Tag Archives: Inns Court

YOUTH ZONE: ALL THE WRONG MOVES

The horrifying reality, being built on open space at Inns Court, about Bristol’s Youth Zone, a giant shed for the youth of Bristol that no one in youth works wants, is emerging.

Now chairing Youth Moves, the charity managing this public-private partnership big project that’s swallowing Bristol City Council’s entire youth services budget whole, is Heather Frankham, a Merchant Venturer and, until July, a director of the miserably failing Venturers Trust. The local academy trust so useless it has had to disband and hand their work over to a competent body, the national E-ACT academy trust.

The Venturers Trust’s recent handiwork includes transforming the Merchants Academy in Hartcliffe into a OFSTED-rated ‘inadequate’ school and shutting the school’s sixth form at a week’s notice in September 2023 leaving sixth formers in Hartcliffe without a sixth form to attend. Just the track record required to be trusted with further large sums of public money for youth services in South Bristol then.

Frankham has wasted no time in appointing a snooty twit from Clifton to support her Youth Zone madness. Please step forward newly installed interim chief executive for Youth Moves, Guy Cowper. This former Operations Manager at posh and private Clifton High School will now be responsible for delivering youth services in south Bristol. What on Earth qualifies him in any way for this role is not clear.

Mystery, meanwhile, surrounds the sudden departure of Youth Moves’ former CEO, experienced Knowle West youth boss Ali Dale who suddenly quit in May explaining “it is time for me to move on” after 13 years running the popular charity.

Having wrecked a generation’s education in South Bristol, are the Merchant Venturers and their friends and relatives about to wreak their incompetent havoc on youth services in South Bristol?

Watch this space.

***CORRECTION*** an earlier version of this story said that Guy Cowper and Heather Frankham were partners. This is not the case.

‘WORLD CLASS’: YOUTH ZONE

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50/50 BCC STYLE …

Youth Zone proposal — Pink stinks! World class youth zone interior imagined as modernist tart’s boudoir

The cost of a ‘world class’ private sector Youth Zone in south Bristol is rising.

The capital cost of building this large shed for wealthy philanthropists to pose in on open space at Inns Court was originally £8.4m with Bristol City Council paying one half, £4.2m.

Now we learn that the council will be paying a further £3.275m to build the access road and to level the site.

Philanthropic charitable partner, Onside, meanwhile, will only have to pay £600k towards this.

In terms of running the zone, once opened in 2026, the Reverend’s cabinet has now committed £400k of the measly £1m budget for youth services from 2026. Two years after the Labour Party are likely to have lost power in Bristol.

There will be, therefore, 40 per cent less youth provision in an already stretched service elsewhere in the city from 2026.

Youth workers and services not aboard the Youth Zone gravy train are not impressed.

THE PLEBS DON’T NEED OPEN SPACE SAYS LABOUR PRAT

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Interesting local Labour Party response to an Inns Court residents meeting in the autumn to discuss the building of an Onside Youth Zone on their valued open space.

Learning that local residents had had the sheer affront to hold a meeting and propose alternative brownfield sites for this large sports complex in a corporate shed, Tom “Arse” Canham, the LGBTQ Officer for Bristol South’s CLP, took to Twitter to condemn the working class upstarts.

Just hours after a meeting where residents described the proposed site as a well-used green space with lots of wildlife, Tom Arse popped up on Twitter to claim the land was “public land that isn’t being used at all and isn’t much use to any one”. He continued, “Somehow some people oppose [the Youth Zone] being built on a roundabout where literally nothing is there,” and “It’s literally an empty field”!

None of this is true. It’s a wildlife rich open space and residents hadn’t opposed the Youth Zone. They had just suggested building it on a local brownfield site such as at Filwood Broadway, Hengrove Leisure Park or Imperial Park. Proposals that reflected a spirit of compromise rather than opposition.

No such spirit of compromise from Labour’s Tom Arse when presented with the facts, however. Instead he switched on caps lock to shout “NIMBYs gonna NIMBY” at anyone daring to disagree with him. He then claimed that the people of Inns Court had a problem with young people.

A ludicrous claim as Inns Court and Knowle West residents have worked together recently to pay for and create a garden for a local 7 year old girl with Downs Syndrome as she had been unable to use her dangerous garden since she was born. What’s Tom Arse doing for young people in the area apart from demanding their open space is concreted over as soon as possible?

Vote Labour: get arseholes.

GREENBALLS: Saving da planet for da yoof

An occasional series showcasing the bollocks that’s talked about the environment by people who really should know better.

Bristol City Council is going to sink £4million and ongoing revenue funding of about £400k a year into a ‘Youth Zone’ that will be built on open space in Inns Court in South Bristol.

This got the following explanation from the council and the wealthy philanthropists from Onside who are behind the national Youth Zone projects:

So concreting over green space encourages young people to use green space? Glad we got that sorted.

The BRISTOLIAN

“Smiter of the High and Mighty”