Tag Archives: Housing

A HARPY NEW YEAR FROM CONNOLLY & CALLAGHAN!

Word reaches The BRISTOLIAN that Bristol City Council’s Housing Department are issuing EVICTION NOTICES TO HOMELESS FAMILIES that they have emergency-housed in rented flats owned by private property vultures Connolly & Callaghan. This is in order to try and recoup some of the enormous payouts that ROBBER BARONS Connolly & Callaghan are demanding from BCC as ransom.

BCC Housing Department are currently sending out THREATENING LETTERS to homeless families in Connolly & Callaghan properties who have fallen behind on what’s euphemistically termed a ‘service charge’. But there’s no precedent for people on BCC’s homeless list being compelled to pay charges for electricity, gas etc – and by rights, if the council insists on using the C&C shark pool as its ‘emergency accommodation’, THEN THEY SHOULD COVER THIS COST THEMSELVES.

C&C are already raking in £545 PER WEEK, PER FAMILY in their COUNTS LOUSE HOLD UP, and instead of BCC telling these GANGSTER SWINE where to get off, management came up with this sneaky ruse to swindle it out of the daily survival benefits and minimum wages of the TRAUMATISED RESIDENTS that they put in there!

The BRISTOLIAN has obtained a copy of the draft letter BCC are sending out:

What next? Is interim BCC housing manager Dorian ‘Grey’ Leatham going to carry through on these questionable legal threats and EVICT FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN just so they can be MADE HOMELESS ALL OVER AGAIN? All while C&C waltz off with their ILL-GOTTEN GAINS to the Cayman Islands and then come back greedy for more?

And what do Paul ‘Wolfie’ Smith and The Reverend have to say about this FUCKING OUTRAGE going on right under their noses and on their watch?

STAY TUNED: this story is only going to get bigger…

THE SELL OUT TO CHINA BROCHURE THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE

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Dec2017_Bristol-Investment-Brochure_EN

HENGROVE HOUSING HORROR

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Reverend Rees’s housing tsar, Paul “Wolfie” Smith’s promises to “build communities not just houses” on Hengrove Park have collapsed on first contact with the public.

The recent first round of public consultation in Hengrove found Wolfie’s Major Projects Team openly admit they will be providing NO FACILITIES as part of the development because “THEY ARE ALREADY HERE“. So don’t move there expecting anything other than McDonalds, KFC and Premier Inn to service your needs.

The only public investment planners are agreeing to will be a GP surgery – somewhere – which is already urgently required in the Whitchurch/Hengrove area due to CHRONIC over-subscription of the existing GP service – and more primary school places.

However, there will be NO NEW SCHOOLS. Instead, existing primary schools in the working class area – highly regarded for their leafy and spacious grounds – will be extended and expanded. Conveniently REMOVING playing fields and open space from the schools and leaving more prime development land for corporate developers to transform into high density rabbit hutches (surely exciting sustainable housing in the ‘Bristol Vernacular’ style? Ed.).

The highlight of this major development shambles, mainly designed to place large sums of cash into corporate developers coffers, however, is the plan to SHUT the recently opened Family Cycling Centre on the old Whitchurch Athletics Track and build a main access road over it!

Not only does this plan DEMOLISH one of the few public facilities still allowed in the area, it also demonstrates Bristol City Council’s real level of commitment to so-called “sustainable transport” and “active travel” once the hard cash for corporates is on the table.

The council’s current Quality of Life Survey lists the number of commuters cycling to work in the area as ZERO PER CENT while 60 per cent use their car. And car use will only increase once Wolfie throws up 2,000 extra homes with car parking spaces. Why would anyone want to promote cycling here?

Residents in and around Bamfield in Whitchurch are especially up in arms since their residential road is set to become the MAIN VEHICLE ACCESS to all this new housing. Thousands of vehicles will be encouraged to drive down Bamfield every day and then drive directly over the ex-running track to access Wolfie’s new “community”. Locals predict traffic chaos and say the level of congestion and pollution likely to be generated by this plan is “HUGE“.

Meanwhile, the obvious road access to the development, directly off Hengrove Way – a MAIN TRUNK ROAD specifically designed for heavy traffic – will be buses only and blocked to private cars!

Who thinks this shit up?

WOLFIE’S GATEKEEPING SCAM EXPOSED

STOP PRESS – two Broomhill EPH evictions 11AM 16.08.17, including an illegal one of a very ill young woman

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PRESS STATEMENT

The Real Reasons Why Broomhill Elderly Peoples Home (EPH)
Was Placed Under Occupation <

This statement refutes the spurious claim made by Director of Housing Cllr Paul Smith of Bristol City Council (BCC) in the Bristol Post, August 10 that the remaining guardian-tenants at Broomhill EPH were ‘standing in the way’ of the council’s noble mission – allegedly by occupying the building, preventing its demolition, and the building of 10 social housing units. This is a deceitful manipulation of the facts, which we will now present.
Background Information

Following the crash of 2008 and subsequent austerity, many supposedly unviable BCC public buildings fell into disuse, including schools, care homes, leisure centres, fire stations etc. Later on BCC leased these buildings to two ‘Property Guardian Companies’ – Camelot and AdHoc, under the knowledge that these companies would, on a temporary basis, house renters (known under the legally ambiguous term of ‘guardians’) therein.

