“A mate of mine was involved in the Beacon renovation bid for Balfour Beatty and says it was a total sham. They lost (obviously) and told the council that nobody could possibly fulfill the contract at the requested cost.
“The council ignored them. Then, after agreeing to go with Wilmott Dixon, the council were, mysteriously, “forced to increase the budget” after the contractor had removed the roof of the building!”
The council has now announced a £75m overspend on the project.
Criminal polluter: Oliver “Bankrupt” Latter, ho!, ho!
Oh dearie me, seems times are very hard indeed for Oliver Latter’s criminal polluting waste firm, BOOMECO. For it seems the Avonmouth recycling firm that packages up waste and exports it to Sweden to be incinerated for a tasty fee from Bristol City Council is up for sale!
Meanwhile reports emerge that the firm procured by Mayor Rubbish just six months ago – after the snooty liar denied he intended to do any such thing – is on the verge of BANKRUPTCY. “There’s very little activity around their yard these days,” we’re assured.
Whether Latter will be able to offload his useless polluting firm that was fined £19k recently for infesting Avonmouth with flies and is also subject to a legal class action from 200 local residents over this issue is a moot point.
Our spies tell us that corporate giants BALFOUR BEATTY have already declined an offer to buy the firm and its expensive legal action. We also understand other Avonmouth firms, many with dubious clean air credentials themselves, are watching this class action unfold with increasing concern.
Watch this space …
Avonmouth councillors will be at the local NEIGHBOURHOOD FORUM. We want to challenge them over there over their continued failure to represent the best interests of the residents of Avonmouth and their support of the building of the Biomass incinerator.
Venue: Avonmouth Community Centre
Time: 6.30pm
On Wednesday we need further support at Shitty Hall which is when the planning application will be heard to approve the incinerator. Lets make sure we make it a 5 November to remember!
Lets give ’em one hell of a firework display!
Photocall on the Green: 5.15 -5.30
Main Event: 6.00pm
Click to view document
We’ve been LABOURing over this cabinet report LEAK about the financial black hole emerging in the city’s white elephant BRT bus project.
The report that we’re publishing and which has no council managers’ name anywhere near it to take ownership and responsibility for the shambles, lists a series of overspends due to the inflated FINANCIAL DEMANDS of corporate civil engineering firms for work on the Ashton Vale – Temple Meads bus route.
So far, before any work has even begun, costs for works on the Ashton Avenue Bridge; bridges at the Bathurst Basin due to Fergo’s rerouting plans and on the so-called “Cumberland Busway” (Cumberland Road to me and you) amount to £9.12m MORE than was originally budgeted for.
The council’s proposals for covering these losses are equally interesting.
One plan is to shave £2.4m off the budget by a REDUCING FLOOD DEFENCE measures along the New Cut on Cumberland Road.
Another is to TARGET PEDESTRIANS and not bother with street lighting, except at bus stops, over the whole route. Another is to inexplicably “reduce the cost of city centre work” for the BRT scheme by £1.1m. Yet more corners cut then.
Another is to simply reallocate £1.5m to “OTHER SCHEMES”, which is likely to be transport budgets – so don’t expect any new pedestrian crossings any time soon in your community.
Yet another is to “reallocate” £0.4m from the CYCLING AMBITION FUND and spend it on the Bathurst Basin bridges. In other words money for cycling will be spent on buses!
A further £1.1m will be absorbed by “ADDITIONAL FUNDING”, whatever that is.
Is all this legal? Council budgets raided and tax payers money diverted – in secret – to corporations on the authority of unsigned confidential council cabinet reports?
The full report is here: BRT leak
More dodgy conduct from Bristol’s dodgiest planning officer, ANGELO “KING PRAWN” CALABRESE.
Having tried and failed to award corporates NEXTERRA and BALFOUR BEATTY planning permission for a biomass plant in Avonmouth under DELEGATED POWERS he didn’t have and then, just days later, apparently ‘losing’ all the paperwork relating to the episode, King Prawn’s now trying to RIG the information going to councillors on the planning committee considering the application.
Over the last few days, 56 Avonmouth residents have signed and dated LETTERS on paper objecting to the plant and delivered them to the council. This brings the number of objections from Avonmouth residents to well OVER 100 in the space of just TEN DAYS.
Meanwhile, the only letter vaguely in favour comes from Tory councillor and Port of Bristol employee WAYNE “DEE” HARVEY.
Entirely coincidentally – and despite it being a GLARING OMISSION in the King Prawn’s planning report – between 50- 90 per cent of the wood for the biomass plant is likely to be IMPORTED for a fat fee through the, er, port!
However, in a crude attempt to REDUCE the number of formal objection letters from residents, King Prawn has listed these 56 letters as a PETITION! Conveniently reducing the number of objections by around 30 – 40 per cent!
One local resident told The BRISTOLIAN, “I hope Calabrese understands that many of us here in Avonmouth are taking his conduct personally. He has utter contempt for us and has shown us nothing but disrespect and proved he doesn’t give a toss about Avonmouth residents, our families or our health.
