Author Archives: jacland

FERRY STRANGE

MAYOR AT CENTRE OF FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF DOCK’S FERRY SERVICE

A scandal is emerging around Bristol Mayor, “Uncle” George Ferguson’s role in the failed BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY LTD. The company, which ran the blue and yellow ferries around the docks and received considerable council and government subsidies, crashed with £300K DEBTS, no paid-up basic insurance cover for passengers and owing Bristol City Council £11k in mooring fees at the time Ferguson was elected in November 2012.

Indeed, on his very first day at work at the Council House on November 18 2012, it seems super successful businessman Uncle George, who owned A 40% STAKE in the company, was busy planning to LAY OFF 30 STAFF at his failed company and calling in the administrators! Although he blustered to gullible Nazi Post reporters at the time, “I have never been involved in the day-today running of the company.”
Then things get murkier. By early January 2013 a new company, with a remarkably similar name, FERRYBOATS BRISTOL had appeared and was running the very same boats on the very same routes around the docks. This new company, operated by what was described as “a consortium of investors”, curiously, was managed by one of the directors of Ferguson’s failed ferry company, IAN ‘BUNGLE” BUNGARD.

However, Bristol Ferry Boats Ltd didn’t last long either. By May 2013 a third entity, this time a cooperative venture, with yet another similar name took over the boats and the operation, BRISTOL COMMUNITY FERRY BOAT COMPANY.

Again the director from Ferguson’s failed ferries, BUNGLE, was aboard along with his wife, PHILLIPA, and they were joined by Ferguson associates like his old WELLINGTON SCHOOL chum, Sustrans twit JOHN “REALLY” GRIMSHAW; local urbanist and architect twerp KEITH “TIMMY” HALLETT; Merchant Venturer JAY TIDMARSH and, our favourite, SUE LEARNER, described in the company prospectus as Phillipa Bungard’s midwife!

A lot of questions can be asked about what this gang of posh Bristol establishment insiders, random midwives and ‘FRIENDS OF GEORGE’ were up to.

Not least, how did they manage to obtain a series of PRIME FERRY ROUTES around the city docks without having to go through a city council tender process against the vastly better run NUMBER 7 FERRY company?

This tender process, coincidentally, is the direct responsibility of our old friend, the city council’s dribbling mentally ill loon of a docks boss, CAP’N TONY “AHAB” NICHOLS.

Legally, neither of these new ferry companies had any right whatsoever to routes that were awarded by open tender to a completely separate legal entity. Public procurement rules forbid this. So why didn’t Ahab RETENDER the routes as he’s LEGALLY OBLIGED to do rather than hand them quietly over to a local group of wealthy and influential individuals who just happened to be very friendly with the mayor?

Another unanswered question is what happened to all the PUBLIC MONEY that went in to the original basketcase ferry boat company, 40% owned by the mayor? Hundreds of thousands have been poured in by the city council since 2002 and the company even received a government development loan of £125k in 2009.

How were DEBTS OF £300K ever run up? How was the company able to obtain city council tenders while being FINANCIALLY UNVIABLE? Especially strange when you consider that rival firm, Number 7 Ferries, operates similar routes on the same waterway at a PROFIT.

The final question arises over the use of so-called “PHOENIX COMPANIES”. These are new companies set up to trade in the same activities as a former company so it looks like “business as usual” to customers. Phoenix companies can also use directors from a former failed company.

However, while this is legal in certain cases if investors have been properly notified of the circumstances, elsewhere companies that have carried out this DODGY PRACTICE have attracted criticism in the media and parliament as it allows companies to effectively dump their liabilities, walk away from debt and start all over again at an unfair advantage.
The formation of a Phoenix Company is subject to regulation by the DTI. So watch this space …

BENEFIT SHAMBLES

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City’s Housing Benefit service is collapsing thanks to cuts while bosses hide in cupboards and do nothing!

The BRISTOLIAN has been contacted by numerous housing officers, advice workers and claimants who tell us that Bristol’s HOUSING BENEFIT system is CLOSE TO COLLAPSE.

Due to local government cuts, staff numbers are down and those left cannot process the work in time so new claimants are having to wait THREE MONTHS to receive any money in most cases. This is leading to EVICTIONS of claimants and landlords refusing to take tenants on benefits, including Working Families Tax Credits (WFTC).

As a result, Housing Benefit staff are under INCREASING PRESSURE, missing more deadlines and having to deal with angry service users who are FACING HOMELESSNESS. Many staff are going off sick or just jacking it in. Meanwhile their managers barricade themselves in their back room offices.