BCC then promptly forgot about the buildings, their occupants, and their original plans for demolition, while Camelot and AdHoc took advantage of the situation to make a fortune out of charging rent to hundreds of people priced out of Bristol’s private renting racket in sub-standard-to-outright-dangerous BCC owned properties.

However, following the Roynon v Camelot case in Feb 2017, which established that all guardians potentially had the full rights of tenants, BCC terminated its contract with both Camelot and AdHoc with effect from Christmas 2017, with the understanding that the companies would evict all residents by this date.

Points and Demands

It is in this context that we wish to make the following seven points:

As owner of the properties concerned, Bristol City Council has a duty to properly re-house all the guardians it left to the tender mercies of Camelot and AdHoc. Because there was no provision made, despite assurances given by Cllr Smith to the contrary, for protecting all guardians during the transition back to BCC control. This is simply unacceptable and a blatant reneging of BCC’s word.

Also the tenant legally evicted today was the whistleblower who first brought this scandal regarding Camelot’s behaviour out into the open so that BCC could take action against the corporate criminals operating on its property. Is it Cllr Smith’s moral duty to now wash his hands of him and let him be kicked out into the street, from a BCC owned property?

In the case of the second tenant, she is a young woman who is recovering from a serious illness, and in addition she was kicked out illegally. Camelot are being told as a legal warning that she has a right to go back in as this goes to print. BCC simply cannot tolerate these cowboy evictions on its conscience.

While some of the ‘guardian’ properties are clearly best demolished due to their age or unsuitability, in the current housing crisis it makes more sense to bring the remainder up to standard again and use them as temporary homeless shelters, but this time regulated under direct BCC control and not ‘leased’ out again to third parties of any description.

In relation to point 5 above, Broomhill EPH was selected for occupation as being a prime example of such erroneous BCC policy. Broomhill is a relatively modern and sturdy building, yet is scheduled for demolition and supposed replacement by 10 ‘social housing’ units at some indefinite point in the future. Why is ‘cash-strapped’ BCC not questioning the time taken and money required for such a task, while the necessary repairs and refurbishing required for 40-50 quality units of homeless accommodation could be carried out in the building as it stands, and for just a fraction of the cost and time. Why is this not being done?

Finally, under the 1996 Housing Act, in the case of a publicly owned building scheduled for demolition, if an evicted tenant has not made him/herself ‘intentionally homeless’, then the local authority that owns the building has the legal duty to assist him or her in finding alternative accommodation.

In addition, we make the demand that any properties that BCC keeps in operation as homeless accommodation must NOT be leased to either private profiteers or to the many so-called charities that use the discredited ‘guardian licensee’ contract or its equivalent.

ILLEGAL BCC GATE-KEEPING POLICY REINSTATED

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Word is spreading that rogue bullshit jobbers (ie. middle management) in Bristol City Council’s Housing Department re-introduced the illegal practice of “gate-keeping” last week, presumably to restrict Bristol’s homeless access to public services they’re entitled to under the pretence of “saving money”.

Obviously aware that the council had already been reprimanded for this practice by the Ombudsman back in 2012, our very own bullshit jobforce (on huge salaries at taxpayer expense, and including members of the Dirty Thirty) went around all of BCC’s front-line housing staff in person and told them that they were to refuse all help to young Bristolians turfed out of their family homes, under the pretence that they “do not qualify as homeless” until they “can provide proof in the form of a legal notice to quit (28 days) from their families”. As if this is going to happen! Never mind, because the undeserving poor can just sleep on the streets until they get them.

So the question must be asked: Is Housing Director Paul “Wolfie” Smith aware of such illegal, clandestine shenanigans amongst his subordinates? Or are they simply doing whatever they want? And what is Nick “Pooper” Hooper’s role in all of this? Is the high priest of BCC’s bullshit jobbers still in charge of “administrating” the Housing Dept, or has he, as rumoured, been moved on to blight another department?

Maybe another visit by the Ombudsman can give us the answers to all of this and more…

IT’S A KNOCKOUT!!! REES AND LENIN FLOP AS LAUNDRY HOURS RESTORED

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It’s all over in the second round …

The Reverend “Flaccid Flopper” Rees and his seriously fucked in the head housing bosses, apparently with little else to do other than impose stupid and unlawful rules on social housing tenants for no purpose, have CONCEDED defeat at Antona Court and reinstated its 24/7 laundry hours as residents told them to do months ago.

