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HI HO, HI HO IT’S OFF TO THE OMBUDSMAN WE GO …

Opening salvo against that scabrous little Tory shit, housing boss, Hooper …

From: s-norman123@hotmail.co.uk
To: faircomment@bristol.gov.uk
CC: wayne.harvey@bristol.gov.uk; matthew.melias@bristol.gov.uk; sw1ne2001@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: RE: FORMAL COMPLAINT
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 10:14:48 +0000

On December 17 I received a letter, ‘Re: report of anti-social behaviour’ from Nick Hooper, Service Director, Housing Solutions and Crime Reduction. A copy of the letter is attached. An identical letter was sent to XXX XXXXXX.

The letter is partial, inaccurate and breaches my rights under Article 6 of the ECHR. I further believe that Hooper’s correspondence is a crude attempt to bully and harass me.

My specific concerns are:

Hooper appears to have conducted some kind of investigation in to me, which I was unaware of and which I was not invited to take part in. I have been given no opportunity via Hooper’s ad hoc process to provide evidence nor cross examine the evidence of others. There therefore appears to have been a covert investigation in to me by Hooper who has then gone on to draw conclusions. This breaches natural justice and my rights under Article 6 of the ECHR while Hooper’s covert investigation also meets the definition of ‘directed surveillance’ under RIPA. Hooper’s failure to inform us of an investigation and involve us in his investigation is therefore unlawful.
Hooper is a housing officer. He is neither a lawyer nor a police officer. He is therefore neither skilled nor qualified to undertake an investigation into potentially criminal matters. Hooper is acting beyond his limited powers.
Hooper accuses me of “behave[ing] in an anti-social manner” and “disrupt[ing] a councillors’ surgery” but provides no supporting evidence to back up these claims. The statements are therefore defamatory, intended to bully and harass.
Hooper has failed to follow your Code of Conduct for Investigations policy, which provides an easy to follow format to conduct, “Formal management investigations arising where managers request an issue to be investigated where that issue does not fall within one of the recognised policies”.
I am concerned that as a candidate at the last election in Avonmouth, I have been the victim of political bias. Hooper’s letter has been written on behalf of a Conservative councillor for Avonmouth and is totally accepting of and biased to their point of view. Hooper’s post is politically restricted. This means not only should he not engage in party politics but that he needs to be seen to not be engaging in party politics

What I require:

1. Hooper to withdraw his letter and all the claims and accusations contained therein.

2. Hooper to write and apologise to me.

3. If you still wish to pursue this pointless matter, a proper investigation into the events of December 3 needs to take place that is conducted openly, fairly and according to your policies and the law by a suitably qualified and skilled practitioner.

Finally, I note that Hooper is a Service Director. Your complaints procedure states, “The manager responsible for the service will look into the concerns”. As the manager of the service, however, I do not expect to see Hooper investigating himself. I therefore request that a senior officer at a grade above Hooper look into our concerns. I’d be grateful if you could inform me, at the earliest opportunity, who this will be. Please note, I will expect this investigating officer to personally sign off their conclusions rather than dumping it on to an unsuspecting and disposable minion.

Kind regards,

Steven Norman

Tel: 0117 2398042
Mob: 07747490902

DIRECT ACTION GETS RESULTS FOR FLY-INFESTED AVONMOUTH RESIDENTS!

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Looks like Mayor Fergo and his sidekick Green Gusset have caved in to demands by angry locals in Avonmouth that Bristol City Council step up and resolve the FLY INFESTATION caused by incompetent biomass profiteers BoomEco – with fumigation and insecticides being made available to those affected from tomorrow.

To book your visit from the pest control crew or to pick up some fly spray/paper, just pop in to the library, or contact your local councillor – that’s Wayne Harvey (07769 131 094) and Matthew Melias.

So well done on everyone up there dockside for fighting the good fight – and keep up the pressure!

In the meantime, here’s a video of last weekend’s protest…

ANGRY AVONMOUTH RESIDENTS TAKE TO THE STREETS OVER BIOMASS FLY INFESTATION

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No flies on this kid! Protest by angry Avonmouth locals – against Boomeco, the biomass company which caused a plague of flies to descent on the village, and the authorities who have failed to sort it out – reaches Crowley Way.

