Tag Archives: Planning

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Another month and more greedy bastard builders are taking the piss out of our city by refusing to provide social and affordable homes on land owned by us and handed over to PRIVATE DEVELOPERS for housing by Bristol City Council who then grant them planning permission.

First, over to Speedwell where Crossman Homes, a chiselling shower of shit from Bath, are will be DEMOLISHING our amazing art deco swimming pool building and replace it with a HIDEOUS cell block of flats.

Out of the 31 flats being built on our land, Crossman Homes are providing only FOUR “affordable” – whatever that means – homes. Just 14 per cent of the total. Way below the council’s target of 40 per cent or around 12 of these homes.

Not surprisingly the Speedwell community is up in arms about this. Not only are they losing a popular and locally listed community building, they won’t even get any housing anyone in their community will be able to AFFORD. Another win for Bristol City Council?

Locally listed baths: will be demolished for flats

Meanwhile, over at REDCLIFF WHARF, council-owned and the last undeveloped site on the docks, another affordable homes FIASCO unfolds on this prime development land.

A special purpose vehicle – Complex Development Projects Ltd – quickly set up last December by businessmen from HERTFORDSHIRE in search of a fast, unaccountable buck are applying for planning permission to build a wanky mixed use development there. There’s lots of waffle (and cost) with this one about the need for a “HIGH QUALITY PUBLIC REALM” to appease Redcliff’s posh folk who want a poncy development that befits their status.

This means that, while over a MILLION QUID is poured into “public realm” improvements, granite suppliers and the provision of one tree, there’s sod all money left for affordable housing. In fact the dodgy developers are proposing NONE whatsoever!

Our brave council planners have rejected this LUDICROUS PROPOSAL out of hand, however, and told the developers that they must provide THREE one bed flats as affordable housing. Or about ONE FIFTH of the affordable housing requirement for the site.
Sod that. The council must take our land back from these dodgy developers and snooty wankers  immediately and use the site for 100 PER CENT SOCIAL HOUSING.

And, if the posh fuckers of Redcliff don’t like more council housing on their doorstep they can always fuck off to the Cotswolds.

PLANNING NEWS

A retrospective planning application for 14 homes on Bridgwater Road, Bedminster Down may have hit the jackpot for STUPID DEVELOPMENT in the city. Originally granted permission in 2014, with no affordable housing, developers UKS Group Ltd, a heating firm, have set about about breaking the original planning conditions with considerable panache.

Chief among these is their RANDOM CHANGES in the design of the development; a FAILURE to properly decontaminate the land creating a potential health hazard and an INCREASE in parking spaces above legal levels.

Meanwhile a closer look by planning officers at the viability assessment for the development than they managed the first time around suggests it’s riddled with MISLEADING errors, which mean the company could still turn a generous profit and provide affordable housing.

Errors discovered in the viability assessment included: the use of LOWER property values than those provided by independent valuars with no explanation; a CLAIM the scheme contained 1,649 square metres of floor space when it was actually 1,761 square metres, meaning that the build costs were overly inflated, and a CLAIM of costs of £110,000 for parking spaces when the tender document put the costs at £21,700.38.

A council planning committee has now REJECTED the retrospective application citing the lack of affordable housing. Will the developer appeal?

Watch this space.

NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING PLEASE, WE’RE CHRISTIANS

Another day, another development before a planning committee of councillors in Bristol with absolutely NO affordable housing.

We’ve learned our dear old friends, the PG Group, the local multi-million property empire of dubious priest, Friar Gregory “Satan” Grant, have acquired a listed building, the EMPIRE SPORTS CLUB and its unlisted car park on Newfoundland Road, St Pauls. And, in a neat sleight of hand, they’ve put in two planning applications.

One for TEN HOUSES on the car park and another for 22 APARTMENTS in the listed building. All very convenient because the development on the car park falls below the minimum requirement for affordable housing while the listed Empire Sports building apparently qualifies for Vacant Building Credit (VBC) and is exempt from any affordable housing requirement.

So that’s a requirement for thirteen affordable units reduced to ZERO by the millionaire man of God. The only question now is whether councillors will let Friar Satan get away with this bullshit.

Watch this space.

