Recently departed Bristol Waste Managing Director Jason “Benny” Eldridge certainly had an interesting approach to doing business with our money.
One of his great ideas was to spend south of £100k buying some dodgy old milk floats off a mate. More public cash was then splashed renovating the ridiculous old rust buckets.
All but one has never been used and they are now mothballed at Days Road tip.
You couldn’t make this shit up.
Despite the best efforts of Bristol City Council to keep it under wraps, there’s a major corruption scandal brewing at Bristol Waste.
Multiple sources have now approached The Bristolian telling us that some firms using the weighbridge (or Transfer Station as they now call it) at Avonmouth tip on Kings Weston Lane to dispose of their waste were not formally paying for the service. Instead considerable sums of dirty money have been changing hands behind the scenes between bent bosses.
The Avonmouth weighbridge is a straightforward system that’s easy to monitor with limited opportunities for systematic fraud without the collusion of senior bosses.
Trucks carrying commercial waste drive onto the weighbridge, present a Waste Carriers License, have their registration recorded and the vehicle weighed. The waste is then tipped and the truck returns to a weighbridge and is weighed again. A charge per kilo of waste is automatically calculated, charged to the firm and a waste transfer note issued.
Workers ripping this system off without bosses knowing would be tricky as there’s automated records of how much waste has been recorded as tipped and how much money is collected. The two figures are easily accessible to management and would need to tally. And they didn’t … For years.
Our sources tell us certain firms have been systematically not charged, obviously with the full knowledge and assistance of Bristol Waste bosses. Firms named to us include major corporate players in the waste industry. Who were they paying for their waste disposal?
We understand that a significant whistleblower stepped forward last summer and this resulted in the immediate exit of Bristol Waste MD Terry “I Am The” Lawless and his finance director sidekick Adam “Dumb” Henshaw.
We also understand that Bristol City Council has been undertaking one of its painfully slow arse-covering investigations ever since. When they intend to report, if ever, isn’t known.
Meanwhile, our street cleaning is being reduced, flytipping not collected and public opening times at waste tips slashed to make up a financial shortfall partly created by thieving bosses on generous six-figure salaries. All conveniently helped out by our council’s slack oversight of a council taxpayer-owned business.
Further concerns have also been raised with The Bristolian over what materials may have been tipped at Avonmouth. If Bristol Waste bosses were breaking the law to fill their boots why would they be bothered about hazardous waste regulations?
Further tip-offs about Bristol Waste we’re currently investigating include stories of bosses signing off massive expense claims for themselves and the latest recently departed interim MD, Jason Eldridge, making generous and expensive use of Plan B Waste Management consultancy. Where a Mr Shaun Eldridge works – Jason’s brother!
Isn’t it about time Inspector Knacker got involved?
Got any info’ on Bristol Waste and its bent bosses? Contact the Bristolian bristoliannews@gmail.com. Discretion assured.
What happened to Bristol Waste managing director Tony “I Am The” Lawless and his sidekick, finance director Adam “Dumb” Henshaw? Why did both suddenly quit on July 18 and disappear without working their notice?
The story goes that last March the rubbish bosses got their business plan signed off and approved by council boss Stephen “Preening” Peacock and the Reverend Rees. That business plan was based on holding a pretty strong line on pay in order to keep another of the council’s struggling businesses solvent.
So, when the unions decided they needed a better pay rise they bypassed Bristol Waste altogether and went straight to the Reverend and his ex-union baron sideman “Slo” Kev Slocombe. The Reverend then instructed Bristol Waste (despite having no authority to do so) that they needed to make a better pay offer despite knowing full well they didn’t have the money. to pay for it.
Eventually Bristol Waste did make an improved offer. Not good enough to satisfy what the unions wanted but high enough to mean that it was double the amount of this year’s contract increase from the Reverend. Bristol Waste would now have to eat into their reserves and implement major cuts that formed no part of March’s business plan.
Soon after the pay hike announcement Lawless and Henshaw quit. Chris Holmes was quickly transferred over from Bristol Holding to take on the finance role, and a new interim MD was headhunted and appointed.
Last we heard Bristol Workplace (the recently outsourced cleaners and security from Bristol City Council) have already seen workloads substantially increased as the company attempts to deliver more for less.
