Tag Archives: City LEAP

GREEN MANIFESTO: GHOST OF THATCHER HAUNTS TREE HUGGING HIPPIES CONFINED TO THE ATTIC

2024 Manifesto vs.2 14pp.indd

Following Labour’s lead, the Greens have gone some of the way to ditching the long list of expensive and undeliverable promises approach to manifesto writing.

Perfected by their centrist dad mayoral candidate last time round in 2021, Lord Sandy Bufton Tufton of India seemed to promise everything from reopening your local corner shop as boutique vegan food pop-up to sending an ambassador for Bristol to the UN. The Greens, this time, have gone for a stripped down version of the Bufton Tufton list approach.

‘Disappeared’ leader, Emma Edwards – confined to the attic for the duration in case she disturbs anyone from Business West with some dangerous off-message tree hugging hippy shit – has been briefly reanimated and wheeled out for the manifesto’s Foreword written for her by bland copywriters.

“Bristol Green Party has a vision of hope for the city and highly experienced candidates,” she enthusiastically assures us. That’ll be ‘highly experienced candidates’ like their current councillors who don’t understand the basic legal responsibilities of company ownership or the necessity to take action when the council acts unlawfully. There’s a thin line in local politics between ‘highly experienced’ and ‘reckless amateur’ isn’t there?

The main manifesto is divided into ten sections beginning with a ‘Getting the basics right‘ section. Here we’re threatened with that old chestnut “genuine engagement on key Council proposals” and decision-dodging “demographically representative Citizens’ Assemblies.”

“Ensure decisions about community facilities and community asset transfers have a more consistent and transparent process,” also pops up. Meaning community facilities and assets will be transferred to the Greens’ mates rather than Labour’s.

On to transport where, like everyone else, they’re going to improve the buses and – this is their one standout policy – they’ll fund this from a Workplace Parking Levy, if, presumably, Business West lets them?

Other keynote transport policies are the introduction of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, which will “make traffic flow better on main routes”, apparently, and reviving Mayor No More Ferguson’s residents’ parking schemes, now redesigned as high tax revenue earner for the council.

In housing, the headline is to increase the city’s target of affordable homes from the current 600 homes per year to 1,000 per year. As no housing target in the city ever gets reached you wonder what the point of this actually is?

There’s also an odd and unexplained major outsourcing plan sneaked in, to set up an “arms length company to own and rent out council-owned housing”. This, the Greens allege, will create more “genuinely affordable homes” while also, conveniently, achieving the Thatcherite dream of moving social housing out of the council’s hands altogether. An old Lib Dem policy and one to watch.

Under the heading ‘A Great Start in Life’ we get a load of retreads of Labour’s failing Children’s Service policies where costs are going south fast. So they’ll increase special school places; somehow reduce costs of home to school transport and recruit more foster carers as they’ve been doing unsuccessfully for the last ten years. 

Despite being a major budgetary pressure, there’s nothing on the subject of the rising costs of private sector out-of-county children’s care placements at all. Neither is there any mention of the Tory ‘Safety Valve’ SEND cuts programme the council is now signed up to for the next five years if it doesn’t get cancelled immediately.

For young people, there’s a vague “aim” with no resource attached to “increase the provision of youth services”. On knife crime it’s equally vague and totally under-resourced. They’ll “work with young people themselves, with the police, schools, youth services and other community organisations.”

On adult care there’s some warm words for staff and social workers and then this, “investigate a council-funded capital grant programme or loan scheme to assist care homes to be more efficient to save money in the long run.”

Are they really proposing to use our money to subsidise private care homes’ profits?

Sections on public health and “a clean city” provide airy lists of stuff “aiming to”; “exploring”; “enhancing”; “joining up” with no firm commitment to anything very much. The language indicating the lack of resources to make any of it happen.

On culture we get that old manifesto money-wasting favourite, “lead a Bristol regional bid to become the UK’s city of culture” along with a vague threat of a raid on the Local Government Pension Scheme to fund pet culture projects.

The final section of the local authority manifesto is on our old corporate friend ‘net zero’. Basically the ‘billion pound’ City Leap is still the only game in town delivering small scale  publicly funded insulation, energy and EV projects. But it wouldn’t be a Green manifesto without developing a way to waste money the council hasn’t got on a pointless ‘net zero’ measure. So please step forward “a carbon budget process alongside the annual financial budgeting process.”

The idea here seems to be to employ people to add up the carbon costs of what the council does each year while cutting actual useful public services to the bone. Bravo!

ONE WEDDING SUIT AND AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE FUNERAL: THE LABOUR MANIFESTO

Bristol-Labour-Group-Manifesto-2024-1

Introduced in full colour dull PowerPoint by their newly minted leader, Tom “Plasticine Man’ Renhard, togged up in his wedding suit at a swanky conference room at Ashton Gate stadium on Saturday, Bristol Labour Party are first out of the blocks with a local election manifesto. 