PROPERTY BOSS’S NEW DORMER STRATEGY

Congenital idiot on the rates

Congenital idiot Richard “The Builder” Fear, the city council property boss who didn’t bother getting planning permission for an “eye-catching” CARBUNCLE on the roof of his home in genteel Knowle, is now getting some useful idiot councillors to help him out after losing his planning appeal.

To save him demolishing his unlawful loft extension, the surveyor and RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) member – paid TOP-WHACK by us for his supposed property expertise – has now put in a planning application for a ‘new’ extension. This basically consists of a LICK OF PAINT and an extension to the eaves of his house to make his unlawful extension – that should be pulled down – appear like it complies with planning regulations when it doesn’t.

Fear’s latest plan goes before councillors TOMORROW with locals pointing out that, “a PAINT JOB and the addition of tiles to the eaves will not alter the building overall from being what the Inspector described as a “STRIDENT and BULKY structure… in awkward and discordant contrast with the rear roof pitches of the adjacent terraced dwellings”.

Another says, “from the scant visuals provided, it is impossible for us to judge whether the proposed covering of the cedar cladding with white paint will reduce what the Inspector calls a ‘sense of alien otherness’. However, our feeling is that replacing one ‘challenging contrast with the more subtle palette’ of the surroundings properties with a different at-odds colour (white) will simply result in an equally out-of-character and eye-catching interruption to the broader roof-scape’.

Naturally Fear’s planning colleagues at the council are ignoring any locals and their own planning regulations and recommending councillors approve Fear’s new money-saving plans, which a planning inspector confirmed as unlawful at an appeal.

Will councillors agree with this blatant piece of mutual backscratching from their officers as usual or will they stand up for the communities they’re supposed to represent?

PROPERTY BOSS IN UNFORTUNATE ALIEN OTHERNESS SLIP-UP

‘An awkward sense of ALIEN OTHERNESS’!

Unfortunate news just in. Seems idiot senior Bristol City Council property boss, Richard “The Builder” Fear, is going to have to pull down a HIDEOUS and PRICEY high spec loft extension he stuck on top of his well-appointed period gaffe in Haverstock Road in upmarket Knowle!

Tragically, it seems, this member of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and leading council property “expert” FORGOT to obtain planning permission from his own council for what he laughably describes as an “upscale dormer window”. Does Fear, brought in by the city council three years ago for his alleged private sector expertise, think the rules don’t apply to him?

Alas, they do and he’s now lost an APPEAL to the Planning Inspectorate for retrospective planning permission for his outsize pretentious carbuncle, which not only fails to meet any traditional definition of ‘dormer window’ we’ve ever encountered but fails to comply with a host of planning regulations too.

What a terrible shame. Just imagine what it’s going to cost the OVERPAID council management twerp – who thinks rules are for the little people – to remove his unsightly mess from Knowle’s heritage skyline? There will also be little to cheer Fear in a HIGHLY CRITICAL report from the Planning Inspectorate.

The inspector, David Morgan, doesn’t mince his words over Fear’s abysmal extension that taste forgot. “The maximised proportions,” summarises the inspector of this “strident and bulky structure create an awkward sense of ALIEN OTHERNESS“. Ho! Ho! The Inspector then helpfully lists all the planning rules and regulations Fear has ignored before roundly rejecting Fear’s absurd claim that it’s a “Permitted Development”. Oh dear!

Perhaps once Fear’s dismantled this ANTI-SOCIAL MESS that’s fucking up the view in Knowle, he could take a similar approach to his day job?  Why not start dismantling the endemic culture of CORRUPTION and INCOMPETENCE in the council’s Property Service Department?

A clear-out at a department that currently has an inexplicable £9 MILLION DEFICIT while being involved in a variety of scandals such as with property Guardians Camelot would be most welcome.

But we won’t be holding our breath.

UNLAWFUL POISON PLANT LATEST

Planning permission is now only for the little people in Bristol; not for stuff built for the big swinging dicks of the Merchant Venturers

Efforts by the Day Group to build a POISONOUS bottom ash manufacturing plant at the Port of Bristol, Avonmouth, yards from people’s homes and WITHOUT planning permission, continue to be secretly supported by Bristol City Council’s planners and politicians.

