Tag Archives: Local Plan

TRASHING AVONMOUTH ‘BEST OPTION’?

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Wind turbines
These would look lovely on the Downs

Labour’s Southmead councillor and cabinet member for climate change stuff, working class man of the people, Kye “The” Dudd, has another shit idea in the pipeline that will dump on a working class community.

“With the Local Plan review, we’re looking at allocations in the Avonmouth area for wind turbines,” he blustered at the Nazi Post recently.

“Within our boundaries, that’s probably the best option. There are other options outside our boundaries, but obviously that’s not for us to decide.

Not strictly true. “Probably the best option” within Bristol is the Merchant Venturer-managed Downs, which have the best wind patterns in the city. How about the comfortably well-off posh of Clifton and Stoke Bishop lead on our climate emergency commitments for once and host a few wind turbines?

A direct challenge to the wealthy and influential of the city that great big pussy and bootlicker of the wealthy, The Dudd, is way too scared to pursue.

LOCAL PLAN: HOW TO DEMAND A SLAVE TRADE MEMORIAL

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Local Plan Seamans Chapel

The city’s political class and self-styled ‘leaders’, with strings openly being pulled by the Society of Merchant Venturers, continue to undermine any chance of memorialising the city’s links to the slave trade. Any site proposed for a memorial over the last seven years has been knocked back by the mayor who has chosen to prioritise boozy food halls and gastropubs as his legacy.

One way to get around the mayor and the city’s ragbag of crap ‘leaders” intransigence is to get a site for a memorial agreed in the forthcoming Local Plan. Potential sites available in the centre include: the Old Seaman’s Chapel (SA403) on Royal Oak Avenue on the corner of Queen Square and Prince Street, ideal for an abolition museum and history centre; 16 Narrow Quay (SA404), the empty space between Arnolfini and the YHA, ideal for a memorial garden and The Grove Car Park (BDA0801) by the Thekla, a, potentially large space to develop.

All the sites can be found in the Draft Allocation document going to Full Council this week: https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/documents/s89151/08.2%20Appendix%20A2%20Development%20Allocations%20Annex.pdf. Old Seaman’s Chapel  (SA403) is on page 68; 16 Narrow Quay (SA404) is on page 70 and The Grove Car Park (BDA0801) is on page 58.

Details of the sites are in the document and all you need to do is respond to the forthcoming Local Plan consultation and request that each site is designated for “Community Facilities, in particular a museum exploring the history of slavery and it’s abolition from a Bristol viewpoint.”

Simple. Go tell the city’s useless self-serving ‘leaders’ what you want!

ARUP PLANNING TAKEOVER

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More news drifts in regarding the slow but inexorable OUTSOURCING of the whole of the city’s planning system and its oversight to private firm Arup.

We already know that Arup have been, for some time, supplying agency staff to the council’s planning department to specialise in ‘MAJOR PROJECTS’. Then came the news that Arup were involved in developing the Reverend’s options for his ‘Western Harbour’ plans at the Cumberland Basin.

So it should come as little surprise to learn that Arup were also involved in drawing up BRISTOL’S LOCAL PLAN. Specifically, the private firm were responsible for SITE ALLOCATIONS and POLICY DEVELOPMENT for this detailed development blueprint for the city that WILL MAKE LOTS OF PRIVATE INTERESTS LOTS OF MONEY.

When will we get the chance to vote on a manifesto promising to hand our city’s planning system over to multi-national companies looking to make a profit?

AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS CRISIS

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As it emerges that they’re going to miss their affordable housing target of 800 homes by 2020, the Reverend and his housing sidekick, Paul “Wolfie” Smith are now resorting to DESPERATE MEASURES and cheerleading some pretty shabby development proposals through the planning system.

In June a Bristol City Council planning committee waved through permission for a 15 storey tower block on the Bath Road at Totterdown. THE HUGE AMOUNT OF CONCERN in the local community over a development that doesn’t meet the requirements for tall buildings outlined in the Local Plan – a policy revised just months before by the Reverend’s administration – was overlooked by a Labour majority Planning Committee, apparently IN A HURRY TO JUST GET SHIT BUILT.

The Reverend’s Housing Czar, Paul “Wolfie” Smith took to social media before the planning meeting to give the development a PR BOOST, announcing, “Great to see Hadley group commit to at least 30% affordable housing and up to 50% for their proposed development on the old garage site on the Bath Road”.

Although developers, Hadley, had actually committed to just 20 per cent affordable housing and the council had agreed to SUBSIDISE a further 10 per cent (with possibly a bigger bung to come) with public money. This is despite the development being unsuitable for families and children, not least because it’s on one of Bristol’s busiest roads and has NO OUTDOOR PLAY AREA.

Meanwhile over at Hengrove Park – where the council’s vision of 1,500 homes on a public park was thrown out by planners just a few months ago because it didn’t comply with the Neighbourhood Plan – A NEW PLAN has appeared proposing just 50 houses less, which still doesn’t comply with the Neighbourhood Plan.

Residents in Hengrove and Whitchurch are UP IN ARMS at the poorly revised plans, which look set to be forced through by another Labour majority planning committee seeking affordable housing numbers rather than decent development. However, if the committee passes the plans, the community are promising a messy Judicial Review. And we all know Bristol City Council’s record at Judicial Review is ABYSMAL.

Watch this space.