The Reverend Rees told long-suffering journalists daft enough to attend his stillborn ‘CITY OFFICE’ launch last month that he planned to tackle “inequalities within leadership roles” by changing the people who are awarded the top jobs.
“This will mean having leaders from HARTCLIFFE and AVONMOUTH as well as Clifton”, he assured an audience invited and organised by his old, white, highly paid, Cambridge educated right hand man and personally appointed “leader”, council Chief Exec, Stephen “OAP” Hughes from, er, Birmingham.
Who thinks Hughes could even find Hartcliffe on a map?
Labour’s Southmead councillor and cabinet member for climate change stuff, working class man of the people, Kye “The” Dudd, has another shit idea in the pipeline that will dump on a working class community.
“With the Local Plan review, we’re looking at allocations in the Avonmouth area for wind turbines,” he blustered at the Nazi Post recently.
“Within our boundaries, that’s probably the best option. There are other options outside our boundaries, but obviously that’s not for us to decide.
Not strictly true. “Probably the best option” within Bristol is the Merchant Venturer-managed Downs, which have the best wind patterns in the city. How about the comfortably well-off posh of Clifton and Stoke Bishop lead on our climate emergency commitments for once and host a few wind turbines?
A direct challenge to the wealthy and influential of the city that great big pussy and bootlicker of the wealthy, The Dudd, is way too scared to pursue.
No sign of the private sector cash that’s supposed to pour into the City Leap public-private partnership to decarbonise the city.
One new project is “an £11m programme of energy efficient upgrades for fuel poor homes”, funded by the Department for Energy for just 150 homes across WECA.
Another project will spend £890k on heat decarbonisation plans and designs for council buildings. Funded by the, er, taxpayer through the Department for Energy. The plan is then to grab more government grants to fund the work.
Despite the smalltime public money approach, local journalists breathlessly report that shadowy ‘council bosses’ have told them “City Leap would lead to a massive extra 180 megawatts of renewable energy generation in Bristol.”
Bristol City Council’s wind turbines and solar farm in Avonmouth currently generate about 4.3 megawatts so that’s a 42 fold increase then.
The appearance of a thin City Leap summary business plan for the public is another outing for a proposed ‘Strategic Heat Main’. To run from Avonmouth where UK-wide waste is burned on an industrial scale to Bristol city centre where the shiny new heat networks are being built for the shiny new people.
This pipe dream pipeline run euphemistically on ‘low carbon heat’ is currently touted to cost around £100m out of the £200m or so the private sector may invest in ‘decarbonisation’ in Bristol.
Because the best way to get to net zero is definitely to burn – in working class Avonmouth – shitloads of polluting rubbish imported from London then use the energy to cheaply power a heat network for wealthy folk in the centre.
Worth around £500m, Merchant Venturer weirdo Andrew Nisbet of Nisbets PLC, a catering supplier in Avonmouth, is one of Bristol’s and the UK’s richest men.
No surprise to learn, then, that this super-rich slave trade cultist fired over 400 staff during lockdown. Despite Nisbets trousering £9m in government Covid cash and the firm’s hard-pressed directors sharing £2.3m that year.
Employment websites Glassdoor and Indeed reveal few positives about the firm. Recurring themes at the Avonmouth warehouse operation are low pay, monitoring of loo breaks, blame culture, bullying, nepotism and unachievable sales targets. All ignored by a useless HR team.
Comments from former staff include: “This place is the worst by a long mile. Surprised they’ve not been exposed like Sports Direct”; “KEEP AWAY! UNLESS YOU WANT TO WORK IN A MODERN DAY SWEAT SHOP!”; Absolute Joke of a company to work for!”; “WORST JOB EVER!”
On the bright side, Key West Holdings (Nisbets’ parent company) generously donated £1.5m to the Nisbet Trust, the family charitable trust. This money was then handed to charities around Bristol.
Let’s hope Nisbet’s filthy cash from misery is worth it.
Highly paid waste bosses bought luxury lifestyles with public money while cutting our services.
Despite the best efforts of Bristol City Council to keep it under wraps, there’s a major corruption scandal brewing at Bristol Waste.
