Council plans to close Park Street are backed by a private sector report by the council’s ‘private sector capital partner’, Arcadis – Queens Road, Triangle and Park Street – Economic Benefits Review.
The report claims that the proposal will generate a large 28.5 per cent increase in economic activity for the retail and food sector and a 19.64 per cent increase for the office sector.
Fantastic news until you learn from campaigners that the research Arcadis used to ‘prove’ these economic benefits is derived from US research from the 1960s about pedestrianising shopping malls.
The data is therefore 60 years old and, in three cases, malls were reopened to traffic to stop the economic decline caused by, er, pedestrianisation!
Units at Stafford Yard on Malago Road (part of Bemmy Green development) are going for £1,450 – £1,600/month for 1 – 2 bedroom apartments.
That’s 3 – 4 rooms respectively with a balcony barely large enough to squeeze in a deck chair. Council flats in Withywood and Hartcliffe are better appointed.
Maybe it’ll be worth it when the shopping mall goes up next door with biometric screening and armed security to exclude the riff-raff?
Maybe the unaffordable rents reflect the panoramic views across the city complete with violet sunsets stolen from the locals living in the long shadow of the steel framed fake brick clad block of flats?
One construction worker told The BRISTOLIAN that he can’t afford to live there.
Is that the landlord we can hear laughing all the way to Dubai to sup cocktails with petro chemical giants posing as climate saviours?
Confused councillors have pointlessly delayed the Turbo Island Town Green application for three months on the advice of their clueless legal team.
At a Public Rights of Way and Greens (PROWG) meeting in April the applicants and objectors presented their evidence to the committee and a council lawyer admitted he had no idea how to decide the issue.
Normally, an expert inspector would be appointed by the council to look at the evidence and provide the way forward. Instead the council have decided to take three months out to figure out what the hell to do.
However, it seems unlikely the council’s legal team can produce a recommendation without landing themselves in the hot water of an expensive judicial review. That means they will need to appoint an inspector.
Why didn’t they just do this in April?
SECRET OWNER SHOCKER
The Nazi Post and Bristol 24/7 breathlessly assured us in October that Turbo Island had been sold by owners Wildstone Investments to ‘a mystery buyer’.
This ‘mystery buyer’ was reputed to be Bedminster printing company Out of Hand, a claim vigorously denied by the Nazi Post who won’t identify the actual ‘mystery buyer’ of the land.
This ‘mystery buyer’ mystery becomes more tangled in the bundle of documents for the Turbo Island item at the PROWG in April.
It includes a letter from Merret & Co solicitors who say “we act on behalf of the local freehold owner of the Property” and the council lists Out of Hand as the firm represented by Merret & Co.
Who actually owns the land and why’s it being disguised by local press?
**UPDATE: papers released this week by the council for a PROWG meeting next week have confirmed Out of Hand as the owners of the land.
DEAL OR NO DEAL?
Campaigners for the Town Green, led by the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, are pushing for a deal where the landowner – whoever they are – voluntarily registers the land as a Town Green in exchange for concessions on public access to the site.
Councillors on the PROWG, allegedly concerned about costs being run up, appeared blissfully unaware that a deal could be on the table.
Instead, they opted for the expensive option of funding their own legal team to look at an issue they know nothing about for three months before appointing a barrister as an inspector to decide the issue.
Bizarrely, the council’s PROWG lawyer quoted a cost of at least £1,000 for an inspector.
Hapless local party blows WECA election after member goes rogue
Quite contrary …
Why was the Green Party WECA mayoral campaign underpowered? Their candidate Mary “Contrary” Page told The Times days before the election that she had no campaign manager and was paying for leaflets from her pension for an election they could win.
The party’s presence on the ground was non-existent. Nothing like the numbers for last year’s horrific ‘Team Carla’ experience in Bristol Central. Their social media campaign was pathetic too.
A few random local party branded Tweets drifted out sporadically while councillors and activists hid away in splendid isolation on the empty Bluesky app for nonces and snowflakes.
According to an insider, the campaign was a car crash because Mary only got the nomination after lodging a formal complaint with the Green Party when original candidate Heather “Hack” Mack put her nomination papers in late. Heather was then disqualified on the technicality by the Greens.
In response, the majority of Bristol Green Party didn’t bother campaigning for Page.
With former Mayor Dan “The WECA Man” Norris arrested before the recent election, questions are being asked about who supported the mayor’s shenanigans at WECA and why?
Local journalist Andrew Lynch, asked questions before Norris’s arrest at a January scrutiny meeting. He queried why an item on an independent report into Norris’s unlawful efforts to get his image plastered over the region’s buses had disappeared from the agenda?
The question was intercepted by WECA CEO Stephen “Preening” Peacock. Feigning confusion, he bizarrely claimed not to recall which report Lynch could be referring to and would need to go away and think about it.
That was the last the public heard of the report with Lynch’s further questions to WECA knocked back by Monitoring Officer Bob Brown “Nose” as, er, ‘defamatory’. Lynch chased up with scrutiny committee chair Jerome “Unhinged” Thomas, Green councillor for Clifton. Back came the ludicrous claim that Peacock “legitimately needed to refresh his memory on the matter”.
A matter that should stand out like a sore thumb. It’s not everyday an independent report states your mayor has acted unlawfully.
Suspicions of a Peacock cover-up for Norris are strong.
HOW MUCH DID THE WECA MAN SPEND ON HIMSELF? A July 2024 FoI request to WECA asked for, “full copies of all expenses claims by Mayor Dan Norris for each year he has been in office”.
The response from WECA was,“no expenses were claimed by the Mayor for that period.”
However, in January Norris explained, “I have not claimed any expenses since being elected in 2021. The authority organises train tickets etc.”
So he received expenses but he and WECA bosses unlawfully failed to publish them.
Another FoI on the matter in March remains outstanding