Worse is to follow for the staff, as the council now has yet another admin review on the go, having decided that all admin jobs are the same and they can FORCE DOWN rates of pay further. This also means that admin workers from different parts of the council are being forced to work in housing with no experience of housing or benefit claims. This will make the situation worse.

Furthermore, if there are ANY changes in your circumstances, your housing benefit will STOP and have to be reprocessed. For example, if you are working and getting WFTC and your hours increase or decrease, you have to tell the benefit officers who will STOP THE CLAIM altogether, even if the change is only slight.

You will then wait THREE MONTHS – and the backlog is growing – before you get your benefits back. Landlords are evicting claimants during this period and even the council are sending eviction notices for those in local authority housing despite the fact it’s down to their own mismanagement…. idiots!!!

Also of major concern is the AUTOMATION of many services. People threatened with homelessness have to spend long periods on the phone, being passed from one pointless robotic voice recording to another. One elderly lady racked up £8 in telephone bills! Some kind advice workers have advised us that you can apply for an interim payment, but many do not know this, and the fucking robots on the blower won’t tell you!!!

This is affecting THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE across the city. In the meantime the police, who apparently cannot investigate your crimes, are evicting tenants and squatters while thousands of properties are left vacant in the city as rich property speculators wait until the price is right; nice one!!

What is NICK “LORD SNOOTY” HOOPER, head of housing doing about all this then? What is the red trousered fuckpot doing about this? A big FA. Thousands of families could end up homeless in our city and don’t ignore this – because it could soon be you.

GAGA’S GAG SENSATION

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Nicola Yates: Well, you'd smile too, if you'd been paid off like she has!

“LADY GAGA” DISHING OUT THE GAGS

Looks like council Chief Exec NICOLA “LADY GAGA” YATES has been living up to her name. The BRISTOLIAN can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that over the last year the city council has gagged at least TWELVE departing members of staff, preventing them discussing any aspect of their employment with the council in exchange for CASH.

The total amount of our money spent removing former employees’ human rights is not clear.
However we’ve tracked down a few payments.

One recipient was former finance boss PETER “ROBBIN-US” ROBINSON. Despite resigning last autumn to take up a post in Herefordshire, the sleazy Freemason, notorious at the Council House for corruption COVER-UPS and BULLYING of honest internal audit investigators, was handed £52k in exchange for his silence.

This is someone who resigned. Why are council bosses being paid for resigning? What happened to efficiency and austerity? or is that only for the little people?

The BRISTOLIAN also has traced a further THREE leaving payments to senior bosses last year totalling £389k, only one of which can be identified as a redundancy payment. That’s two more payments of over £100k each.

Senior bosses who have scarpered in the last year include village idiot and (mis)communications expert PETER ‘CLAUDIA-JEAN’ HOLT and belly-flopping major projects manager ALUN ‘IT’S A FUCK UP’ OWEN. Did they receive six-figure payouts? Funny, ‘cause last we heard there were STRICT LIMITS on leaving payments to senior managers ensuring all payments were capped at a maximum of £42,000.

What has Lady Gaga got to hide then? And how much is it costing us?

GREEN SPONSOR FARCE

GREEN IDIOT WATCH

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Clueless, interfering councillor supports high rents in Bedminster and low rents in Redfield.

Decent homes for everyone, but not for Bedminster.

GORMLESS Green councillor, ROB “BEMMIE BOY” TELFORD, Sir Gus Hoyty-Toyty’s Ashley Ward mini-me, has been practising u-turns.

For some reason, back in March, Bemmie Boy took it upon himself to comment on the controversial proposed 15 storey high tower block development at ST KATHERINE’S PLACE at the top of East Street in Bedminster, some TWO MILES from his leafy ward.

“I think the scheme would have a detrimental effect on a lot of the local character, with surrounding trees blocked out from many vistas. The buildings are simply too high and block many other vistas,” pronounced the resident of, er, ST WERBURGHS in a formal letter about the application.

But not only is Bemmie Boy interfering in South Bristol where he’s not wanted, he can’t make up his mind up either. Five months later, just before the planning meeting, he wrote formally again: “Having MET WITH THE ARCHITECTS of this scheme and discussed some of the contentious issues surrounding it, I would like to withdraw my previous objection to this planning application,” he announced.

Why the architects were meeting with the councillor for Ashley to discuss a development miles away in Bedminster isn’t clear.

