Tag Archives: #4.7

RED-FACES & TOWN GREENS

When is a NIMBY not a NIMBY? When a Bristol City Councillor decides it’s politically useful – that’s when…

Residents in Horfield fighting to save WELLINGTON HILL PLAYING FIELDS from development are increasingly bemused by the conduct of the landowners, Bristol City Council, who seem prepared to throw any amount of money around to prevent the land becoming a TOWN GREEN and preserved forever as open green space for the community.

“Our experience to date,” locals tell us of the council’s tactics, “is that as soon as one argument is demonstrated to be invalid, an- other is constructed…”

Green spaces are perhaps the one issue where grass roots groups of citizens can successfully take on the council. It’s telling that the council responds by fighting expensively, aggressively and often unfairly against its own citizens rather than compromising with them or at least responding in a constructive and honest fashion.

But then TWO-FACED, lying councillors are happy to support Town Greens in their

own wards whilst simultaneously declaring those who support them elsewhere are not- in-my-back-yard ‘NIMBY’ types. They’re also happy to approve spending on existing Town Greens – while claiming dubiously that new Town Green registrations will cause such payments to dry up.

In the TOPSY-TURVY world of local government, councillors know their decisions are unlikely to be judicially reviewed when they make a wrong decision.

Even if they are, those same councillors are among the first to criticise anyone applying for judicial review as ‘NIMBYs’! And of course the councillors never have to pay for the cost to the taxpayer wasted by their DODGY politicking – while at the same time they will insist that those who dare to challenge them are ‘wasting taxpayers’ money’.

Because politicians are mostly a bunch of hypocrites, our council run on behalf of wealthy landowners rather than ordinary citizens.

++ NEXT ISSUE ++ NEXT ISSUE ++ NEXT ISSUE ++ NEXT ISSUE ++ NEXT ISSUE ++ NEXT ISSUE ++ NEXT ISSUE ++

We’ll be covering the ’Town Green‘ issue in the next issue of The BRISTOLIAN (#4.8) – out soon and available from all the usual stockists!

LABOUR’S NON-MAYOR REES KING DELUSION?

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Marvin: talked shit and lost to a red trousered arse

Martin: preached peace and inspired millions

Belly-flopping Labour Mayoral candidate MARVIN ‘ME, MYSELF, I’ REES appears to have held on to the same high opinions of himself that failed to get him elected ahead of a dodgy millionaire architect in red trousers.

Rees, whose grand election strategy was spouting management jargon whilst cruising around in a chauffeur-driven car and letting a tedious Labour goon in Swindon run his Twitter account, has lately been trying to reinvent himself as a kind of elder statesman of Bristolian politics.

Judging by a recent tweet – from an account he now appears to be updating himself – he’s not quite got the hang of it: “At City Rd Baptist Church service about to read “I Have A Dream” speech (the whole thing). No pressure!!”

Seems Marvin ‘Luther’ Rees has finally given up on the ‘Obama Strategy’ and opted instead for the ‘Dr King Plan’.

This can only end well…

FERGO’S ‘TOP TABLE’: TOO GOOD FOR EQUALITIES!

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The Equalities, Access and Inclusion team at Bristol City Council has been running various training courses for employees.

However, Mayor George Ferguson, his Cabinet and Deputy Mayor ‘Mutton’ Geoff Gollop have snootily said they “didn’t need this training” and have OPTED OUT of it.

An interesting attitude from an all- white, 70 per cent male Cabinet made up entirely of people from Bristol’s political establishment!

Presumably this is because they really do consider themselves torch-bearers for anti-racism, disabilities, anti-sexism etc – and think that BCC employees are the racists, sexists and the rest.

What will Hibaq Jama have to say about this after her recent ‘chat’ with Fergo?

BLACKLIST BLUES: ANOTHER RUBBISH DAY FOR KIER

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More details continue to emerge about the BLACKLISTING activities of Kier Group, the construction giant which bought up May Gurney and now runs Bristol’s rubbish and recycling collection routes.

It seems that Kier paid a WHOPPING £30,620 to the industry-backed spy company The Consulting Association – giving them access to files on 229 workers!

