Remember the global economic crash of 2008 when American banks deliberately lent mortgages to folks they very well knew couldn’t repay? Ooh! The ecstasy of home ownership
Of course we do… It’s the reason we’re in the shit we are now. Despite us bailing banks out with our taxes and suffering two decades of sub-standard public services through austerity policies.
One of Bemmy Greens’ development mortgage lenders, ‘Shawbrooks’ has again been slammed by the Financial Conduct Authority for lacklustre scrutiny on their terms for loans to the self-employed. For, you guessed it… home ownership!
These crooks were exposed in the last ‘Bristolian’ as fraudsters to the tune of at least £100 million.
Is there no end to the tenacity of these city council sanctioned developers?
IT AIN’T HAPPENING! WORKING CLASS BARTON HILL KICKS MIDDLE CLASS GREEN ARSE AS DERANGED SCHEME IS HALTED BY PROTESTORS
‘CORRUPT CESSPIT’
In a packed field, the best question to Full Council in December came from Jamie Bolley.
He asked for a breakdown of EBLN costs to be published “so the public can be reassured that the council isn’t the corrupt cesspit that it is appearing to be!”
The council’s expensive PR team aren’t working are they?
The gift that keeps on giving
Posted on Facebook in December:
“Last night I had to call an ambulance for my husband. I thought he was having a stroke. The ambulance didn’t know how to get from Salisbury Street back to the main road and had to double back twice due to road closures and parked cars. They only got to hospital before me in the car because they were on blues and twos. I left after them. The ambulance reported that it’s not the first time they’ve been delayed. Someone is going to die if this crazy scheme doesn’t stop.”
FAKE CONSULTATION
The wheels have come off claims by Bristol City Council officers that their public consultation for the EBLN was some sort of top quality engagement process.
Transport Committee Chair “Dick” Ed Plowden has had to admit, after being asked publicly, that one of the council’s community group consultees – The Barton Hill Disabilities Group – was entirely fictitious. Apparently invented by dodgy transport officers to tick some boxes.
Lo and Behold! One of the main groups now objecting to the EBLN are disabled people struggling to get out of their homes and around their own neighbourhood.
Who would have ever guessed?
LAWFARE?
Council officers thought they were on to a big winner on the streets of Barton Hill back in January.
They requested the coppers remove local anti-EBLN protestors from the road for ‘obstructing the highway’ and preventing council contractors installing their liveable neighbourhood street furniture crap.
“Er,” came the response from Avon and Somerset’s finest, “they aren’t ‘obstructing the highway’ because the council has closed the road to carry out its works. Protestors are doing nothing illegal. They can’t obstruct a closed highway.”
Ain’t the law a bitch?
ONE RULE FOR US: ROAD BLOCKS
Green Windmill Councillor, Lisa Stone, is demanding that Hereford Street in her ward is made two-way again after being turned into a one way street as part of the Bedminster Green regeneration shitshow.
She also complains that the Hereford Road one-way scheme was implemented after plans were drawn up after a consultation which only mentioned changes to Whitehouse Road and Whitehouse Lane.
Shame Councillor Stone and her Green colleagues remain silent on the concerns of residents suffering in the East Bristol Liveable neighbourhood where numerous roads have been blocked and made one-way after poor quality consultation with residents.
A strong rumour rumbles through the Bristolian newswire that never sleeps … One of the three multinational corporates bidding to become a partner in the ‘billion pound City Leap’ neighbourhood heat network joint venture with Bristol City Council has thrown in the towel.
So it’s farewell, then, to ENGIE Services Holding UK Ltd and Sumitomo Corporation (as a consortium). Have they decided that Bristol City Council’s “billion pound’ golden egg may well end up all over their faces? This leaves E ON and Ameresco to battle it out for the grand prize in a procurement race that has so far burned through £7million of council taxpayers cash for no useful reason.
Engie’s decision may not be unrelated to a cabinet paper released this week that reveals the council has just received £11million from the government to build a heat network in Bedminster. This, the paper explains, will connect to eleven new blocks of flats in the Bedminster Green area. In other words, the cost, at present, of connecting one block to a neighbourhood heat network is a million quid.
Never mind any profit, Engie probably figured out not losing a small fortune in this expensive business was probably unavoidable. How much would you have to charge punters to get a million quid back while “implement[ing] competitive heat retail and competitive heat generation across the heat network”?
Not a question Bristol’s cabinet or councillors have so far asked while signing away £7million of our money on their latest daft energy business.