Local residents in Avonmouth today said ‘enough is enough’ after the FAILURE of Bristol City Council, millionaire mayor George Ferguson, the Environment Agency and the Bristol Port Company to sort out the appalling fly infestation in the portside village – and marched on the offices of the biomass profiteers responsible, Boomeco.

After assembling at Avonmouth Park, around SIXTY ANGRY LOCALS have been on a walkabout around the town, periodically blocking roads to get their message across, as they head towards the offices of the controversial waste recycling company Boomeco.

The invasion of flies has been traced back to POOR PRACTICES AT BOOMECO, which bundles up and trades in rubbish – quaintly rebranded ‘biomass’ or ‘refuse derived fuel’ – which is then burnt to create electricity. Further fly infestations are expected if a planned new biomass power plant is built at Avonmouth docks.

Here’s a press release from the protesters:

Residents of Avonmouth are in the process of marching on the offices of the Bristol Port Company due to their their ongoing failure to deal with a recent fly infestation caused by biomass exporters Boomeco at their facility in Avonmouth.

Local elected representatives have failed to address and alleviate this problem and now Bristol Port Company want to lease a section of land to the Day Group for the storage of incinerator bottom ash less than 500 metres from residences in Avonmouth.

The campaign is led by recent independent candidate and seasoned campaigner Stephen Norman after numerous emails to the Mayor, the Port Company and Mr Oliver Latter of Boomeco have been ignored.

Residents have become frustrated at the lack action to stop such industry being attracted by the Port Company like the proposed building of a Biomass plant at the dock.

Mr Norman says the campaign will go ‘on tour’ at chosen strategic venues causing peaceful disruption until common sense prevails.

A leaflet from the Avonmouth Dust Forum also asks local residents affected by the plague of disease-spreading flies to contact as many authorities as possible in order to get this DANGEROUS HEALTH HAZARD sorted.

» Avonmouth Dust Forum flyer (May 2014)

More news as we get it…

MORE CARE CHAOS

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The BRISTOLIAN has already broken news on how bungling managers in a desperate attempt to save money have cut services to the vulnerable.

They have lumped together elderly people suffering with dementia with adults with learning difficulties, some of whom have challenging behavior and can be violent. Then the council cut
staff. People are already being hurt and needs are not being met. The policy is absolutely nuts.

So what are they doing now? increasing staff levels? making things safe? Don’t be daft. They are offering the staff who are left redundancy!

And the poor sods who are working in these conditions are running for the exit, which will lead to more dangerous conditions for staff and service users.

DO NOT GET OLD IN THIS CITY. THEY DO NOT GIVE A FUCK.

The two muppets responsible for all this, senior social care bosses SHEENA ‘GRIM REAPER’ HUGGINS and VARETA ‘MAD DOG’ BRYAN have now turned their attention to the Bush residential. This is a home for children with learning difficulties who live at home. The service gives a break to parents who look after their children and the plans are to CUT THE SERVICE BY 50%.

If parents lose this service, some will have to put their children in residential care, costing us, the tax payer, a whole lot more than the £250K these demented managers think they are going to save.

Parents were only given a couple of hours notice of a meeting to discuss the plans while managers know full well that these caring parents find it difficult to drop everything to come to meeting.

The council are refusing to talk properly to the parents mainly because they know their plans are barking mad and dangerous but they don’t care. ‘Mad Dog’ is getting a
redundancy package of tens of thousands of pounds soon. A suitable reward for decimating
services and lives?

Don’t let them get away with it. These managers should be held fully accountable for their decisions, the cost to our city and the destroyed lives.

When will they stop? When they finally kill someone?