This month the new management will be launching a public consultation. Designed to be as boring as possible, one of its objectives will be to test out ideas that sound like they will be better for the environment but, in reality, will also save BWC lots of money. The preferred option being to go to three week rubbish collections rather than the two weeks currently in operation.
General word is that the Reverend doesn’t much care what the company does as long it doesn’t go bust before the end of his term in May 2024
This story was published in our paper version earlier this month. Bristol Energy MD, Peter “High Pay” Haigh, has subsequently left the organisation as we reported yesterday. The reasons for his departure, like everything else about this shit show of a company, are shrouded in mystery.
So it’s farewell, then, to NICK JORDAN, chairman of Bristol Energy, who’s quietly sloped off somewhere or other to do something else instead and left behind a cool £30million tab for council taxpayers to pick up.
Nick has RUSHED FOR THE EXIT just behind Bristol Energy’s finance director, Laura Flowerdew and he’s replaced by Alex Wiseman, one of the few remaining directors at Bristol Energy and the owner of consultants Alex Wiseman Associates.
Meanwhile, staff at Bristol Energy tell us that the Operations Director, Dave Ford, and the Sales Director Phil Biddle were made REDUNDANT last month and they’ve not been replaced. This comes after three heads of department at the company were made redundant over the summer while others have simply DEPARTED without explanation. None have been replaced.
Bristol Energy staff tell us there is very little funding left and that they are being managed by consultants and very inexperienced managers as the whole operation winds down, apparently heading for BANKRUPTCY.
The only question seems to be when will the business go to the wall? Before the mayoral election in 2020 saving council taxpayers further DEBT. Or after the election? To improve the Reverend’s chances of re-election?
And cost the council taxpayer further millions ….
Contacts at Bristol Energy tell us that the Managing Director, Peter “High Pay” Haigh is being “MOVED OUT” and that the Interim Finance Director is taking over.
Is the end nigh? More information when we have it.
What the fuck is going on at BRISTOL WASTE, run by, officially, the thickest bureaucrat in Britain, Bristol City Council’s Tracey “Beaker” Morgan, appointed Managing Director of this shitty little council firm in 2016 by half-witted councillors?
In November, Beaker, a dim Tory from Portishead, instructed her staff to REMOVE from the Bear Pit an artwork celebrating Labour pacifist MP Walter Ayles, which formed part of the nationally acclaimed Journeys to Justice exhibition hosted by the city in the autumn.
It appears that Beaker PERSONALLY decided that this artwork, produced by the Creative Youth Network, had no value and should be binned after she received a request to remove it in the lead up to Remembrance Day from her FAT TORY TURD mate, Henbury Councillor, Mark “Lard Arse” Weston.
Following UPROAR on social media and the personal intervention of the mayor, Beaker was forced to quickly restore the work to the Bear Pit and the mayor issued an apology explaining that Beaker and Bristol Waste had removed this private property without his or anyone else’s authority. Surely a disciplinary matter?
Fast forward two months and guess what? Just one day after UPROAR in the newspapers after Bath City Council issued their homeless with threats to REMOVE their belongings from the city centre, reactionary thicko Beaker issued notices of dubious legality to homeless people in Broadmead, er, threatening to REMOVE their belongings from the city centre.
Yet again, the mayor had to personally intervene and make an apology explaining that Beaker and Bristol Waste had acted without his or anyone else’s authority! What the fuck is wrong with this North Somerset piece of TORY SHIT, Beaker? What makes her think she can do what she likes in our city, such as judging our children’s artwork as rubbish to be dumped or treating our homeless as SUBHUMAN WASTE?
This latest piece of blatant right wing fuckwittery from Beaker, targeting vulnerable people in the city while totally misreading the mood of Bristolians regarding homelessness, came just weeks after she personally FUCKED UP the city’s rubbish collections over Christmas.
Having decided NOT to print and deliver leaflets listing altered household rubbish collection times over Christmas, Beaker then published a load of INACCURATE information about these collections on the internet. This resulted in rubbish being left out on our streets for days on end in the new year and made the city – she conveniently doesn’t live in – look like shit.
Isn’t it about time that the Reverend fired this incompetent right wing twat who thinks she can do what she pleases in our city? Let’s send her packing back to Portishead to die the long, slow, painful death all Tories deserve.