Dick Ed: road builder-in-chief

There’s some FUNNY BUSINESS going on with the Bristol City Council’s planning application to itself to build an inane cycle superhighway through Victoria Park.

The application appears to be a joint effort between Sustrans and the council’s Sustainable Transport Team headed up by “DICK” Ed Plowden, a career civil servant. Although many of us struggle to tell the difference between the local civil engineering outfit for cycling and Dick Ed’s department.

When Dick Ed’s minions originally uploaded the planning documents for their road on 28 November for comment by the public prior to a planning decision later this month, there were NO REPORTS relating to the impact on the ecology or biodiversity of Victoria Park. However, this was rectified last Thursday when these documents miraculously appeared.

Even more miraculously, the date listed for the uploading of these the documents that only appeared on 6 January was November 28. Creating the impression that the documents had been available to the public for SIX WEEKS when they hadn’t. How has this sleight-of-hand been allowed to happen and who authorised MISLEADING THE PUBLIC and a quasi-statutory planning committee in this way?

Naturally Bristol Sutrancity Council responded ‘NO‘ to “Section 13 Biodiversity and Geological Conservation” on their application form as to whether there is a reasonable likelihood of [biodiversity] being affected adversely. Although, due to some CONVENIENT OVERSIGHTS, this isn’t really borne out by their limited (and late) report.

Hall: long term prat

“Dick” Ed Plowden the man responsible for making this application arrived in Bristol as a lower middle manager for John Prescott’s HOPELESS Government Office of the South West (GOSW). A bizarre provincial civil service outpost based at Temple Quay that mainly served as a  repository for lower ranking civil servants who couldn’t really make the grade in London. Another alumni of the department is the Green Party’s Red Trouser fan-in-chief, Darren “TAMMANY” Hall.

In those days Plowden’s specialism was in CRIME REDUCTION. Then he waltzed into a senior transport manager role at Bristol City Council, apparently thanks to his experience of making a stately cycle commute to work from his large suburban pile in Knowle every day.

Judging by his approach to planning applications, former crime fighter, Dick Ed, isn’t much interested in reducing crimes in low-level local government corruption. In fact he’s helping create it!