A READER WRITES: COLIN COLEMAN ON THE POLLUTION OF AVONMOUTH

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A reader’s impassioned plea for a cleaner Avonmouth where development benefits local residents:

Avonmouth is the DUMPING GROUND OF BRISTOL. Historically Imperial Smelting, Bristol Chemicals, Fisons, Rodia, ICI, Carbon Black and many other chemical companies have come and polluted the area with lead, sulphur and other dangerous chemicals. We had to have sirens – like the air raid sirens from the Second World War – installed to warn us to keep our windows closed. They have all been and gone now.

Now our little village is inundated with the stench that emanates from the sewage works. We have more ‘Waste Recycling Plants’ dotted around Avonmouth than is healthy. We have food waste composting plants, where the contents of all of Bristol’s little brown bins end up (together with all the fly larvae), and rubbish compacting plants that serve most if not all of Bristol. And now we have to suffer ‘biomass’ that is going to make the fly invasion even worse.

I blame Mr Ferguson and the whole of the Bristol Council. It is they that give planning permission to allow companies to operate and pollute people who live in the locality. Over the years they have tried to kill the area with chemical waste. Now we have to live like people in third world countries, with the stench of raw sewage. Blankets of dust covering the area. Explosions rattling the windows and then inundated with plagues of flies. We all pay Council Tax in and around Avonmouth, the same as the rest of the Bristol Area. WHAT DO WE GET BACK for that money?

I firmly believe it is about time the people of Avonmouth took Bristol City Council to task and asked why so many waste, recycling and biomass companies have been allowed to set up so close to habitation, and what is being done by those companies to control effluent and contamination of the local area.

On Mr Ferguson’s sale of Bristol Port: I Wonder what the value of the land is as industrial development land? I believe it is not only Bristol Port that is up for sale but also Portbury Dock. If you were to buy the equivalent amount of land to set up a port, how much would it cost? The Port Company are rightly developing the land so it makes them a good profit – but this also increases traffic servicing this growth, plus all the development that is happening in the area, like all the new warehouses and distribution centres. WHAT IS BEING DONE about all the increased heavy haulage as far as roads and increased air pollution from exhausts?

It is noted that although we have signs saying we have ‘uneven’ road surfaces as a result of heavy traffic and weather etc. Nothing seems to be being done to fix the problem.

I could carry on about all the things wrong with Avonmouth. The biggest plus for Avonmouth is the people that live here. We are a small village that has been overtaken by industry, but we are also a thriving community who care for each other, We have comparatively little crime and our children can play without being supervised all the time. We do have a lot to be grateful for because we do try and pull together. IT IS THE PEOPLE OF AVONMOUTH THAT MAKES IT A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE.

It seems the Council don’t want us to be happy together. If you don’t want to live in a third world village polluted by stench, dust, explosions, flies and everything else they can throw at us, then complain to the Environment Agency, Bristol City Council, George Ferguson, your local Member of Parliament (Lying Brigade) and the local councillors who are supposed to have your best interests at heart (if they have one).

Bristol City Council is profiting from the increased revenue from the increased development in the area – so why don’t the spend some of it trying to make the people of Avonmouth’s lives a little better? We are surrounded by industry yet pay standard Council Tax with no deduction for the pollution we have to endure. Industry around us has no thought for its close neighbours. They may employ some people from Avonmouth, but only because they enhance the companies profitability.

By Colin Coleman (Avonmouth Resident)

BRISTOL ARTS SECTOR DOWN THE SHITTER AS INFAMOUS ‘URINAL BOSS’ BRINDLEY SLASHES OVER ARNOLFINI!

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Following The BRISTOLIAN‘s report last month about the city’s crisis-hit upper class gallery-bar-cinema Arnolfini, it seems that the management team there has decided the best way to right the good ship Analphoney is to appoint KATE ‘SLASHER’ BRINDLEY as Interim Director.

Slasher, a contemporary art bullshitter of the highest order and a former director of Bristol City Council’s Museums Service, is popular among Bristol’s arty-farty/luvvie nexus for her role in bringing the Banksy exhibition to Bristol in 2009 – and because they’ve never had to actually work for her.

However, she is less fondly remembered by staff in the Museums Service, where she FIRED MORE THAN THIRTY WORKERS and downgraded and de-skilled the whole of the expert curatorial staff to save a few quid.