After the recent council vote to ban blacklisters from BCC contracts (see The BRISTOLIAN #4.6), there’s not much else that can go wrong for Kier.

Except be named as the construction company under investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office for direct involvement in illegal snooping practices like ‘blagging’, perhaps?

EXTRA:

Next issue (The BRISTOLIAN #4.8) we will cover the recent on-the-retreat move by blacklisters including Kier to set up a fund to pay out to the thousands of workers they shamefully kept out of work…

JOHN HIRST: SIMILAR TO…?

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John Hirst: An angry man with a fowl temper

Some other chicken farming bloke

News reaches us about long-term friend of The BRISTOLIAN, the former Führer of Broadmead and now the city’s tourism-and-business boss at Destination Bristol JOHN HIRST.

It seems that the ex-shopping centre supremo with the anger management problems has taken up a new hobby to calm his nerves: CHICKEN FARMING.

Now, if only we could think of a well-known chicken farmer from history, then we could end on a cheap punchline…

GAGGED! GAGA’S FAT CAT DOSH SENSATION!

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

With the ink barely dry on her massive pay-off cheques (and gagging orders) to five of Bristol’s departing service directors, we can reveal that Mayor Fergo’s new City Director, Nicola ‘Lady Gaga’ Yates has brought her own TOWN HALL FAT CAT SCANDAL with her: she received her own secretive pay-off of £242,677 as “compensation for loss of office” in 2012.

Tory supporter LADY GAGA departed from her post as Chief Exec of cash-strapped Hull Council soon after Labour started running the administration last year. However, the exact reasons for her departure are unknown because … Wait for it … Both parties have signed a GAGGING ORDER preventing them discussing her dismissal!!

The BRISTOLIAN also learns that the appointment of Lady Gaga was considerably more controversial than MAYOR FERGO has claimed.

Rather than being a “unaninous decision of the appointment panel” as claimed, we’ve been tipped off that the independent recruitment panel members preferred Swindon Chief Exec Gavin Jones.

Presumably he would have come with considerably less baggage and personal wealth?

PAYOFFS TO FAILED COUNCIL MANAGERS NOW TOTAL NEARLY £900K!

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The BRISTOLIAN has learned that in the last year the city’s council taxpayers have doled out an astonishing £875,000 to council leaders for leaving! That’s OVER HALF A MILLION QUID going to failed service directors, and MORE THAN £300K being forked out for two former council bosses to put their feet up at home!

Jan Ormondroyd: doesn’t badly run councils for free, you know

First up, Bristol’s former Chief Exec THE BRADFORD SUN QUEEN, Jan Ormondroyd. She mysteriously ‘quit’ in a bit of a hurry in July 2012 and was handed a SECRET CASH HANDOUT in of around £50k in pay for work she never did – a figure way beyond any redundancy entitlement for a post that wasn’t redundant anyway.

The 57 year old was also given a whopping pension enhancement that saw Bristolians stumping up a further £135k or so. So the total bill to the council taxpayer for the SUN QUEEN to sit at home retired is not far short of £200k.

Stephen McNamara - no wonder he's smiling with a six figure payout from YOU!

Stephen McNamara: with a six figure payout courtesy of YOU, no wonder he’s smiling

Former legal boss, STEPHEN ‘LYCRA’ MCNAMARA followed the SUN QUEEN out the back door last Christmas. Having reinterpreted the law to suit the city’s richest man Steve (“Tax is for the little people”) Lansdown and landed Bristol with an expensive and UNDEFENDABLE JUDICIAL REVIEW into the ASHTON VALE Town Green, Lycra was considered surplus to requirements – and allegedly made redundant. Although, strangely, the post of Chief Legal Officer and Monitoring Officer, Lycra’s old job, still appears to exist and is not redundant at all.

To ease 55 year old Lycra on his way, he was “retired” and given a pension enhancement worth around £60k, three months pay worth around £14k per month, and a further £40k in “COMPENSATION FOR LOSS OF OFFICE”. Of course, Lycra thinks he’s too good for B&Q, so he has a tasty post-retirement ‘consultancy’ with expensive law firm Veale Wasbrough Vizards – best known for (have we mentioned this before?) representing a Catholic private school facing a paedo priest scandal.