The manifesto cover features a cheery little cartoon cover of multicultural pedestrians, happy cyclists, beaming schoolchildren, helpful coppers, trams, buses, windmills and, er, dead trees plastered onto a local independent retail backdrop. Produced in shades of red, it’s a bit George Ferguson on acid with the manifesto’s title, ‘Building Bristol’s Future’ providing mild threat for the paranoid.

The manifesto itself spells a departure from the Rees years. Marvin’s manifestoes provided a shopping list of promises he would then proceed to fail to deliver. His 2016 effort contained 78 uncosted promises and 38 vague commitments. The 2021 model slimmed things down to just 91 uncosted promises. Largely undelivered.

Renhard seems to have learned from this almighty mess of broken promises and has created a fuzzy document of vague aspiration instead. Delivered in hackneyed cliche with few indicators of how he would deliver on any of it, maybe Renhard knows he won’t have to?

Our team has combed through the 28 pages of English language wreckage and identified five stone cold, nailed down actual promises from Labour. These are: ‘build 3,000 council homes in the next five years’; ‘roll out more school streets’; ‘have more visible and responsive police and embedded PCSOs’; ‘protect the 100% Council Tax Reduction Scheme’ and ‘tackle anti-social behaviour, including fly-tipping, littering and graffiti tags, by hiring more enforcement officers and increasing fines‘.

We also discovered three almost promises in the manifesto. These fall short of actual promises as there’s little detail provided and few resources committed so it will be hard to hold them to account. These are: ‘upgrading and restoring our ageing infrastructure, including Bristol’s historic bridges and harbour’; ‘invest in road maintenance and pothole repair’ and ‘reduce violence against women and girls’.

Pretty much everything else in the document is vague aspirational waffle. In social care, which, according to Labour’s own figures is 43% of council spend, the big offer is, “We are partnering with Bristol’s public services to help ensure you can access the care you need, when you need it.”

From the party that has just tried (and failed) to remove disabled adults from their homes and shove them into residential care to save money, this is a pathetically weak policy response.

On education and children’s services, 22% of council spend, it’s hard to find much concrete. Just some waffle about “Helping children get the best start in life with more school places and better provision for SEND children; improving access to education and skills in our colleges and universities.”

Another weak response from the party that fucked up SEND provision years ago and is currently fucking it up all over again having signed up to the Tories’ vicious ‘Safety Valve’ SEND cuts programme.

On the big issue of youth knife crime, the Labour offer moves beyond pathetic. Promising to “improve CCTV and partner on youth engagement projects” alongside a further uncosted promise without detail to “support and invest in youth services.” 

Is that it?

On transport, Labour commit to, “exploring ways to bring buses into public ownership”. Currently impossible under existing legislation. And they will “start now on the transport solutions of tomorrow” whatever that means. Their most interesting policy may be “seeking ways to take back control of our highway maintenance work through insourcing.”

On Green issues, the offer is more of Rees’s underpowered over-publicised City Leap. Originally a promise of a ‘billion pound’ private sector investment, this promise dropped to £500m recently. The Labour manifesto now introduces a new figure of “£771m planned investment in decarbonisation”.

The reality of City Leap last year was about £23m of public sector grants and city council cash spent on overpriced heat pumps in schools and some small retrofit pilots, which Labour’s US corporate partner trousered a profit from.

The final section of the manifesto is a section unoriginally called ‘Our City, Our Future’ where the big promise is “creating a safe, attractive, well-lit and welcoming city centre.”

Does that mean neighbourhoods outside the city centre can expect to be unsafe, unattractive, badly lit and unwelcoming?

I think we should be told.

NO TRADE UNIONS PLEASE, WE’RE AMERICAN

ameresco

Fancy that! Ameresco, Bristol City Council’s US corporate partner in the City Leap joint venture – the world’s most expensive public works contract – doesn’t recognise trade unions!

Top due diligence there for a £10m outlay from our over-promoted posh twit Tory-boy council Chief Exec, Stephen “Preening” Peacock and his hopeless clean energy team.

What a bunch of arseholes.

NETTING ZEROES: WHERE’S THE PRIVATE CASH?

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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.

Sounds likely.

THE REAL STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS

Last night the Reverend Rees delivered his final State of the City speech from the University of Bristol’s shithouse Wills Building. Here’s a response:

Marvin, your State of the City speech seems to be a list of things that haven’t been delivered or resolved in your time in office. 

Most of the key infrastructure projects that previous Labour council’s failed to invest in remain uninvested in but with a tab left to be picked up by the next administration. 

There’s no funded mass transit proposal. It’s stalemated due to a lack of agreement between two bickering Labour Mayors who have prioritised their own personal animosity and egos above the needs of the city and region. 

The city continues to have deep divisions along race and class lines despite all the talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and tackling the “issues”. Where are the measurable outcomes showing improvement? 

But then you did watch the Colston statue come down and spot a self promotional media opportunity rather than a chance to trigger a real attempt to tackle the city’s long standing divisions. 

