As council housing activists continue to occupy former council property 44 Richmond Terrace, Avonmouth to get homeless ex-serviceman Anthony Palmer and his 18 month son housed in dignified conditions, the council continues to LIE about what they can do.

Senior housing bosses led by their useless Tory-boy liar-in-chief, Housing Director, Nick “Drooper”Hooper, continue to claim that they have NO POWER to let Anthony ‘jump’ the housing list and give him a home.

THIS IS BOLLOCKS.

If you cast your mind back to 19 February 2012, you might recall Bristol City Council announcing with great fanfare that “the sole unnamed local person has discontinued his application to the High Court for a Judicial Review [into the Ashton Vale Town Green application].”

And you may also recall, the withdrawal of this person from this judicial review briefly made it look like Bristol City FC could build their multi-million pound new stadium and commercial development on greenbelt land unimpeded.

However, what you may not have realised is that this “sole unnamed local person” who briefly helped make this lucrative development a possibility also happened to be a council tenant in Ashton Vale.

You also may not have realised that the day before this gleeful press announcement from the council appeared, this “sole unnamed local person” was mysteriously whisked away in a chaueffeur driven car never to be seen at his Ashton Vale council home again.

And why was this? Er, because Nick Hooper’s housing department, which – remember – has no power to let anyone jump the housing list, rehoused this  “sole unnamed local person” in a well-appointed one bedroomed bungalow elsewhere in the city at very short notice – working to a timetable that turned out to be very convenient to a local billionaire.

Isn’t it amazing what Nick Hooper can manage to do at the drop of a hat to help out a mega-rich football club owner who resides offshore to avoid tax and what he can’t do to help a homeless ex-serviceman trying to care for a young son just released from care?

Hooper’s clearly a man only too prepared to drop his pants and bend over his desk for the wealthy and influential of the city. The only question is: does he charge for his generous favours to local gentleman of considerable means?