The Greens have come up with a novel solution to complaints by the posh locals about van dwellers setting up home in and around the Downs.
Council officers cheerily announced in the Nazi Post that they would seeking ‘new support sites’ for van dwellers and that “two meanwhile sites could be turned into areas where van dwellers can stay, perhaps in Knowle West and Hartcliffe”.
A typical west Bristol solution to any problem in the city, then. Dump it in south Bristol.
Plus ça change.
The Greens are shutting Prince Street Bridge to cars travelling south. This will shut the bridge entirely to cars.
Reasoning and evidence for the closure are thin on the ground beyond that the Greens are ideologically obsessed with cars and want to snarl up traffic in the centre to piss off car drivers.
Disabled people, especially, are unhappy that another car route out of the centre is blocked with nobody asking them about it. Fit and healthy posh blokes on bikes have loudly voiced approval, however.
So that’s all right then.
Council bosses want to wire St Nicks Market food traders up to Electronic Point of Sale (EPO) units and grab 15 per cent of their turnover for themselves.
What’s the extra income for? The council’s own figures say their running costs were £591k last year while they earned £646k in fees. A tidy £55k profit giving a return of 8.5 per cent.
Not enough for our greedy council who’ve set a turnover target of £761k for 2025. Potentially a profit of £170k at a whopping return of 22 per cent.
No such returns are likely for traders, however. In the struggling hospitality industry 15 per cent of turnover is likely to be their entire profit.
Kerching?
Marcruss Outdoors, probably better known as “the army surplus shop on Hotwell Road’, is calling it a day in July. The grand old 18th century building will become ten unaffordable flats and three retail units instead.
Shop boss, Marcus, was concerned about the clean air zone (CAZ) in 2022: “I think it could essentially kill us off because it starts from Ashton. Unless people are allowed to come into this area, nobody’s going to shop in here.”
Death by CAZ then. Viva CAZ!
The Bristolian hears that the parks’ vehicle fleet is not compliant with the city council’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ).
The department is therefore paying every time one of their vehicles enters the zone. Adding insult to injury, they also have to pay fines if bosses are on leave or don’t pay the charge on time.
Money for our cash-starved parks’ is therefore being shovelled at a formidable rate into the coffers of the council’s Green Party pet project slush fund to get wasted on sustainable transport tosh.
Who needs trees?
Dan “The WECA Man” Norris is a very busy WECA man indeed. As well as being the Metro Mayor and an MP, Dan is also the Chair of the League Against Cruel Sports where he has been served with legal papers for an Employment Tribunal claim by the charity’s former chief executive, Andy Knott.
Former army officer, Knott, alleges that “Dan Norris asked him to keep quiet if Labour dropped its commitment to close loopholes in existing fox-hunting laws.”
Knott then claims that when he raised concerns about this political interference to the board and senior management, “they refused to investigate”.
“Tory” Tony Dyer continues his deranged odyssey to the outer reaches of corporate madness.
A breathless press release from pension fund Legal & General (L&G) recently announced, “[L&G] has submitted a planning application for Bristol Temple Island, a £350m masterplan regeneration project that will transform a derelict, former diesel depot site into a vibrant urban quarter.”
The council, in a dubious deal, actually handed over Arena Island to L&G in exchange for a free lease of an office block for 40 years while agreeing to spend £32m decontaminating the land all over again.
Tory Tony enthusiastically appeared in L&G’s PR dross describing this totally shit deal on land originally earmarked for our arena as “great to see”!
It isn’t. It’s monumentally depressing to see our money being pissed up the wall to benefit a wealthy corporate.
Remember the global economic crash of 2008 when American banks deliberately lent mortgages to folks they very well knew couldn’t repay? Ooh! The ecstasy of home ownership
Of course we do… It’s the reason we’re in the shit we are now. Despite us bailing banks out with our taxes and suffering two decades of sub-standard public services through austerity policies.
One of Bemmy Greens’ development mortgage lenders, ‘Shawbrooks’ has again been slammed by the Financial Conduct Authority for lacklustre scrutiny on their terms for loans to the self-employed. For, you guessed it… home ownership!
These crooks were exposed in the last ‘Bristolian’ as fraudsters to the tune of at least £100 million.
Is there no end to the tenacity of these city council sanctioned developers?
Heady days at the Soho Agency – ‘a leading literary, theatrical and talent agency based in the heart of Soho, London’.
Joining an exciting roster of b-list celebrity TV talent including Dick Strawbridge, Sarah Beeny and Ben Fogle is none other than our old mucker the Reverend Lord Rees of Beacon Overspend.
The recently enobled ex-mayor and, er ‘keen snowboarder’, is for hire as an author and an expert.
Expert in what Soho Agency ain’t saying.
A rumoured council legal letter knocking around claiming they are entitled to spy on us suggests they could be.
As does this comment from a boat dweller at the docks in a public statement to the Harbour Committee in December: “There has also been suspicion of covert surveillance, particularly when accessing services and collecting electricity cards.”
Council bosses’ resistance to an investigation into their surveillance of SEND parents promised years ago begins to make sense …
The latest revelation in the ongoing scandal of council senior boss nutjobs spying on parents of disabled children moves firmly into the realm of farce.
According to emails in the public domain, deranged council bosses deployed a covert human intelligence asset to spy on and report back on an, er, tea and biscuits carer support group run out of Knowle West!
While offering a commentary on parents’ clothing choices, the email fails to reveal what biscuits these dangerous carers were consuming as they deviously plotted in public to get a better education for their children.
Can our scumbag council get any lower?
The city’s business press got all hot in early November over the announcement of a new Managing Director for Bristol Waste. Step forward “Rubbish” Richard Williams from, er, Aldi.
Williams cheerfully jotted down for the copy and pasters of the city’s press that he would be “driving innovation in the sector” and that he wanted “to enhance Bristol Waste Company’s reputation as an industry leader.”
Shame, then, that by the end of the month the press was announcing, ‘Bristol Waste fraud probe concludes with five people referred to Crown Prosecution Service’.
Currently Bristol Waste are an industry leader in fraudulent conduct then.
We look forward to Rubbish Richard further enhancing that.