And neither is it clear why the Bemmie Boy’s Ashley Ward colleague SIR GUS HOYTY-TOYTY also waded into this SOUTH BRISTOL PLANNING ISSUE on the Bristol 24/7 news site with one of his semi-literate internet hissy fits aimed at local, south Bristol Lib Dems who are unhappy with this risible, though highly profitable, scheme that will deliver luxury flats and absolutely No AFFORDABLE HOUSING.

Why have this pair developed such a passionate interest in a multi-million pound property development on the other side of town all of a sudden?

Meanwhile Bemmie Boy, while promoting luxury private developments with high rents for the wealthy in Bedminster, is also fighting “to end rip-off tenancy fees and insecure renting”.
in EAST BRISTOL. Again, an area some two miles from his ward.

Bemmie Boy was spotted in July joining a protest in Redfield organised by the Easton based Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now (ACORN) against estate agent Holbrook Moran and their ripping off of private tenants.

We wonder whether Bemmie Boy informed his fellow protestors about his support for luxury
private developments in South Bristol?

HORSEWORLD: FAITH, HOPE IN CHARITY COMMISSION..?

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Word reaches us that the ongoing saga of bizarre management decisions at much-loved equine charity HorseWorld continues apace, with sector regulator the CHARITY COMMISSION now in the midst of an investigation.

We understand that a number of people have raised the alarm with the Com- mission over SHENANIGANS at the Whitchurch charity, whose well-paid managing director Mark ‘Not That One’ Owen has sacked dozens of staff and closed down the visitor centre since his pie-in-the-sky redevelopment scheme fell at the first hurdle in November.

However, it seems that our old chum Pinocchiowen may have friends in high places, given TEPID responses from the CC which has been at pains to claim that despite being a regulator it is not able to, err, regulate. Instead it’s telling people to talk to the trustees… The very same people who have consistently backed Owen.

Don’t they want to fix HorseWorld?

BRISTOL’S GREAT DRUGS & ALCOHOL SWINDLE (PART 2)

LABOUR PARTY FRUITCAKE

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Fruit cake a Bristol Labour tradition

Bristol Labour party continues a long tradition of foisting BAT SHIT CRAZY fruitcakes on the city.

Please step forward Sue “Who?” Milestone, the putative branch leader of the Bristol & South-West Counties Elvis Presley Fan Club UK and a big fan of Rudolph Steiner, the notorious educationalist with fascist links.

Perhaps a little unclear on the extent of her limited powers, within days of being elected the new Labour councillor for St George West was on Facebook THREATENING a user after they posted some links to very well-known criticisms of Steiner education.

“I am reporting you for posting such utter crap,” exploded the deranged new councillor, perhaps not understanding the difference between “utter crap” and historical fact.

Alas, two weeks later and Facebook are still yet to take any action to prevent its users posting links to information on Steiner.

What’s stopping them? Do they not know who Sue “Who?” Milestone is?

FULLY CHARGED?

SMASH & GRAB IN EAST BRISTOL

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The sun’s been a bit been beating down on Bristol recently – but be warned… It might soon be beneath the shadow of the WRECKING BALL if profiteering developers threatening some of the charms of Victorian East Bristol get their way.

First under threat from demolition is the old Ebenezer Chapel on Midland Road in St Philip’s. A friendly and familiar face greeting passers-by at the end of the Bath-Bristol cy- clepath, Bristol’s first ‘Primitive Methodist’ chapel has been around since 1849, but now FACES THE CHOP thanks to a landlord and developers who want to replace it with some boring, globally uniform apartments.

Ebenezer’s good – for demolition

All of the original fittings have already been ripped out to sell on, with Bristol City Council claiming it’s powerless to prevent the chapel’s destruction. Locals, backed by the Civic Society have pledged to fight on.

Next up for the ARCHITECTURAL KNACKER’S is Avonvale Board School in Redfield, now home to BCC Children’s and Young People’s Services. There are dastardly plans to replace this school, which has years left in it, with a ‘bespoke’ modern building with a much shorter life expectatancy.

Built in 1898-9 by Victorian architect Herber J. Jones – who in his time notched up a few Methodist chapels of his own – its head was once Thomas MacNamara, one of the first teachers to become a government minister.

So why not give the kids of the future a school with a bit of history they can learn about – instead of condemning them to study in an identikit box to satisfy greedy developers and weak-kneed planners who have forgotten the battles to save old Bristol from the bureaucrats in the decades after the War.

We all know the Regency and Victorian heritage of Clifton or Southville wouldn’t be flattened and replaced.

And it shouldn’t happen in working-class East Bristol either!