the occupation the ILLEGAL OCCUPIERS have raised a number of issues around the sale of council houses.”

What the hell is an “ILLEGAL OCCUPIER“? And what’s illegal about them? Is Zombie Borrett suggesting the people involved in this occupation are innately “ILLEGAL“? Their very existence now against the law because they’re challenging his wanky little local authority?

Are senior council bosses openly characterising the occupiers as a class of people without any rights or a voice so the public needn’t have to give a fuck about them?

Zombie’s claim is both a little bit DISTURBING and wholly UNTRUE. For starters, the occupation itself isn’t even illegal. Zombie Borrett should know this from his own council’s statement to the County Court on Wednesday.

This admitted that the police “declined to exercise their powers” under the Legal Aid and Prosecution of Offenders Act (LAPSO) 2014 because the cops didn’t accept the occupation was a criminal act. The occupation is therefore UNLAWFUL. The people involved are not “ILLEGAL” in any sense.

The problem for Zombie and Rees is that their language of ‘illegality’ directly mimics and mirrors the language the FAR RIGHT uses about migrants.

We’ve all heard talk of “ILLEGAL ALIENS” and “ILLEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS” and we all know this language is deliberately deployed to MARGINALISE and DEHUMANISE migrants and to stir up hatred against them.

Is Zombie Borrett attempting a similar strategy to turn the public AGAINST the occupiers of 44 Richmond Terrace?

Or maybe he’s just WEAK and SLOPPY with language? After all, language and its deployment only makes up the entire content of the job he’s paid a fat wage to do. Why would he know what he’s doing with it?

This behaviour from Zombie Borrett, an over privileged little twerp from East Devon, is of little surprise. But it’s nothing short of SCANDALOUS that the Reverend Rees – within weeks of taking office – is signing off press releases using this kind of language towards his political opponents. Language that has a history of MARGINALISING and SPREADING HATRED toward a section of the public.

This DEHUMANISATION of the vulnerable and their campaigners and protestors is a dangerous game. Many of the occupiers are themselves vulnerable people living in poverty and in precarious housing conditions.

When the occupiers get an ‘accidental’ kicking from The Reverend’s bailiffs will the public turn a blind eye because the occupants have been sold to the public as “ILLEGALS“?

Marvin, the silly little prick, should know better than to be using this ugly language of the far right.

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE: CANCELLED

1 Reply

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE TERRACE: EVICTION NOW!

1 Reply

Eviction planned for today – Friday 25 May 2016 – at 5.00pm.

All welcome. Come and have a street party and meet the council’s shite bailiffs …

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE: THE BENT STRUCTURAL REPORT

3 Replies

Deputy Mayor Estella Tincknell (right) introduces her new council to residents

The council’s PR department, under the hapless management of thicko public sector PR, Tim “Zombie” Borrett, has popped out from under the stone it’s been hiding beneath, taken careful aim at its own foot and fired off a comment on THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE.

These giants of communication thundered to Bristol 24/7 on Wednesday:

“During the course of the occupation the illegal occupiers have raised a number of issues around the sale of council houses, and the condition of the house on Richmond Terrace, that we would like to address. The decision was made to take the property to auction following a structural report that revealed structural damage, which would be uneconomic for the council to repair.

“Costs to bring the property up to the standard we aspire to for council houses were estimated in excess of £35,000, which meant the council took the decision to take the property to auction in accordance with current practice.”

Unfortunately for Zombie Borrett and his brain dead gang of strategic communicators, however, someone else in the council had released this so-called “structural report” on Tuesday under Freedom of Information legislation and it casts their confident claims in a somewhat DIFFERENT LIGHT.

The so-called ‘structural report’ is a half page that runs to just 224 words. It’s on unheaded paper and is neither signed nor dated. So who produced this piece of UNDERWHELMING DROSS and when?

All the ‘report’ tells us is that ‘Carlos’ (presumably a reference to council in-house structural surveyor Carlos De Lima?) visited the property briefly at an UNKNOWN time and date and then telephoned the mystery author of the ‘structural report’ at another UNKNOWN time and date.