This morning a letter was posted through every door at Antona Court by council bosses confirming that the old opening hours have been restored. This comes after our latest HUMILIATING story on Friday featuring the Reverend and his Avonmouth councillor Don “Lenin” Alexander and their oversight of this deranged and entirely informal communal laundry policy confined to just one social housing property in Shirehampton where gobshite political activist Steve “Stormin'” Norman just happened to live.

Unfortunately for the Reverend and Lenin – who both appeared happy to have some sort of weird and expensive VIRILITY CONTEST with Steve through the courts – their gang of highly paid managers and lawyers have left THEM looking thoroughly flaccid and emasculated.

The Reverend’s housing and legal minions, however, were left little choice but to totally CAPITULATE to Steve and the rest of the Antona Court residents after a court date was set for the council to appear at on 25 September. A case they were bound to humiliatingly lose at considerable expense to us – the council taxpayers – as they had NO DEFENCE.

So will the Reverend and Lenin identify the officers responsible for bringing our council into DISREPUTE – by going to court for no reason with no defence – and fire the clowns? Or were these idiots acting on instructions from above?

Who’s laundry? Our laundry! (and don’t you forget it Rees, Alexander and your failed housing management bullies)

AVONMOUTH COUNCILLOR ENTERS WEIRD SPACE-TIME VORTEX AS LAUNDRY TRIAL DATE SET

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Freedom for laundries!

Despite the express instructions of District Judge Rowe at Bristol County Court last month that they negotiate an immediate solution to ‘The Ridiculous Case of the Shuttered Laundry’ at Antona Court within two weeks, Bristol City Council’s legal and housing goons have done the EXACT OPPOSITE and made no effort whatsoever to settle the dispute.

The case, now regularly featured in the local and national press as a post-Grenfell tale of the underdog against stupid, incompetent and uncaring bureaucracy that wants you dead, will now go to FULL TRIAL on 25 September.

Council housing bosses – in their determination to maintain an iron grip on Antona Court’s shared laundry facility and to treat their social housing tenants like shit – will obviously be funded by YOU, the taxpayer, to take part in this magnificent courtroom drama attempting to prevent laundry being done between the hours of 8.00pm and 8.00am in Shirehampton.

The complainant, BBC Radio 4’s Steve “Stormin'” Norman will continue to cost you ABSOLUTELY NOTHING as he represents himself again in his hugely entertaining skirmish with the forces of arrogance, stupidity and small penises at the helm of Bristol City Council.

Meanwhile, creating an additional layer of utter CONFUSION and PARALYSIS to the affair is Avonmouth’s Labour councillor Don “Lenin” Alexander, who appears, now, to have taken up residence in his own personal parallel universe somewhere near Sea Mills.

Steve emailed Don earlier this week politely requesting his presence at the trial as a witness. “As the case is now SETTLED as far as the laundry is concerned I’d much rather use my time more profitably,” Don beamed back from his alternative space-time vortex.

Er, how can the case be settled if it’s in court on 25 September? Has the council secretly negotiated a settlement with itself behind closed doors that it’s banned from publication? Maybe the council’s sacked this irritating judge who expects them to do some work and appointed lazy sod Don and his culture of zero expectation instead? Is this a new Don/council definition of ‘settled’ that approximates to the traditional term ‘not settled’? Is Don simply OFF HIS FACE on something? Who knows? But Don’s such consistently good value, he could be put on permanent special offer at the new Lidl in Lawrence Weston.

Meanwhile, the man running the show, The Reverend Rees – a SAD and LONELY figure at Bristol’s Labour Campaign Forum AGM this week as socialists seized control of his local party and consiged to the grave his wet-weekend third way politics of submission to the markets – tells Steve he thinks his grandmother will listen to the forthcoming Radio 4 documentary on Antona Court and its controversial laundry.

The idea of knocking some management heads together or kicking his officers and string-pullers extremely hard up their backsides until they do something involving common sense and the direct request of a District Judge is clearly way beyond this weak and feeble man (surely you mean GLOBAL LEADER indoctrinated in free market economics at Harvard, Ed).

TODAY IN COURT: STORMIN’ STORMS IT!

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Ecstatic scenes today as Reverend “The Cutter” Rees and his council of useless halfwits who can’t organise opening hours for a laundry badly LOST the first, second and third rounds of the trial of century! The case, which was moved to Bristol Magistrates Court due to flooding at the jerry built Labour-PFI funded Civil Justice Centre, got off to a bad start for Rees and then – Ho! Ho! – got even WORSE!