Following a complaint filed in November by a local ‘moaning bastard’ in Avonmouth, the council was forced to issue a PLANNING CONTRAVENTION NOTICE (PCN) against Day Group and investigate this enormous mystery plant at the Port of Bristol with no planning permission.

Day Group have responded to the PCN through lawyers and, seemingly, the response was TOO DIFFICULT for our thicko planners and local authority lawyers to understand as they immediately engaged the services of independent counsel from St Johns Chambers, Queen Square to explain the letter to them.

Although perhaps it’s best not to engage the services of St Johns because they’re, apparently, a shower of IDLE TOSSPOTS bleeding the public purse dry. Over three months later and they, allegedly, still haven’t managed to supply the council with a legal opinion on a short letter on a small point of planning law!

Construction of the plant therefore CONTINUES while the Day Group attempt to obtain a licence from the Environment Agency to start manufacturing their poisonous crap at the site. When questioned by locals on why they were processing a licencing application for an unlawful facility, the Environment Agency responded that planning was not an issue for them.

Meanwhile Avonmouth’s two local Labour Councillors, Don “LENIN” Alexander and Jo “STUPID HIPPY” Sergeant have gone very quiet indeed. Having promised residents they would FIGHT the plant, anything they’re doing to stop this unlawful and potentially harmful eyesore in their ward going ahead appears to be either TOP SECRET or entirely INEXPLICABLE. They have, however, found time to vote to keep their taxpayer funded sandwiches and parking spots.

Promises, last month, from the useless municipal duo to ask the Reverend questions about the facility at Full Council mysteriously NEVER HAPPENED, while enquiries from residents are stonewalled or ignored. Are this pair of rookie politicians being BULLIED in the shadowy corridors of power?

The Day Group are now offering TOURS of their illegal installation to the community at large (except for local “moaning bastards”). Especially any locals who might be likely to accept the largesse of Merchant port bosses through their QUARTET FOUNDATION community slush fund, now run by Sue “Bullshit” Turner, a former Port of Bristol PR boss.

The strategy of state agencies, who should be PROTECTING US to support the Merchant Venturer-run Port of Bristol and their POLLUTING corporate clients is now perfectly clear. Once the EA grant a licence for the unlawful facility, the local authority can then point to the licence to claim the facility is lawful regardless of the planning situation.

All they need to do now is keep any pesky residents and councillors quiet until it’s too late.

THE TOWERING CONTRADICTION: the Labour Party and affordable housing

Redcliffe's cash cow carbuncle: not for the poor!

Redcliffe’s cash cow carbuncle: not for the poor!

A CONVENIENT LEAK from the Rev Rees’s planning department of the viability assessment for the small Chocolate Factory development of 135 flats at Greenbank just days before a planning committee meeting yesterday was enough to get the plans temporarily KNOCKED BACK by grandstanding councillors.

The leaked confidential document, the direct responsibility of council planning bosses, revealed that the developers, The Generator Group, might be able to afford more than the FIVE per cent or SIX units of affordable housing that they finally offered at the site.

This was AGGRESSIVELY seized upon by Labour councillors at the planning committee meeting, who followed the Rev’s lead in the morning’s media and loudly demanded – in front of the gathered press – that the developers meet the Rev Rees’s target of 40 per cent affordable housing, which would be around 50 flats.

This fighting talk over affordable housing at Greenbank contrasted with a relative silence by Labour politicians over affordable housing at one of the Rev Rees’s pet projects, a horrendous 82 metre high concrete cash cow TOWER BLOCK for Redcliffe discussed at the same meeting.

Despite the lack of affordable homes – only 12 per cent or around 32 units against a requirement of 40 per cent or 110 units – the application for this development was WAVED THROUGH. One Labour councillor on the planning committee even said, “while there aren’t enough affordable homes, at least the developers tried”.

So that’s OK then. Although surely FURTHER PRESSURE applied on the developer, Redcliff MCC LLP – a limited liability partnership front for a complex web of companies centring around Christopher Mitchell Solicitors Ltd in Westbury-on-Trym – might have yielded considerably more units of affordable housing than are available at Greenbank? Especially as a tower block on a prime city centre location should be highly ‘viable’?

