Tag Archives: Metrobus

INFAMY! INFAMY! IT’S A WECA MAN CONSPIRACY!

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dan-norris signing off
Dan signs off road that is ‘a conspiracy theory’

News that the government is handing WECA over £500m to give to First Bus (surely to “transform regional transport infrastrucure”? Ed) has got our brand new Metro Mayor Dan “The Weca Man” Norris hyperventilating with joy.

However a closer look at the plans reveals most of this money will be going into so-called “transport corridors” to develop more bloody Metrobus routes. The Metrobus having been conveniently redesignated from public laughing stock to “a step change in public transport” by the WECA Man’s optimistic transport bods.

An even closer look reveals the majority of the money may well be splurged on just one route – ‘The Bristol – Bath A4 Corridor’ in the jargon. Does this mean that on-off plans to build the Callington Road Link that would take cars off the A4 Bath Road and along the route of the disused North Somerset Railway line between Sandy Park and Callington Road are back on?

This a road scheme that the Reverend and his Labour councillors, taking time off from pretending that Brislington Meadows won’t have housing built on it by Homes England, deny is happening and have described it to locals as “a Lib Dem conspiracy theory”! 

Not a theory at all, however, according to WECA’s Public Transport Manager Phil Wright who confirmed on Twitter in the autumn that the road plan is very much under consideration again.

Is there a WECA conspiracy against Marvin’s Bristol Labour?

ON THE BUSES

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Is there a city council news blackout about the large decline in bus passenger numbers in Bristol over the last year? Journeys are down 5.3 per cent compared to the same period last year and reveal the current administration, just prior to next year’s election, is bucking the
trend of increasing bus use in the city over the last ten years. Self-styled “city leader” and “change maker”, the Reverend Rees appears to have delivered significant change in at least one important area then.

The Metrobus, which the Reverend strongly supports, contrary to all common sense, as a “first step towards an integrated rapid and mass transit network” apparently, is among services showing
obvious signs of failure after just a year in service. Numbers on the M2 from Long Ashton Park and Ride are down. While the M1 service from Hengrove to the Centre has quietly had its service reduced from every 10 minutes to every 12 minutes due to a lack of passengers.

This must be classified as a significant personal failure for the Reverend who has twice taken on the
cabinet transport portfolio during his reign of error. Then there was that ‘State of the City’ address last October. Remember his announcement and the accompanying gushing PR about a “flat fare” scheme in partnership with First Bus? This turned out to be a nonsensical mess, resulting in a
variety of different fares and a price increase for the majority of passengers. Further compounded this summer when First hiked their prices again.

The Reverend’s current cabinet transport chief Kye “The” Dudd also remains silent on this failure.
Preferring instead to waffle on about a pie-in-the-sky ‘Green New Deal’ and the “billion pound City Leap” prospectus, his sell-off of public assets to the private sector.

The Reverend, meanwhile, is now cooking up a pre-election ‘Bus Deal’ with First. Another woolly agreement between Rees and the untrustworthy corporate sharks, that commits public money to various road ‘improvements’ so that First can attempt to further increase their monopoly profits from our pockets. Meanwhile any talk of an underground or any other proper rapid transit system for the city appears to have been removed from the Reverend’s talking points by mayoral spin doctor “Slo” Kev Slocombe.

Hopefully the next stop for Rees and Dudd will be the Job Centre.

 

PATH TO RUIN

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SHIT IDEAS FROM REES’S CORPORATE FRIENDS pt 56

Within weeks of the Reverend Rees unveiling his PIE-IN-THE SKY underground rail plan, the BRISTOL AND BATH RAILWAY PATH is, again, being targeted as a CHEAP rapid transit option by Labour’s corporate transport consultant friends.

In an EXACT REPETITION of proposals that were ended 10 years ago by HUGE public protest, some shadowy corporate transport consultants have LEAKED a proposal to the Nazi Post to run a tram/light rail down the Railway Path as a cut-price alternative to Rees’s impossibly expensive tube dream.

The Reverend’s transport wonks have even wheeled out USEFUL IDIOT, David Redgewell, a self-appointed local transport spokesman to back their plan. Redgewell operates under the guise of the official-sounding ‘South West Transport Network’, a mystery organisation with mystery funding and no formal documents of association.

“No one is saying the cycle way will be closed, far from it, it would actually be widened and improved to allow the light rail track to run alongside it,” explains this full time UNACCOUNTABLE BUSYBODY who doesn’t even understand that the Railway Path isn’t a “cycle way” but a park and inner city wildlife corridor first and foremost.

“There is already a section of the cycle path that runs alongside the Midland railway, so it isn’t too radical,” he rambles on. Well, tell that to the THOUSANDS of residents that successfully campaigned against exactly the same stupid plan ten years ago, you dodgy transport industry gobshite.