“He cares about big corporations making big money off our backs. If planning permission for this cancerous death plant is passed on the basis of the false and misleading information he has supported and rubberstamped throughout this process, he can rest assured we will be holding him personally accountable.
“You can’t lie, cheat, hoodwink and mislead a whole community in Bristol without consequences.”
Please – someone – can’t you put everyone out of their misery here and just fire this revolting little corporate shill as a matter of urgency?
NOW ‘ADVICE’ TO A CHAIR OF A PLANNING COMMITTEE HAS BEEN ‘DISAPPEARED’!
Until around the 20 October, Bristol City Council planning officer ANGELO “KING PRAWN” CALABRESE was set to make an unconstitutional delegated decision to give planning permission to the Nexterra/Balfour Beatty AVONMOUTH BIOMASS PLANT.
However, a major u-turn ensued after an outcry from an unholy coalition of The BRISTOLIAN, members of the public, MPs, prospective parliamentary candidates and councillors of all parties demanding that this decision went to a planning committee as the King Prawn’s OWN GUIDELINES demanded.
The BRISTOLIAN has already remarked that KING PRAWN‘s conduct and – by association – his boss BARRA MAC“ NUGGET” RUAIRI‘s conduct of this process looks extremely dubious.
So to further explore what had been going on, a Freedom of Information request was put in:
Dear Bristol City Council,
The above planning application is to be decided by officers under
delegated powers.1. Please can you provide me with any information held in any form
by Bristol City Council as to why this application can be
considered under delegated powers.2. Please can you provide me with any information held in any form
by Bristol City Council and provided to the chair of the relevant
planning committee, Cllr Alex Woodman, by city council officers as
to why this application can be considered under delegated powers.Yours faithfully,
And back, in a matter of days, came a reply from someone called Steve Knight, masquerading under the minimalist job title, ‘Place’:
This application is being determined at committee level on 5^th November
2014 rather than under delegated powers. As the information is not held,
we are therefore unable to have that information communicated to you.
The application details are available via the council’s Planning online
facility
[1]http://planningonline.bristol.gov.uk/onl…
. The details of the committee meeting will be available a week before the
committee meeting via
[2]https://www.bristol.gov.uk/CommitteeMeet…
“The information is not held”. How strange. Because on 18 October, the chair of the planning committee, Alex Woodman, announced on Twitter:
How, one wonders, did councillor Woodman offer his opinion about something for which no information exists?
Of course this information exists. How could King Prawn have possibly formed any opinion, communicated it to a variety of third parties and got to within two days of making a decision otherwise?
So what’s happened to this information? Has it been lost? Mislaid? Shredded? Rest assured The BRISTOLIAN will be chasing this.
And we’ve said it once – and we’ll say it again – this whole planning process needs to be HALTED and Bristol City Council needs to start an immediate investigation into King Prawn and McNugget for potential breaches of THE BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION ACT.
Something doesn’t add up. There’s something rotten in Denmark.
It isn’t, actually. But it’s a solid win on points!
News comes in that the Balfour Beatty/Nexterra BIOMASS POISON PLANT planning application for Avonmouth will now be going to a planning committee after all, rather than being decided behind closed doors by unaccountable planning bosses. This proves – yet again- that corporate-friendly city council management wankers like ANGELO “KING PRAWN” CALABRESI and BARRA MAC“ NUGGET” RUAIRI don’t like it up ‘em.
Avonmouth Tory Councillor, WAYNE “DUM” HARVEY today stepped into the planning row and agreed to “call-in” the controversial application so that it will be decided by a committee of councillors as the council’s constitution clearly requires rather than by the dodgy duo.
This is a very messily executed 180 degree U-TURN by Harvey. He originally accepted King Prawn Calabresi and MacNugget’s bullshit corporate-friendly “advice” and did not demand the application be heard by a planning committee when he had the opportunity to request this during the official ‘call-in’ period. Now the councillor has been forced to act very late – on the actual day his planning bosses’ decision was due in fact!
But why the last minute change of plan? Was it that overwhelming STENCH OF CORRUPTION emanating out of every pore of King Prawn and MacNugget’s inexplicable corporate-friendly decision? Or was it the PRICEY JUDICIAL REVIEW that would inevitably follow any secret management decision to approve planning permission for the poison plant, which would then have delayed their CORPORATE FRIENDS’ development for about a year and cost us council tax payers a packet?
Who knows? But we’ll chalk it down as a small victory. And watch out KING PRAWN and MACNUGGET … We’ve got your cards well and truly marked now you little pair of shits. And yes, it’s personal. If you wanna trash our communities then we’re gonna trash you.
Seconds out, round two …
On Tuesday October 21 October, Bristol City Council planning officer, ANGELO CALABRESI will rubber stamp under delegated powers a planning application for Balfour Beatty and Nexterra Systems Corp (NXT) to build a 10MW wood burning (BIOMASS) incinerator opposite the old Phil Black Site.