Congratulations Marvin, you built some homes (the vast majority at market rates with many being bought by private landlords) and yet still managed to miss every housing target you set yourself. 

The housing waiting list has increased to 20,000 families. The highest it has ever been, despite officers actively discouraging residents from going on the list “because it’s a waste of time”. 

Homelessness remains noticeably present everywhere, except, maybe, in the Bearpit, despite your promise to solve it. 

The vast majority of the 14,000 homes with planning permission are not being built and you try to blame a minority opposition party for this failure to deliver.

Still no arena, public or privately funded, anywhere. And tens of millions in public funds sunk into an elitist city centre cultural venue because of a binding legal contract signed on your watch. All while deprived suburbs lose community/cultural facilities.

City Leap has potential but so far isn’t unlocking any private investment and is falling behind its real investment plan, never mind this unsubstantiated £1bn you constantly quote at the press.

Goram Homes also has some potential but your planning delays means it’s falling massively behind schedule.

Bristol Waste is a basketcase with a revolving door board of directors. A direct result of poor corporate oversight. Your political interference in its business planning, meanwhile, has undermined any efforts to reduce costs. 

Elsewhere, your council is still complicit in developing SNCIs despite declaring an ‘Ecological Emergency’ and creating plenty of photo-ops of Labour politicians standing in fields saying how important green spaces are. 

There’s still no real plan for achieving net zero despite declaring a ‘Climate Emergency’. 

Then there’s the poorly implemented CAZ, almost as if it was designed to fail and disrupt. 

You are creating only one Liveable Neighbourhood and this is being poorly implemented and poorly consulted on with middle class neighbourhoods getting disproportionate input while poorer neighbourhoods are ignored.

Local CiL projects, especially transport and parks, are not being delivered partly because staff are being taken away to work on “headline grabbing” strategic projects.

The budget gap is currently larger than the Bundred one under Ferguson and there’s still no realistic plan to address it beyond service reduction and selling off council property. 

SEND?!?!! Say no more. Your “Deputy” Mayor hasn’t a clue what she is doing just like the chain of useless Labour education leads before her. Our kids and, increasingly, their parents are paying the price of this serial incompetence. 

The Dedicated Schools Grant is effectively in special measures and your administration is just crossing it’s fingers and hoping the government doesn’t pull the plug on this ever growing debt.

Basically Marvin, you have left behind a stinking pile of crap and then have the nerve to lecture the councillors who will have to clear up your shit about how the city should be run!!! 

Get da fuck!

NETTING ZEROES: PIPE DREAM

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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.

NETTING ZEROES: PUMPS PRIMED FOR PROFIT

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City Leap lottery winners Ameresco took on their first project in December. An existing £1.2m entirely publicly funded plan to install an air-source heat-pump in Blaise Primary School to replace an aging gas system that can be replaced for about £0.5m.

Accompanying the low-profile news that Ameresco were taking on this year old project was a senior officer decision to up the budget by 25 per cent to £1.5m due to ‘inflation’. This is despite the project having a 35 per cent contingency built into it when it was set-up in February 2022.

This extra money will come from this year’s school maintenance budget. Bad luck if your kids’ school needs any repairs then. The money’s been earmarked for a US corporation.

Any cynic suggesting Ameresco have upped the price by 25 per cent to extract a profit would, of course, be speculating.

NETTING ZEROES: LAUGHING MATTER?

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Before the City Leap deal ascended to the Reverend and his cabinet of all the chumps for rubberstamping, a cross party scrutiny committee got to take look at some of it.

Comments by councillors at this meeting were not positive. Among the complaints:
* That the committee’s comments and questions over a period of years have not received adequate answers;
*  Every scrutiny meeting listed in the final report was either delayed, deferred or cancelled and reorganised;
*  Money spent on advice and procurement has been around £10million dwarfing the concession payments of £2.3m we may receive over five years from City Leap;
*  Scrutiny members were denied access to the detailed agreement with private partner Ameresco. How do you scrutinise something you can’t see? Enormous complexity’s involved. If something goes wrong, trying to enforce a secret agreement is difficult;
*  What happens to the loss in Bristol Heat Networks? Up to 31 March 2022 there was a £1m loss according to documents at Companies House. No member has been briefed on the loss. Who’s paying? The council taxpayer? Private sector partners?

Councillors got no answers. Instead cabinet member, Kye “The” Dudd openly laughed in their faces.

FEELING THE HEAT

Strange goings-on at Housing Association Curo’s new social housing in Old Market.  A few lucky new residents were all set to move in October when suddenly the whole thing was called off.

The properties were meant to be connected to the new Old Market Heat Network, currently owned and run by Bristol City Council but being secretively handed over to Swedish energy giant, Vattenfall, at a knockdown price.

Residents now have been told they can’t move in to their new homes until January at the earliest because of “a disagreement about the heating with the council”.

Let’s hope the disagreement is nothing serious and that our city’s public assets are still on the way to a global corporation to make a fat profit from.