Carlos’s brief verbal comments – anonymously reported second hand – do NOT make a compelling case that the property is structurally unsound as the council’s PRs claim. The only identified PROBLEM is that the loft conversion – where the bathroom is located – built by the council in the first place, is “an insubstantial build” and “not a liveable space”.

This is NOT “structural damage” to the property as claimed by the council’s PR drones then. It simply means the quality of the council’s own workmanship doesn’t, apparently, meet their own standards.

A bent structural report

The ‘report’ then goes on to provide a GUESSTIMATE of £30k (not £35k as claimed by the PRs) to move the bathroom and upgrade the loft space to a standard the council now requires from itself since installing a new bathroom in the loft sometime in the last six months.

How is this “uneconomic”? An investment of £30k – in a property that will command a rent of at least £5k a year and rising over the next 20 years, while housing a family in need that would cost us £12k a year in temporary accommodation – seems reasonable.

Indeed, at this LOW PRICE quoted, you could turn this ‘structural report’s’ conclusion and Zombie Borrett’s PR claim on its head and say, “it is difficult to see the value in disposing of this property”.

It’s also revealing to look at the METADATA contained in the Microsoft Word document that the council published their ‘structural report’ in.

While it’s not possible to discern when this ‘structural report’ document was first created as the creation date is listed as 24/05/2016 15:39 – the time and date the document was uploaded to the internet – it is possible to discover some information about the CREATION of this document.

For example, we know the document was created by Peter “Mary” Quantick, a boss in the council’s housing department. If we assume he is the AUTHOR of the report, this raises the question as to why a ‘structural report’ appears to have been directly produced by a manager who also might make a decision about the property’s future based on the content of the report.

The metadata also tells us that this document has NEVER been printed at any point in its existence. This seems ODD as the report would have had to be viewed by a number of managers within the council to get the sale of the property SIGNED OFF. Did no one print a copy for this purpose?

This contrasts with some of the more LEGITIMATE looking Word documents released at the same time under FoI.

For example, the document called ‘FOI MAYOR BRIEFING NOTE1.docx’ – a report prepared for the mayor to view – was last printed 22/03/2016 at 12:31. While the document ‘FOI PSS broad strategy Cabinet 15th July.doc’ was last printed 27/06/2003 at 16:52.

A real structural report

To add to this overwhelming sense of DODGY CONDUCT from Mary Quantick and his team, the council’s FoI team also helpfully published a real Bristol City Council structural survey report on another property, 148 City Road. And the difference is remarkable.

This report runs to 44 pages, is on headed paper and is signed and dated 9 December 2015 by Carlos De Lima, Structural Engineer. A glance at its metadata tells us it was created on 10 12 2015 and modified on 24 05 2016 when it was published on the internet.

The CONTRAST with Mary Quantick’s half page anonymous ‘structural report’ is significant. Indeed so shit is Quantick’s report, it’s difficult to understand how he and his fellow managers could make a coherent decision regarding the sale of a PUBLIC ASSET based on it.

The decision to sell 44 Richmond Terrace is quite obviously BENT and this Mary Quantick chancer in the housing department is a fucking CROOK who should be should be DISMISSED. If Quantick doesn’t like what we have to say about him, the BENT twat is welcome to try and sue us.

Onwards and upwards!

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: “WE’RE NOT LEAVING!”

THE SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE BEGINS! (You’ll be telling your grandchildren about this – well, Marvin Rees probably won’t. He’ll be shuffling around the room, staring at the floor desperately trying to change the subject)

Following a short hearing at Bristol’s County Court this morning, occupiers of 44 Richmond Terrace, Avonmouth have been ordered to leave the house immediately so that the sale of the council house to a private buyer can proceed.

Occupiers of the house, who have been there since April 20, six hours before the home was auctioned off to the highest bidder, have rejected the order out of hand. “We’re not leaving,” announced occupier Steve Norman immediately after the hearing.

During the hearing the council revealed the buyer of their property had issued them with a Notice of Completion on 18 May after the council had failed to complete the sale transaction on time because they were unable to provide the buyer with ‘Unoccupied Possession” of the home.