Multiple sources have now approached The Bristolian telling us that some firms using the weighbridge (or Transfer Station as they now call it) at Avonmouth tip on Kings Weston Lane to dispose of their waste were not formally paying for the service. Instead considerable sums of dirty money have been changing hands behind the scenes between bent bosses.
The Avonmouth weighbridge is a straightforward system that’s easy to monitor with limited opportunities for systematic fraud without the collusion of senior bosses.
Trucks carrying commercial waste drive onto the weighbridge, present a Waste Carriers License, have their registration recorded and the vehicle weighed. The waste is then tipped and the truck returns to a weighbridge and is weighed again. A charge per kilo of waste is automatically calculated, charged to the firm and a waste transfer note issued.
Workers ripping this system off without bosses knowing would be tricky as there’s automated records of how much waste has been recorded as tipped and how much money is collected. The two figures are easily accessible to management and would need to tally. And they didn’t … For years.
Our sources tell us certain firms have been systematically not charged, obviously with the full knowledge and assistance of Bristol Waste bosses. Firms named to us include major corporate players in the waste industry. Who were they paying for their waste disposal?
We understand that a significant whistleblower stepped forward last summer and this resulted in the immediate exit of Bristol Waste MD Terry “I Am The” Lawless and his finance director sidekick Adam “Dumb” Henshaw.
We also understand that Bristol City Council has been undertaking one of its painfully slow arse-covering investigations ever since. When they intend to report, if ever, isn’t known.
Meanwhile, our street cleaning is being reduced, flytipping not collected and public opening times at waste tips slashed to make up a financial shortfall partly created by thieving bosses on generous six-figure salaries. All conveniently helped out by our council’s slack oversight of a council taxpayer-owned business.
Further concerns have also been raised with The Bristolian over what materials may have been tipped at Avonmouth. If Bristol Waste bosses were breaking the law to fill their boots why would they be bothered about hazardous waste regulations?
Further tip-offs about Bristol Waste we’re currently investigating include stories of bosses signing off massive expense claims for themselves and the latest recently departed interim MD, Jason Eldridge, making generous and expensive use of Plan B Waste Management consultancy. Where a Mr Shaun Eldridge works – Jason’s brother!
Isn’t it about time Inspector Knacker got involved?
Got any info’ on Bristol Waste and its bent bosses? Contact the Bristolian bristoliannews@gmail.com. Discretion assured.
Why has Bristol City Council’s External Comms Team been supplying wedding photos of SEND parents to Education Director, Alison “Pervy” Hurley? Is this normal?
We told you so. Now here’s the evidence. Bristol City Council’s SEND department has been systematically spying on SEND parents on the internet and social media. Then collating and cataloguing the results and sharing them with senior Bristol City Council education managers, including that useless oaf and third class human being, Education Director, Alison “Pervy” Hurley, as well as various third party organisations. Who the fuck are these people? Bristol’s own Stasi?
The first document we can reveal is an email to Hurley and her freakish gang of unethical education bosses outlining the people spied on and the methods deployed to gather the information. A table of information and PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHS of the parents in question were attached to this email.
Of particular note is the comment at point 2 in the email ” … External Comms deduced this is XX as image is the same as wedding photos on XX’s personal Facebook site. Attached”
Yes, you read that right. Members of BCC’s creepy External Communications team, paid to communicate with the press and public, have been hunting through SEND parents’ personal photo collections on Facebook, downloading highly personal pictures (wedding photos FFS!)and sharing them with grateful Council House bosses.
Has Hurley now got wedding photos of SEND parents with large pins stuck in them all over her attic? Or is she up to something really weird and kinky with them?
We’re reliably informed that external comms staff would have had to search for the wedding photo in question. It wasn’t a Facebook profile photo in front of them. It was buried in the user’s photo folder with lots of other personal items.
Leaving aside that this is likely unlawful as it would classify as covert surveillance, it is also vile, anti-social behaviour and a wholly unacceptable way to be treating members of the public who pay your wages. All those responsible should be hanging their heads in shame and considering their positions.
Did no one involved in this think that the material they were accessing was way too personal and intrusive and complain to their bosses that the work was demeaning? What’s wrong with them? Would they want their wedding photos and details of their personal lives collected and randomly circulated, without their knowledge or agreement, to Hurley and her freakshow of Council House bosses to use for god knows what?