Rees’s scumbag housing lawyer Robin “Arsehole” Denford – who makes his living getting the poor of the city thrown on to the street by the courts – set a losing tone for the day when he slimed up to Stormin’ Norman prior to the case begging for an ADJOURNMENT because he needed “MORE TIME“.

Of course he did. Six months to sort out a SIMPLE CONSENSUS on what hours a residential laundry facility is going to be open for is clearly not enough time for Bristol City Council’s management and legal imbeciles is it? Steve was having none of this adjournment crap, however, and told Denford in no uncertain terms to get his SORRY LITTLE ARSE in the court and in front of the judge. ROUND ONE to Norman.

Once in court, Denford marshalled his amazing legal argument that the Housing Act that governs Steve’s tenancy wasn’t at all relevant to a case about, er, Steve’s tenancy and the case should be struck out immediately. Alas, the judge wasn’t having any of this strike out crap and REJECTED the council’s nonsensical argument, leaving Rees’s council’s only defence in tatters at a stroke! ROUND TWO to Norman.

To finish off a bad day for the Rees and his BENT COUNCIL that thinks it can do what it likes to who it likes, the judge, having seen Steve’s evidence and listened to his straightforward legal argument, instructed Denford to fuck off out of her court and sort out a NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT with the residents in the next two weeks. If not, she would set a TRIAL DATE.

A full trial would be especially interesting as witnesses could include the two ridiculous Avonmouth Labour councillors – Don “Lenin” Alexander and Jo “Stupid Hippy” Sergeant – housing officer Andrew Jester who was happy to restore the laundry’s old opening hours and Jester’s MYSTERY BOSS who overrode that sensible decision and forced the case to court.

Getting this mystery boss into open court would be something of a coup for Steve. As it would be one of the rare occasions a resident of the city could get up, close and very, very personal with a senior city council boss and EXPOSE them to close CROSS EXAMINATION at length. ROUND THREE to Norman.

Questions for this arsehole money-wasting boss could include: why don’t you think THE LAW applies to you? Why are you deliberately WASTING PUBLIC MONEY on inane court cases? Why do you treat your tenants with ABSOLUTE CONTEMPT? Why does someone quite as obviously THICK and USELESS as you think they know best? Do you regularly MISDIRECT the public money and resources you’re responsible for into pursuing SAD LITTLE VENDETTAS against local residents who assert their legal rights? What’s the success rate like with your sad little vendettas? How did you ever think you would get away with this shit?

Bring on ROUND FOUR! Although, sadly, we suspect that – what with one of Rees’s pampered little senior bosses who must be protected at all costs potentially getting exposed to public cross examination and ridicule on their performance and conduct – a settlement will be miraculously reached in the next two weeks.

That or the Reverend’s legal department is getting St John’s Chambers, Queen Square on speed dial – while housing bosses jump up down screaming in the background – to provide an overpriced public schoolboy barrister at a huge cost to us to take on Stormin’ Norman and impose their will on Antona Court’s laundry.

In the real world, heads would roll for this. However, in the Reverend Rees’s amazing city council world of the stupid we can just look forward to paying for the next self-inflicted fiasco can’t we?

NORMAN vs REES: TRIAL OF THE CENTURY

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The TRIAL OF THE CENTURY begins tomorrow when Steve “Stormin'” Norman gets the time and money wasters of Bristol City Council’s housing and legal departments in to court to demand reinstatement of his home, Antona Court’s laundry hours.

The contracted hours of this laundry for paying customers were altered without discussion or consultation by the council six months ago. This is mainly because – as we know from Grenfell Tower – council’s think they can do what the fuck they like to council tenants who they hold in CONTEMPT and treat like SUBHUMANS with no legal rights and no say over the housing conditions imposed on them by callous council scum.

Curiously, the council’s legal team are going to court to argue that the new laundry hours should REMAIN. This is despite Andrew Jester, a housing officer in the Estates Department, writing to Steve on 8 June and saying he “was happy for the laundry hours to be returned to what they used to be and instructed that this be done but have been overruled on this.”

Overruled by who? And why would this NAMELESS senior boss at Bristol City Council rather spend money on a POINTLESS and EXPENSIVE court case than negotiate with their tenants? No doubt next week this same unaccountable management tosspot will be bleating about austerity and having no money?

The council, apparently, will be claiming in court that they are NOT SUBJECT to Sections 103 and 105 of the Housing Act, laws that directly govern their management of their housing and tenants. It’ll certainly be interesting to find out why Bristol City Council thinks the law of the land doesn’t apply to them won’t it?

Although, also in their defence – submitted late and therefore liable to be struck out – the council go on to say, “in light of the disclosure of objections from other residents … They will seek the view of the whole block and then review the current (ie. new) laundry times.”

What’s the fucking point of all this then? It all kicks off at 12.15pm tomorrow. Not to be missed!