The BRISTOLIAN can also reveal that another FIVE council managers, all on six figure salaries, last year shared “exit packages” worth £548K – that’s almost £110k each!!! Obviously all these payments massively exceed pay outs available through the redundancy policy created by Ormondroyd herself to, erm, prevent “excessive pay outs to top managers”.

Perhaps Ormondroyd’s redundancy policy – like taxation, in the opinion of McNamara’s chum Lansdown – only applies to “THE LITTLE PEOPLE”?

Welcome to austerity – Bristol style.

BRISTOL TOP COP GARGAN GETS THE FEAR OVER INTERNET PROFILE PIC!

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Durston Fletcher – no powers of arrest

Are Avon & Somerset TOP COP Nick ‘Hurdy-Gurdy’ Gargan’s well-documented weekend trips to Glastonbury to wear his love like heaven and mellow out on the Tor to ponder, like, the sheer enormity of it all, man, impeding his professional judgement? Or did he ingest something other than an extra strong herbal tea infusion during his last visit, at the peak of the MAGIC MUSHROOM SEASON, to deepest Somerset’s hippy haven?

Coming up with the kind of deranged paranoid nonsense that only takes shape at two in the morning over a bowl of dry Rice Krispies and the LAST OF THE CUSTARD CREAMS, The Hurdy Gurdy Man issued urgent instructions one Monday morning, immediately after one of his Isle of Avalon trips, that the presenter of hit radio show ‘From Bristol With Love’ Durston Fletcher must remove his Twitter and Facebook avatar immediately as it “could be deemed to be impersonating a police officer”!

The avatar in question is a picture of The Bill’s Reg Hollis as played by actor Jeff Stewart and so far, unsurprisingly, nobody outside of Hurdy Gurdy Gargan and his elite team of top TIE-DYED DETECTIVES has yet managed to confuse Durston with an actual copper.

However, to help out our confused top cop and the rest of his disoriented crew of addled Old Bill, Durston has now installed a new special message on his avatar: ‘I am not a copper’ it helpfully explains.

Hopefully this will clear matters up enough for the Avon & Somerset to continue with their duties and for Hurdy Gurdy Gargan to concentrate on realigning his chakras.

NO RED TAPE FOR REDPANTS’ PALS! MAYOR FERGO TO GIVE MERCHANT VENTURERS FREE REIN IN PARKS & LIBRARIES..?

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Mayor George Ferguson’s old friends and colleagues in the rich posh boys’ club the MERCHANT VENTURERS seem to be doing all right out of his administration…

STEPHEN PARSONS, in his role as chair of the governors of BRISTOL CATHEDRAL SCHOOL, looks set to take over TWO FLOORS of the Bristol Central Library with few questions asked for his primary ‘free school’ project.

DAVID FREED, director of upmarket property developers DEELEY FREED, has been handed a sizable chunk of CASTLE PARK to concrete over. At least we now know what Mayor Redpants meant when he said he was going to get things done.

Nothing to see here, honest!

Meanwhile, Fergo’s extensive and highly involved business interests in the city have attracted the attention of the council’s official auditors, Grant Thornton. “[A] review of the Mayor’s declarations of interest found a number of organisations with which the Council have had interaction which have not been included within the related parties transactions note,” they say in their ‘Audit Findings for Bristol City Council’.

No doubt it’s all just a big misunderstanding that cash-strapped millionaire George will set straight when he’s able to take time out of his busy schedule.

Edited to add:

It seems that the audit report linked to above is now mysteriously ‘unavailable’ on the Bristol City Council website – so download it direct from The BRISTOLIAN website here!

Edited again to add:

It would now appear that the Council decided to change the document’s address on the BCC website (at around 6pm on a Friday afternoon!) as soon as it was realised that The BRISTOLIAN was linking to it.

You can find the document in question via this direct link, or you can click on the link at item 11 on the agenda of the Audit Committee meeting of 24 September 2013 here…