Meanwhile the Reverend’s entirely decorative transport cabinet member, Mhairi “Bauble” Threlfall, currently overseeing the incredible £200million non-appearing Metrobus system, has tried to brush aside any plans for the Railway Path. She told the Post, a rapid transit route on the path had been “MENTIONED IN PASSING”, whatever that means.

The Post however suggests things may have gone beyond being “mentioned’. They say, “several of the UK’s top transport experts – including those involved in London Cross Rail project and the completed Strathclyde Subway – have been IN TALKS with Metro Mayor Tim Bowles, Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees and leader of B&NES council Tim Warren.”

And, “It is understood the group has been advised there are only TWO OPTIONS available to running the eastern route through one of the most congested parts of the city – either building a tunnel underground from the outskirts or build a tram-like light rail system next to THE CYCLE PATH.”

Does the Reverend know what happened last time the local Labour Party tried to TRASH our Railway Path in 2008? They were STOPPED in their tracks by MASS PROTEST before slumping to their WORST election performance in a generation in 2009 when they ended up with just 16 councillors.

The Greens and the Lib Dems who SUPPORTED the Railway Path and OPPOSED Labour’s rapid transit plan, meanwhile, enjoyed an electoral boost with the Lib Dems forming a majority administration in 2009.

Rees and Threlfall should consider themselves warned.

WHINY TWAT SEEKS PRIVATE SECTOR MOVE?

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Whiny twat: working seven days a week to fuck up our city

Whiny council twat, Barra Mac “NUGGET” Ruairi, jerking himself off under the title ‘Strategic Director of Place’ and struggling by on about £130k a year for hacking our public services apart was forced by the Rev Rees in November to attend a public meeting in Henbury about the cuts.

Many who attended openly EXPRESSED THEIR FRUSTRATION at clowns like Mac Nugget filling their boots at our expense while cocking up everything in sight.

Mac Nugget replied, “I’m an exec  leader with SIGNIFICANT SALARY who moved from Sheffield to serve the city – seven days per week – genuinely doing my best. I work with £100million contracts, miles of roads, planning, 38 refurbished schools. It’s a significant job with over 1,000 staff. We need qualified people to deliver this kind of work.

“I chose to work in public but could work in the PRIVATE SECTOR. We have trouble recruiting as the private sector take our staff. We don’t just work 37 hours per week but put in as much time for the city as we can.”

Mac Nugget was noticeably light on detail about any of his ACHIEVEMENTS. So here’s some of the things he’s been working seven days a week to achieve:

An arena over two years behind schedule, 20 per cent plus over budget that doesn’t have anyone to build it; a Metrobus bus scheme that nobody wants with no one to run it that’s also over budget; unnecessary concreting over of bluefinger land and allotments at Stapleton for the Metrobus; destruction of hundreds of trees for the Metrobus scheme; endless traffic congestion that continues to get worse; collapsing city docks infrastructure that has culminated in the ongoing closure of Princes Street Bridge; cancellation without notice of vital bus services like the number 51 last year; occupation of council properties by guardian companies that don’t comply with his own council’s licencing and health and safety rules or the law; the proposal to build a five metre wide road through Victoria Park; an inexplicable £9m deficit in his Property Services Department run up between March and June last year; an ongoing failure to deliver smart ticketing on public transport.

Then there’s the risk of failure to the major infrastructure projects he’s managing. Such a failure is currently listed as ‘LIKELY‘ by Bristol City Council

Please private sector take this useless twat. He’s all yours

AUDIT UPDATE

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 Promises by our dear old friends on Bristol City Council’s beyond useless Audit Committee to take a long hard look at the finances of the METROBUS PROJECT on our behalf are floundering after just a few months.

At their meeting on 23 September a question from a member of the public on the Metrobus fiasco could not be answered “as there was not a Transport Officer present”. However, the new chair of the committee, Labour’s Olly “Meadiocre” Mead promised a FULL REPORT would be presented at the November meeting.

Come November, however, and much to the surprise of the public and, we’re told, even members of Meadiocre’s own committee, NO REPORT APPEARED. While a glance at the committee’s detailed schedule for the next year revealed any reference to Metrobus had been carefully REMOVED by unknown council bosses.

So don’t expect any information from Meadiocre’s Audit Committee about your money and Metrobus as they appear to have been very crudely NOBBLED by elements in this city who don’t want you knowing how much of your money is being SQUANDERED on some over engineered bus lanes.

Meanwhile the five year old MARKETS SERVICE finance shambles (Bristolian passim) continues to stagger around somewhere in the vicinity of the Audit Committee like an aging drunk high on laughing gas. A promised report on the council’s DEPARTMENT FOR DISAPPEARING CASH was promised in September. This then inexplicably slipped to November. Now we’re promised something in January.

When this report finally appears will it explain the following statement currently doing the rounds in council finance reports regarding this year’s £30m overspend? “There is a £125K FORECAST SHORTFALL in income against the budget target for Markets as a result of an historic revenue target, which has not been met for the last 5 YEARS.”