After all, who needs any knowledge or expertise to care for the load of crap created in the modern art self-promotion industry?

Museums insiders have told The BRISTOLIAN that if the ‘Phoney’s in financial trouble and Slasher’s at the helm, then the gallery’s 24 staff will inevitably be TARGETED FOR CUTS. They have been warned.

So what has Slasher been doing with herself during her five years away from Bristol? Well, she’s been the boss of Middlesborough’s controversial Arts Council-funded contemporary art gallery, MiMA – so any hopes the ‘Phoney has that Brindley will be increasing their visitor numbers may be premature.

Whilst at MiMA Slasher actually oversaw A DRASTIC FALL in visitor numbers at the unpopular gallery, and in 2012 a group of Middlesborough residents branded her gallery “THE MOST EXPENSIVE PUBLIC URINAL IN THE WORLD”.

The claim was made after a group of residents sat in the gallery’s cafe for a week and counted visitors to the white elephant. They discovered that more people visited the gallery to use the loos than to see Slasher’s boring exhibitions!

Middlesborough Council later published their own visitor figures for the week, which were much higher – but included 212 visitors on a Monday when the place was closed. They later had to admit that this was because they counted people who walked through the gallery’s car park as visitors!

The latest fun and games at the Analphoney began on 1 April (when else?) when Slasher took up her post. It remains to be seen who the fool is – the ‘Phoney’s trustees for hiring her, or us for footing the bill come the inevitable bail-out…

BRISTOL’S MISSING MONEY SCANDAL CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM AS CASH LOSS BOSS QUITS

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Who’s this manager urgently clearing their desk at Bristol City Council – and collecting a large wedge of redundancy cash?

Why, it’s only the Head of Security Services, PETE ‘PANSY’ PARKINSON, whose department is at the centre of an on-going and seemingly endless investigation into missing cash-in-transit money at the council (see The BRISTOLIAN #4.8). That’s now more than six months and counting…

No doubt it can only be purely coincidental that one of TONY HARVEY‘s subordinate bullies should choose this difficult time – just as a financial investigation breathes down his neck – to jump ship?

Meanwhile, dark rumours from within his department that all was not well when auditors searched Pansy’s computer recently can now, presumably, be quietly disregarded?

WOTTA DOCKER SHOCKA! MORE BULLYING EXPOSED AT BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL…

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TOP COUNCIL MANAGERS TURN A BLIND EYE TO BONKERS BOSS’S BIZARRE BEHAVIOUR ON THE DOCKS

The BRISTOLIAN can reveal that the city council’s DOCKS SERVICE is at the centre of a BULLYING SCANDAL stretching back years.

Bristol City Council’s docks boss Tony Nichols considers how to keep the scurvy sea dogs under him in line

Staff at the docks service, based at Underfall yard, have been persistently bullied by docks boss CAPTAIN TONY ‘AHAB’ NICHOLS and documents seen by The BRISTOLIAN reveal that he has even been openly targeting union representatives, apparently with impunity. As usual, senior council bosses’ response, despite a huge amount of evidence against Cap’n Ahab, has been LIMP AND PATHETIC.

Last year staff even uncovered an email from Ahab to his supervisory team (or “wankers” as he calls them when they’re not around) that openly attacked highly skilled and knowledgeable docks staff and union reps by name for being lazy and incompetent.

He accused them of “sitting on their backsides doing nothing”; “doing next to nothing for £17k a year” and claimed “99% of [people] would make a better job of it after 2 weeks training”.

He even had a pop at the public trying to use his increasingly poor and inaccessible service, saying we “need to plan our lives a bit better” to suit his crappy timetable! He then rounded off his email by explaining how he was dumbing down his staffs’ jobs so he could cut their paltry wages and benefits further!

When staff complained last year, Ahab’s bosses finally agreed to launch an investigation into this MAD MANAGER. However, the investigation lasted so long that the boss running the investigation retired before it was complete!