The Head of External Comms is, of course, The Reverend’s disgraced personal PR bully Saskia “Hindley” Konynenburg. When not bullying local journalists, it seems this unbalanced individual spends council time secretly rifling through strangers’ personal photo collections on Facebook and gleefully sharing the contents with her colleagues. Lovely stuff. What a wonderful person and exceptional public servant.
The second document is a table listing some harmless social media comments, mainly from just two SEND parents. A further three parents are also identified in the document as “critical commenters”. A number of local SEND campaigning groups are also thrown in and named and shamed for Hurley’s benefit.
The table was circulated to the Hurley education freakshow and to third party organisations. This type of surveillance and sharing of people’s social media activity is unlikely to be lawful. But, again, the critical issue is as much one of basic taste and sensibility.
What the fuck do these Council House freaks think they’re doing with our personal information and why?
There is a statement on this matter from the Bristol City Council and a response from the Bristol Parent Carer Forum here.
While Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos, plays at Star Wars, his new employees aren’t feeling the force. Initially drawn in by a decent pay offer, starting at £11 ph, they soon realise it ain’t worth it.
Amazon has a massive warehouse in Avonmouth. When we say massive, we mean bleeding enormous. One worker tells us they have a five minute walk, after stashing their stuff in their lockers, to get to their work station.
The work station amounts to a fenced-off booth. You cannot see your colleagues and are not allowed to talk to them. You are stuck there for your 10 1/2 hour shift with one conveyor belt coming in and one going out. One brings the goods in which you pack and then the other takes them out.
During your 10 1/2 shift you are expected to pack 92 parcels every hour. That’s nearly impossible and puts great strain on the workers. The only human contact is managers poking their noses in to check that you are keeping up with your quota.
Workers get two 30 minute breaks but with a five minute walk there and another five minutes back. it does not give you enough time to eat anything substantial.
The worst thing about the working arrangements is that the employees have to stand all day. This is fine if you are a fucking hobbit but difficult if you are over 5 foot 2. Most workers complain of back and leg pain.
After a four day shift under these conditions, they are knackered. Most do not last long and there is a continuous stream of new employees who work until they cannot take it anymore. Only to be replaced by someone who looks at the wages but hasn’t got a clue about the working conditions.
Unions are trying to organise in there. While Amazon refuse to recognise any union for collective bargaining. If you are effected by these working practises by these working practises, want to fight back and want to know more, give ’em a shout.iww.org.uk/bristol
Eighteen days after his election and the Reverend Rees still hasn’t managed to find a full cabinet for his second term.
Despite reappointing his ‘Infamous Five’, the two deputy mayors – Craig “Dick” Cheney and Asher “The Slasher” Craig – his anointed successor – Helen “Oh My” Godwin – court favourite – Nicola “La La” Beech – and aging makeweight – HRH Helen of Holland – Rees still has no cabinet members to run Transport, Housing or Education.
Neither is the Reverend intending, it seems, to reach out to the Greens by giving them some cabinet seats after they decimated his councillors and destroyed his majority at the election.
What is his plan then? Is the Reverend going to end all pretence of democracy in Bristol and simply let council managers and appointed One City business wankers run these departments any way they see fit?
Questions are also being asked about the appointment of La La Beech to the Climate, Ecology, Waste and Energy brief. Here, among other things, she’ll nursemaid through Rees’s deranged City Leap public asset sell-off to a multinational company. This may result in the burning of as much shit as possible in Avonmouth to generate loads of lucrative dirty (surely clean? Ed.) energy.
Alas, it turns out that La La Beech, in her day job as a corporate PR consultant, lists one of her clients as the National Grid. is there a conflict of interest here at all?
The shape of the YTL/Wessex Water public relations response to the death of four of their staff in an explosion at their Avonmouth sewage plant on Thursday is becoming apparent.
Fronted by Merchant Venturer sleazeball Colin Skellett, there’s a focus on this Bath resident’s attachment to Avonmouth and what the wealthy Tory patriarch calls the ‘Wessex Water family’.
Talk of ‘family’ reminds us of hit and miss leftie luvvie author, George Orwell. Here’s what he had to say when he compared England to a family:
“[England] resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control – that, perhaps is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”