That’s a cool £0.6million now pissed up against the wall while an army of useless auditors and an oversight committee of gullible councillors sit on their lazy arses.

LAUGHABLE TAKEDOWN NOTICE FROM INCOMPETENT COUNCIL LAWYERS

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We just got this off some third rate interim council lawyer, presumably just out of college?

Disclosure of Exempt information
Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk> 5 November 2014 17:55
To: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>
Cc: Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Dear Sirs,

You have recently published an extract from a report to Bristol City Council’s Cabinet concerning AVTM/Metrobus.

The part of the report you have published is not for publication by virtue of paragraph of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006). This is because the information contained therein is information relating to the financial or business affairs of a particular person (including the authority holding the information) ie it is commercially sensitive information relating to the value of a contract yet to be awarded.

In the circumstances, publication of this information seriously jeopardises the project and the Council’s ability to deal with this matter in the best interests of the people of Bristol.

You are therefore required to remove this document immediately.

Failure to do so may necessitate the Council in having to take further legal proceedings.

To confirm, once the contract has been awarded then information that will assist the public in understanding the decision making process, will be published.

I do hope that you can understand why this information should not be in the public domain at this particular time and will assist us by removing it immediately. Please confirm by return that you will be doing this.

Yours faithfully

Sanjay Prashar
Interim Service Director Legal and Democratic Services
Bristol City Council
Parkview Office Campus
c/o City Hall
College Green
Bristol BS1 5TR
DX: 7827 Bristol
Tel: 0117 92 22839
Mobile: 07775227302
E mail: Sanjay.Prashar@bristol.gov.uk

Here’s our response:

The Bristolian . <bristoliannews@googlemail.com> 5 November 2014 21:47
To: Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk>
Cc: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>, Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Hi Sanjay,

Could you confirm on what basis you will be taking your “further legal proceedings” please?

Obviously it is not by virtue of paragraph of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006) since this is NOT a gagging or confidentiality clause and it does not prohibit us disclosing information in the way you appear to be claiming.

Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006) is an exemption clause that simply allows the authority not to disclose the information as required under Part VA of the LGA 1972.

What’s that to do with us?

We look forward to your response.

Toodle pip!

And, er, here’s the dickhead lawyer not understanding how to use email and admitting he has to get his boss to write his letters for him!

Re: Disclosure of Exempt information
Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk> 5 November 2014 21:58
To: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>
Cc: Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Who is this joker!
Shahzia-Could you draft a response for me to send please. I suspect it won’t make an iota of difference unless we can identify the perpetrators and take them to court.
Thanks
Sanjay

And Sanjay will be taking us to court for what exactly? We await the reply with interest …

***CORRECTION***

After further research it appears that Sanjay Prashar is the Service Director (and monitoring officer!) for Bristol City Council Legal Services and therefore the unfortunate Shahzia Daya’s boss. Yes, this is the oaf now in charge who replaces Liam “Malfoy” Nevin. Perhaps he should focus a little more on making sure the council’s delegated planning decisions are constitutional and a little less time making a fool of himself with crap threats?

 

LEAKED DOCUMENT!!! WHAT THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT BRT!

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BRT leak-1

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We’ve been LABOURing over this cabinet report LEAK about the financial black hole emerging in the city’s white elephant BRT bus project.

The report that we’re publishing and which has no council managers’ name anywhere near it to take ownership and responsibility for the shambles, lists a series of overspends due to the inflated FINANCIAL DEMANDS of corporate civil engineering firms for work on the Ashton Vale – Temple Meads bus route.

So far, before any work has even begun, costs for works on the Ashton Avenue Bridge; bridges at the Bathurst Basin due to Fergo’s rerouting plans and on the so-called “Cumberland Busway” (Cumberland Road to me and you) amount to £9.12m MORE than was originally budgeted for.

The council’s proposals for covering these losses are equally interesting.

One plan is to shave £2.4m off the budget by a REDUCING FLOOD DEFENCE measures along the New Cut on Cumberland Road.

Another is to TARGET PEDESTRIANS and not bother with street lighting, except at bus stops, over the whole route. Another is to inexplicably “reduce the cost of city centre work” for the BRT scheme by £1.1m. Yet more corners cut then.

Another is to simply reallocate £1.5m to “OTHER SCHEMES”, which is likely to be transport budgets – so don’t expect any new pedestrian crossings any time soon in your community.

Yet another is to “reallocate” £0.4m from the CYCLING AMBITION FUND and spend it on the Bathurst Basin bridges. In other words money for cycling will be spent on buses!

A further £1.1m will be absorbed by “ADDITIONAL FUNDING”, whatever that is.

Is all this legal? Council budgets raided and tax payers money diverted – in secret – to corporations on the authority of unsigned confidential council cabinet reports?

The full report is here: BRT leak