Tag Archives: Paul Smith

CITY COUNCIL BRIDE STILL ENGAGED TO SLUM LANDLORD CAMELOT

The wedding’s not off yet! Despite having had a lovers’ tiff with SCAMALOT in 2017 following The BRISTOLIAN’S exposure of their secret affair in 2013. And despite a seminal court ruling that effectively gave Camelot ‘licensees’ the rights of tenants. And despite PAUL ‘WOLFIE’ SMITH’s promise to terminate all Bristol City Council contracts with Property Guardian Companies Camelot and Ad-Hoc forthwith, The BRISTOLIAN can reveal, that Camelot are STILL enjoying the favours of BCC’s Portfolio Management team as we go to press, WELL OVER EIGHTEEN MONTHS ON.

A pair of activists made this discovery about six weeks ago when they paid a visit to one ‘former’ Camelot-run/BCC owned property. And ran into a group of residents with all their belongings being unceremoniously piled into cars or taxis, ably assisted by Camelot employee STEVE ‘NEO-NAZI’* PERKINS, or ‘THE EXECUTIONER’ – as he’s also known. Unable to speak to the evicted residents because of Perkins’ intervention, the activists did not find out what was going on until later, when sheer chance provided a thread they could follow.

What they discovered was that when they had showed up, everyone was in fact being evicted ILLEGALLY… by force, while a BCC-registered dispute over tenancy rights was in progress at the said property.

Despite this, the residents were relocated to YET ANOTHER BCC PROPERTY and dumped into sub-standard living quarters, where conditions are EVEN WORSE than they had been at their former home. Not only that, but at least one resident did not even give permission for this violation and had their personal belongings removed (with damage/loss) to the new address, while they were out of the building.

So THE LAW BE DAMNED, because with Nazi-employing Scamalot and its quisling BCC housing managers, it’s business as usual! I wonder if it’s the same story at those BCC properties run by Ad-Hoc? Hmm, perhaps we should investigate.

* We stand by this accusation, Steve, because we hacked into your ‘restricted access’ Facebook page and followed its ultra-right/white supremacist links, you fascist thug!

WEALTHY CASH IN ON THE HOMELESS

HENGROVE PARK LATEST

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Labour housing czar, Paul “Wolfie” Smith’s efforts to “build communities not just houses” on Hengrove Park continue to go badly awry as his planning team persist in their attempt to dump 1,400 homes in a field in south Bristol and call it “planning”.

Some progress was made when Wolfie’s planners caught up with the rest of the sentient universe and agreed that a public road access to their development was REQUIRED from Hengrove Way, the only major arterial route to the site.

However, planners then decided that this route must STOP one third of the way into the development to prevent “rat-running” between Hengrove Way and Whitchurch Lane. However, this will also PREVENT vehicle access to two thirds of the proposed homes from the road with the best capacity to handle the traffic. Planners, when asked where they think they are preventing rat-runners going, deliver the BLANK LOOK of someone who’s spent about as much time in south Bristol as the average Japanese Puffer Fish.

Concern for rat running then DISPELS less than a mile away where an existing residential road and ‘rat-run’, Bamfield, will provide vehicle access for two thirds of the development. Is the plan to prioritise the quality of life in the NEW DEVELOPMENT by reducing traffic there at the expense of an EXISTING residential area already handling supermarket traffic for Asda, school run traffic for Perry Court Primary School and existing “rat-runners” going home to Hengrove and Whitchurch?

How Bamfield, a residential road, is supposed to cope with even more traffic is NOT EXPLAINED. While enquiries regarding how many vehicle movements the new development might generate go UNANSWERED by planners who are, apparently, near the end of their “masterplanning” with NO CLUE how much traffic their development might generate.

Throughout this process, planners have remained DEAF to concerns regarding traffic issues in the area. Instead, the council’s mantra is that the new housing is a major benefit that residents have been calling for. A view CONTRADICTED by the council’s own Quality of Life Survey, where concern over traffic and transport dwarfs housing issues by about four to one.

So far, planners’ only real response to impending TRAFFIC HELL, reduced air quality and increased pollution is to enthusiastically draw little blue lines all over their plans indicating where their cycle lanes will go. This is for an area where their own data shows ZERO PER CENT of people cycle to work and any new roads will be cycle-friendly 20mph anyway.

Another “benefit” planners are keen to highlight is the £10MILLION proposed spend on park facilities and landscaping for the open space they haven’t concreted over. Although the reality is that residents are losing huge amounts of open space to housing and roads while any benefit from more park facilities is QUESTIONABLE while the council is proposing to close the existing Hengrove Play Park on Mondays and Tuesdays.

It also appears that there will actually be £10million worth of landscaped PSEUDO PUBLIC SPACE as the land will be turned over to a dodgy Carillion-style private management firm, procured by a skint council, to run. The level of maintenance and upkeep of this space is therefore likely to be LOW with ZERO community or democratic oversight once the council signs our land away to the private sector to manage.

The latest highlight of this public-private pseudo public space LANDSCAPING BONANZA is an optimistically named “village green”, planned to be built over the popular Family Cycling Centre. However, any traditional sound of leather on willow may be a little subdued by the main road into the development running DIRECTLY THROUGH this village green.

It’s obvious that this development is being pursued at a RAMPANT PACE by Wolfie in order to chase numbers for a manifesto pledge on housing numbers. While it might – if we’re lucky – support the housing needs of the rest of the city, it provides little that’s much use to locals who’ll have to live with the predictably DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES of it all.