Of course any claim that the Chocolate Factory planning episode was a CAREFULLY STAGED public relations exercise is ridiculous. Presenting the Rev Rees and his Labour councillors as champions of the people fighting for affordable housing while a favoured and extremely lucrative city centre development fails to get anywhere near those same affordable housing targets without any criticism from Labour’s affordable housing champions is NO CONTRADICTION whatsoever.

Although we do have to wonder why, according to our sources in the planning department, not even a cursory effort is being made to discover how a CONFIDENTIAL planning document got so helpfully leaked ahead of a meeting.

Perhaps such an investigation might prove embarrassing to the Rev Rees and his Labour Party?

PARANORMAL PLANNING NEWS

Bristol Arena by night (Populous Arena team)

Paranormality at Bristol’s arena

Oh my aching sides … The DEFERRAL two weeks ago of planning permission for George’s deranged arena plan due to a complete lack of any transport planning was rather predictable wasn’t it?

How exactly did Mayor Congestion think he was going to get 12,000 people in and out of one of Bristol’s most CONGESTED areas without either a sizeable car park or some coherent public transport provision?

Less predictable, however, was the response of our old friend, Labour’s council leader HRH HELEN OF HOLLAND. Speaking about the transport planning shambles, she told the planning meeting, “I don’t blame the officers for that – the answers are just not out there.”

Really? So where are these bloody answers then if they’re “just not out there”? Should we get Mulder and Scully in to investigate this PARANORMAL EPISODE? Or maybe launch an expedition to find the LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS in case our arena transport plans are buried there? Or perhaps the little green men from Mars flew down and abucted these plans?

Because, of course, none of this fiasco can possibly be the fault of useless sad sack, INCOMPETENT COUNCIL BOSSES can it? After all, they only devised and promoted the arena development. What blame could possibly be attached to them if there’s not a basic transport plan?

The poor dears, struggling by on SIX FIGURE SALARIES and looking forward to a pay rise for being skilled experts in their fields, can’t be expected to produce plans at, er, a planning meeting for a multi-million pound development can they?

Not according to their Bristol City Councillor bosses anyway.

THE KING PRAWN CALABRESE IS OFF: MORE DODGY CONDUCT FROM COUNCIL PLANNER

king prawnMore dodgy conduct from Bristol’s dodgiest planning officer, ANGELO “KING PRAWN” CALABRESE.

Having tried and failed to award corporates NEXTERRA and BALFOUR BEATTY planning permission for a biomass plant in Avonmouth under DELEGATED POWERS he didn’t have and then, just days later, apparently ‘losing’ all the paperwork relating to the episode, King Prawn’s now trying to RIG the information going to councillors on the planning committee considering the application.

Over the last few days, 56 Avonmouth residents have signed and dated LETTERS on paper objecting to the plant and delivered them to the council. This brings the number of objections from Avonmouth residents to well OVER 100 in the space of just TEN DAYS.

Meanwhile, the only letter vaguely in favour comes from Tory councillor and Port of Bristol employee WAYNE “DEE” HARVEY.

Entirely coincidentally – and despite it being a GLARING OMISSION in the King Prawn’s planning report – between 50- 90 per cent of the wood for the biomass plant is likely to be IMPORTED for a fat fee through the, er, port!

However, in a crude attempt to REDUCE the number of formal objection letters from residents, King Prawn has listed these 56 letters as a PETITION! Conveniently reducing the number of objections by around 30 – 40 per cent!

One local resident told The BRISTOLIAN, “I hope Calabrese understands that many of us here in Avonmouth are taking his conduct personally. He has utter contempt for us and has shown us nothing but disrespect and proved he doesn’t give a toss about Avonmouth residents, our families or our health.

“He cares about big corporations making big money off our backs. If planning permission for this cancerous death plant is passed on the basis of the false and misleading information he has supported and rubberstamped throughout this process, he can rest assured we will be holding him personally accountable.

“You can’t lie, cheat, hoodwink and mislead a whole community in Bristol without consequences.”

Please – someone – can’t you put everyone out of their misery here and just fire this revolting little corporate shill as a matter of urgency?