This means that this application WILL NOT even go before a planning committee. Only councillors can now call this decision in to put before a planning committee.
Lib Dem councillor in Lawrence Weston, TIM LEAMAN, has been seeking the assistance of Avonmouth councillors Wayne “DEE” Harvey and Matthew “DUM” Melias. And guess what? They’re dragging their heels.
An Avonmouth resident said, “we need to make the summer protests look like a garden party. Once again we need to wake up the people who think it’s ok to play RUSSIAN ROULETTE with our health and wellbeing and that of future generations.”
The planning application is here. And you can make a comment here. Reasons to oppose the plant include:
· Carcinogenic dust hazard
The plant is stated to burn 60,000 tonnes per annum of waste wood. Boomeco, with whom this plant is stated to operate, at present exports about half this figure from Avonmouth docks. The dust created by the stacking and loading of this current quantity of waste wood already causes significant nuisance and health hazards in Avonmouth. These have already been widely reported in the Press. Wood dust is classified by the World Health Orginisation as a grade 1 carcinogen (causing cancer of the nasal passages.) The proposed handling of double the quantities of wood would continue in the open air, causing a serious, possibly illegal, health hazard.
· Toxic Wood Fuel
The Atkins EIA states (3.2) that the waste wood will not include Grade D waste categorized as hazardous waste and including all grades of wood including treated material such as fencing. Anybody who has visited Days Road or the other Council domestic wood waste reclamation sites – which will provide the fuel – can see that decking, fencing, lead-painted wood etc. containing heavy metals is a standard component. This is not separated out and thus will be included in the fuel. If burnt, these toxic materials will pass through to the ash and flue emissions of the plant. As PM2.5s and nano-particles they can disperse poison over the whole city.
· Source of Fuel too dispersed
This will be trucked from as far afield as Oxford, Wiltshire and Hereford. Wood has a low specific energy content as a fuel – it is bulky for the amount of heat delivered – So transport emissions of greenhouse gases will be high.
· Competition for waste wood Fuel
The Mayor of Bristol has proposed local district heating schemes using waste biomass as fuel. These would compete with Boomeco for the fuel. Other waste-wood plants are proposed and the source of supply may be threatened.
· Greenhouse gas consequences of inadequate supply of waste wood.
Throughout the UK waste-wood power-plants are being built and it is almost certain that the supply of waste wood will not be sufficient to guarantee long-term availability of this fuel source. The companies will be using the fall-back position that they can always import wood pellets/chips. Experience (eg. Drax power station) shows that this wood is likely to come from clear felling old-growth forests in the USA, or plantations that have displaced old-growth forests. DECC have stated that they expect 80 per cent of biomass to be burnt in the UK for power generation will have to be imported. DECC have published figures to show that this fuel is WORSE for greenhouse gas emissions than the current fossil fuel mix for electricity generation. http://www.foe.co.uk/blog/blind-carbon-burning
The sustainability of the fuel source IS a ‘material consideration’ for planning purposes.
· Alternative re-use of waste wood
Wood is a valuable resource. The Bristol Wood Recycling Project state that 25% of scrap wood can be reused. Waste wood can also be used for making chip and particle board. A technology that sees it only as fuel to burn, is an outdated technology that has no place alongside the ambition of Bristol as Green Capital 2015.
· Fire Hazard
The 2012 fire at Tilbury power station in the wood pellet store – which took three days to bring under control and destroyed the storage facility – shows the dangerous nature of storing wood chips/pellets. There are no plans to handle the fuel under an inert atmosphere.
· Dangerous Wood Dust disposal
The plant will not accept ‘fines’ from Boomeco. This is the wood dust which must be removed before the fuel is burnt. This is an explosive and carcinogenic substance. There are no details of how and where the fines will be disposed of by Boomeco.
· Toxic Ash disposal
The ash will contain heavy metals and other toxic substances from the waste wood burnt. There are no details of how and where this will be disposed of.
· The plant is in a flood zone
What precautions will be taken to stop wood fuel, toxic ash etc. from being scattered by a flood?
· Impact on Natura 2000 classified Severn Estuary wildlife refuge.
No figures are supplied modelling the deposition of nitrogen. The deposition already exceeds permitted levels on the reserve, which is less than a kilometre from the site. If the potential impact of the pollutants directly attributable to the installation exceeds 1% of the permitted level, the effect of background concentration, and also the potential effect of all other planned facilities that could contribute the same pollutants, must be assessed. This has not been done. Atkins admit (8.6.1.3)
‘there may be indirect impacts on the ecology and wildlife of the estuary’
· Untried technology.
The company behind this application, Nexterra, and the process they use, have been beset with serious problems, which go far beyond those of ‘conventional’ biomass plants. Recently, Nexterra were forced to close a similarly designed plant in Tennessee because within less than 18 months, the weak acids in the woodgas had corroded key components. Luckily it got shut down without a serious incident. Whereas their similar plant at the University of South Carolina exploded. Which is not an unusual record for this technology.