Wolfie needs to get back to the drawing board or accept responsibility as the architect of a new Hartcliffe (another public housing development full of bold promises where there was never any money for the services and facilities to fulfil them).

A HARPY NEW YEAR FROM CONNOLLY & CALLAGHAN!

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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…

FEBRUARY 2: IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY WITH SCAMALOT AND BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL

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Today is February 2, Groundhog Day at no less than four BCC Properties visited by a team of housing activists accompanied by The BRISTOLIAN

After an epic High Court case in February last year, which ESTABLISHED TENANT RIGHTS FOR ‘PROPERTY GUARDIANS’ (a precedent-setting case) against empty BCC property-leasing scam landlords CAMELOT, Paul ‘Wolfie’ Smith, Labour’s housing boss, publicly stated he would terminate all property guardian relationships with BCC in ‘due course’.
This was because of the SCANDALOUS STATE of disrepair the tenants were living in, the NIGHTMARE LEGAL CONTRADICTIONS that BCC had been implicated in, and the unbelievable levels of INCOMPETENCE, MALIGNANCE and NEGLECT by both Camelot and also the council’s housing management team of Woods, Hooper et al which had led BCC into this situation.

So imagine the faces on the team of housing activists when, revisiting 4 BCC properties just under one year on from the historic court decision, they discovered these sub-standard, dangerous properties STILL OCCUPIED EXACTLY AS BEFORE. Sstill in disrepair and STILL WITH NO HMO LICENSES (houses of multiple occupation require rigorous safety standard licensing), and also with the tenants therein STILL PAYING SLUM LANDLORDS CAMELOT BOGUS ‘RENT’ AT BCC PROPERTIES! Not only that, but the team discovered employment agency, MERIDIAN, STILL SUB-LETTING FROM CAMELOT many months on AFTER they were exposed in both The BRISTOLIAN and The Nazi Post for their employment/rent scam and poor treatment of employees on BCC premises. Once again, these CAPITALIST CUNTS were found to be still DOCKING WAGES DIRECTLY from their workers on the premises to pay this spurious double-rent!

We estimate that there may be 150+ PEOPLE STILL LIVING in unsafe conditions on ‘Property Guardian’ run BCC properties in Bristol, most paying rent to these FRAUDSTER middlemen who’ve taken them over.

Yes, it’s Feb 2, and Groundhog Day for Bristol City Council! SO WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, WOLFIE, 1 FULL YEAR ON? We demand that you make a new public statement.

At The BRISTOLIAN we demand:

That Bristol City Council FORCE Camelot and Ad Hoc to IMMEDIATELY CONFORM to the HMO license regulations at its properties that it is still leasing.
That BCC RECOGNISE ALL who are still living on these properties as DE FACTO COUNCIL TENANTS, following the decision in the Roynon v Camelot case of Feb 20 2017. This farce has gone on much too long to make anything else acceptable.
That BCC no longer pursues such OUTSOURCED SCAMS under dodgy ‘licenses/tenancies’ with private companies, whether these are ‘property guardian companies’, ‘homeless charities’, ‘affordable homes builders/property agents’ or anyone else, and instead EMBARKS UPON A CAMPAIGN OF ESTABLISHING EMERGENCY SOCIAL HOUSING UNDER DIRECT BCC CONTROL.
* We encourage all tenants of either Camelot or Ad Hoc to contact BCC’s Tenancy Relations to enquire into their rights and the legal precedent; to contact BCC’s Housing Environmental Health about their living conditions and the building’s HMO requirements, and to legally withhold rent until these repairs are carried out. Eviction notices given to you by Camelot or Ad Hoc should always be submitted to prior scrutiny by Tenancy Relations or the Avon Law Centre as to their legal validity.

PANTO TIME!

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?

PROPERTY IS DEBT

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Ding, dong the Spunkface is dead!

Council property boss Robert “Spunkface” Orrett, brought in to the council in 2012 for his “PRIVATE SECTOR EXPERTISE” has ceased to run the world’s most useless council department that specialised in draining us of public money.

Last year, Spunkface’s department – responsible for all the council’s buildings and its lucrative land and property portfolio – posted an inexplicably HUGE LOSS of £7.7million due to his failure “to achieve savings”. This ABJECT FAILURE went on to comprehensively fuck up the whole of the council’s accounts. This year, Spunkface, already facing losses of – at least – £2.6million in more unachieved savings, has finally quit.

Perhaps the Reverend Rees was no longer prepared to tolerate Spunkface, who – when not losing enormous amounts of public money – is best known for his crude COVER-UPS of “mismanaged” cash in his Facilities Management Department’s markets and security operations?

We understand that Spunkface has now taken up a role locally at YTL PROPERTY alongside his former boss at the council, Barra Mac Ruari, the posh urbanist twit mate of Mayor No More Ferguson. YTL is Merchant Venturer, Colin Skellett’s development firm that bought the huge Filton Airfield site for development after an extensive marketing exercise by, er, Colin Skellet’s Local Enterprise Partnership!

Housing Tsar, Paul “Wolfie Smith” was handed responsibility for the council’s Property Services over the summer, mainly to act as nursemaid to the latest multi-million pound Broadmead corporate makeover.

But did Wolfie finally pull the trigger on Spunkface and put our city out of the misery he imposed?

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.