This Notice of Completion gives the council ten working days to complete the transaction or the sale falls through and the house remains in public ownership. The stage therefore is set for a battle between between bailiffs and occupiers leading up to this deadline of2 June

Occupiers say, “we have contingency plans in place and are confident of remaining in the house for the foreseeable future.”

Please call Steve 07747 490902

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: NO HEALTH RISKS FROM SEWAGE ANNOUNCES COUNCIL BOSS

Leave a reply

Victorian man: Drooper

Finally word arrives from Housing Service Director, Nick “Drooper” Hooper, on this small matter of the RAW SEWAGE in the basement of one his private sector homeless hostels showered with public money that he personally authorises.

Drooper confirms that, yes, there was indeed a load of human shit in the basement of the hostel. However, – possibly exposing a few flaws in his expensive education here – he goes on to claim “there are NO HEALTH RISKS from what was found.”

Really? No health risks from raw sewage you say? You’d probably have to go back to the 19^th Century to find the over-privileged and powerful so IGNORANT on matters of human sanitation and the poor.

On the matter of the poor quality building work at the hostel – where two buildings have been joined together so uselessly you can put your hand through the outside wall and into the kitchen – Drooper appears to have forgotten to respond!

Odd, when the first line of his email claims it will deal with the “OUTSTANDING ISSUES”. Except the ones it doesn’t presumably? However, rest assured we’ll be chasing Drooper up about this.

What will his response be? That the hostel is fully compliant with 19th Century building regulations as they apply to the poor?

Drooper also managed to address the vexed issue of Anthony Palmer’s housing priority as an ex-serviceman. He claims:

“We changed our allocation scheme in 2013/14, following extensive consultation, and this was introduced in May 2015. We give additional preference (increase by 1 band) if someone has served in the forces and had been discharged within the last 5 years and also come within a reasonable preference category.”

Alas, we’ve read Drooper’s Bristol HomeChoice Allocation Scheme a few times now and find no mention of this five-year limit on ex-services receiving additional preference. Neither does it appear in the Housing Act (1996) or its Amendments (2012) as Drooper’s staff have claimed.

Where on earth is this five-year mystery clause of Drooper’s? It’s almost like he’s making it up!

Here’s latest Drooper’s email and Steve Norman’s response:

From: Nick Hooper <nick.hooper@bristol.gov.uk>
Sent: 23 May 2016 09:49
To: ‘steven norman’
Cc: Mary Ryan
Subject: FW: RE:RE: MR ANTHONY PALMER

Mr Norman – further to my e-mail below to you I am now able to advise you on the outstanding issues.

We have checked Mr Palmer’s services record. This confirms that he was 16 when he signed up. He left the Army on 21/6/2007 (8 years 11 months ago), a week before his 18th birthday. Regulations were introduced in 2012 which said that local authorities should give additional preference to applications from certain serving and ex-members of the armed forces (and reserve forces) who come within what are called the ‘reasonable preference’ categories. We changed our allocation scheme in 2013/14, following extensive consultation, and this was introduced in May 2015. We give additional preference (increase by 1 band) if someone has served in the forces and had been discharged within the last 5 years and also come within a reasonable preference category.

With regard to the puddle of sewage water at the North St property this has been inspected by our private housing team. Their finding was that there was a small puddle of sewage in the basement (1m by 100cm by 1cm). The leak had been fixed some days before. The small puddle of sewage did not smell. The door to the basement had a padlock on it so access could not be by an unauthorised person. There was no one living in the basement and it was not being used for storage. The puddle was cleaned up last week by the property manager. There are no health risks from what was found.

Yours

Nick Hooper
Service Director – Housing Solutions & Crime Reduction
People Directorate
Bristol City Council
100 Temple Street
BS1 6AN
Bristol

Tel. 0117 922 4681

Email: nick.hooper@bristol.gov.uk

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 10:53 AM, steven norman <s-norman123@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

Dear Nick,

Thank you for your latest email, which I’ve now had time to consider and consult the Allocation Scheme you refer to.