Council bosses then held a DISCIPLINARY HEARING IN SECRET for Ahab, which called no witnesses and decided that the best course of action was for staff to attend an equalities workshop and for Cap’n Ahab to deliver an apology to his staff and then let him to carry on as usual!

Staff are reported to be less than impressed with this outcome and tensions within the department are reputed to be “very high indeed” while there’s increasing evidence of “reduced performance in the service” while “sickness levels have soared”.

Our expert in workplace psychology says, “it’s pretty clear to any objective observer that Nichols is unfit for purpose and cannot do the job he’s paid to do. He appears to be suffering from a personality disorder of some kind and maybe other untreated mental health problems. He is simply NOT FIT TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for his staff or even to behave in a socially acceptable manner.”

“Basically long-suffering dock workers are being managed by a nutter and no one’s doing anything about it.”

KNOW YOUR ENEMY #1: MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ – BRISTOL’S NEW ‘STRATEGIC DIRECTOR FOR BUSINESS CHANGE’

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MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ - There'll be hell toupee with him in charge...

MAX WIDE ‘BOY’: Hell toupee with him in charge…

A visit to Bristol from Julian Silverman of the Barnet Alliance For Public Services has shone some light on Mayor Fergo’s recent appointment of MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ as his ‘Strategic Director for Business Change’.

Julian is an anti-cuts campaigner who has been fighting wholesale privatisation at the so-called ‘Easy Council’ which runs the London Borough of Barnet. Its mass privatisation of local services, named after budget airline EasyJet, was personally organised by Wide Boy when he was Barnet’s Director of Planning whilst on secondment from BT. It was always unclear whether Wide Boy was actually working for BT or the council.

Wide Boy quickly became notorious in Barnet for coining odd and sinister catchphrases such as “LEARN TO LOVE A RECESSION” and “NEVER WASTE A GOOD CRISIS” – and Julian explained how Wide Boy’s weirdo statements seem to have come straight out of the pages of a Naomi Klein book, The Shock Doctrine.

The book describes an extreme free market economic dogma that creates or manipulates economic crises to justify the mass transfer of public wealth and resources into the hands of the private sector. Usually at knockdown prices and always involving the transfer of wealth from us – the poor – to them – the rich.

Wideboy will be commuting to Bristol daily from LEAFY FROME, where he campaigns in his spare time to get supermarkets built, and it is obvious he is being brought in to deliver Mayor Redpants’ mass privatisation agenda for our public services.

Watch this space…

WORKERS REVOLT AGAINST HORSEWORLD BOSSES?

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After having their ridiculous plan to sell off land to developers (who planned to build more than a hundred high-end houses on the site) turned down by BANES council, in February HorseWorld’s bosses threw a hissy fit and shuttered the charity’s visitor centre.

Managing Director Mark ‘Not That One’ Owen and his team also started doling out redundancy notices to long-suffering staff – as well as setting the legal rottweilers onto The BRISTOLIAN for publishing the truth.

Yes, just as Pinocchiowen and his clique were getting down to making some of the strangest business decisions ever – such as closing down a vital revenue stream and the charity’s strongest connection to the wider public – they also decided to try and impose a media blackout. To achieve this they hired tinpot law firm Burges Salmon to try and put the frighteners on local news sources, threatening all sorts of badness to anyone who dared to report on Owen’s crazy antics.

But whilst this might have worked on the student hacks of Bristol University’s Epigram paper, it did not on your super soaraway ‘Smiter’. We called their bluff and pointed out that in ten months of highly accurate, detailed reporting on HorseWorld we had heard not a peep from them claiming anything we printed was wrong.

Since then the legal threats have dried up, and a number of other outlets, including the Nazi Post, BBC Bristol, ITV West, The Week In and the Western Daily Press have all since published critical pieces. Funny, that!

Meanwhile, the situation for those who actually look after animals is looking increasingly rocky. Twenty-four workers face the boot, for no reason other than their bosses made a balls-up of the management of the charity. On a positive note, despite Owen & Co trying to keep all of this under wraps, staff are fighting back, with around half those under threat now represented by the GMB union.

Owen might yet lose that prized Audi…