To make this easy, I’ve attached a copy of the scheme. Perhaps you could print this off, mark the section which says you only give additional preference (increase by 1 band) if someone has served in the forces and had been discharged within the last 5 years, scan the document again and return it to me by return (say, within 24 hours) with this simple proof?

I’ve checked the scheme and I can find no reference to a 5-year limit.

The section relevant to Anthony appears to be ‘4.4 Band 1’:

k) Armed Forces Personnel (Additional Preference)

Applicants that meet The Housing Act 1996 (Additional Preference for Armed Forces) (England) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/2989) and one of the reasonable preference categories in band 2 are given additional preference in priority by one band.

With reference to your claim in relation to raw sewage that “There are no health risks from what was found”, I find this surprising. The health risks of raw sewage are well known. Your knowledge of science appears even more limited than your knowledge of your own Allocation Scheme.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Stephen Norman
07747490902

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: WHY’S HOOPER AVOIDING THE QUESTION?

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: THE HOUSING HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP

1 Reply

Please come and support the occupiers on Wednesday in court against Marvin’s gang of council shysters. Bring bells, whistles, banners, boxing gloves etc.

Maybe we’ll pay a visit to Temple Street too?

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: HOOPER CAN’T ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

1 Reply

Nick “Drooper” Hooper: ‘bent fucker’

Three weeks and counting and Bristol City Council Housing Director and all round wanker, Nick “Drooper” Hooper, is unable to produce a SHRED of legal evidence that backs up his department’s refusal to give any consideration to Anthony Palmer’s status as an ex-serviceman and give him the highest, Band 1, housing priority.

Anthony, supported by activist Steve Norman, met with representatives of Drooper’s department THREE WEEKS AGO on 28 April. And Hooper’s little minions claimed an ex-services consideration didn’t apply “because Mr Palmer had left the Army some seven years ago and Bristol City Council has set the criteria for this at five years.”

During the meeting Steve CHALLENGED this claim and was assured by Drooper’s minions that it was set down in the Housing Act (1996) and its amendments (2012) that local authorities could set there own criteria and length of time between discharge from the armed services and application for housing.

Subsequently in writing to Drooper on 30 April Steve further QUERIED this claim, “I have been unable to locate such a clause within the Act. Can you please advise as to what section of the Act covers this statement for my reference.”

He then went on to say, “Unfortunately I have come across statements like this in the past from Bristol City Council. Only to find it is a bit of a PETER PAN WORLD of wishful thinking on the part of Bristol City Council.”

Fast forward three weeks and – despite responding to other aspects of Steve’s email – that bent little fucker Drooper is UNABLE to come up with the simple response that would back up his department’s claims.

Is this because these Bristol City Council regulations on ex-services have no basis in law? And is this because – yet again – Drooper has his own PERSONAL AGENDA and is pursuing his own PERSONAL VENDETTA against Steve Norman and his family on our time and money?

When is someone at Bristol City Council going to step in and make this increasingly deranged and out-of-control housing boss do his job properly?

He’s a total embarrassment to the city and a menace to the homeless.

The BRISTOLIAN

“Smiter of the High and Mighty”

Monthly Archives: May 2016

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE: BELLYFLOPPING BAILIFFS SPELL END OF COUNCIL RESISTANCE

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE: CANCELLED

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE TERRACE: EVICTION NOW!

THE GREAT SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE: THE BENT STRUCTURAL REPORT

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: “WE’RE NOT LEAVING!”

THE SIEGE OF RICHMOND TERRACE BEGINS! (You’ll be telling your grandchildren about this – well, Marvin Rees probably won’t. He’ll be shuffling around the room, staring at the floor desperately trying to change the subject)

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: NO HEALTH RISKS FROM SEWAGE ANNOUNCES COUNCIL BOSS

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: WHY’S HOOPER AVOIDING THE QUESTION?

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: THE HOUSING HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP

Please come and support the occupiers on Wednesday in court against Marvin’s gang of council shysters. Bring bells, whistles, banners, boxing gloves etc.

Maybe we’ll pay a visit to Temple Street too?

44 RICHMOND TERRACE: HOOPER CAN’T ANSWER THE QUESTIONS