Tag Archives: Sustainable Transport Team

SUPER STUPID SUPERHIGHWAY

Crash! Victoria Park cycle path latest …

The latest effort by Sustrans/Bristol City Council Sustainable Transport Team to build a POINTLESS road through Victoria Park for cyclists as part of a ‘Filwood Quietway’ has even been slammed by Bristol Cycling Campaign for having “no noticeable benefits” for cycling!

The original plan – that had to be hastily pulled by former Labour transport boss Mark “Dead Duck” Bradshaw after HUNDREDS of locals and park users objected – proposed a pointless five metre wide road through the park that provided priority for cyclists commuting through the park.

Now, following another poorly publicised local consultation, Bristol City Council has put a new plan before a Bristol City Council planning committee proposing a pointless three metre wide road through the park with pedestrian priority. This too, following a planning consultation in August when we were all away, is HUGHLY UNPOPULAR with locals and park users who know a shoddy compromise when they see one.

As do the Bristol Cycling Campaign, it seems. Last time around they created a torrid and aggressive public row with park users after they accused them of being part of a mysterious CAR LOBBY operating out of Windmill Hill.

This time around the cycling campaign seem to have finally noticed that this is a plan for a ROAD TO NOWHERE that concretes over one of the city’s finest parks so that cyclists can arrive at a dead end half way down York Road on the New Cut. From where there’s NO MEANS of crossing the river to get to the Quietway’s stated final destination in the centre.

The reality slowly dawning on everyone is that this section of “quietway” is a sloppy VANITY PROJECT from underemployed and unskilled sustainable transport hobbyists at Bristol City Council who are desperate to spend government grant money by March next year regardless of whether it benefits the city.

Scrap this stupid path through our green space now and send the money back to the government.

REES AND BRADSHAW: A WARNING FOR THE FUTURE

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It’s been announced today that the council is withdrawing its plan to build a 4.5m wide road through Victoria Park for the benefit of posh cycle lobbyists in West Bristol.

This is the article we intended to publish in the next issue of The BRISTOLIAN on the issue. We leave it here as a warning to the Reverend Rees, and his idiot cabinet sidekick for transport, Mark “BEAR” Bradshaw, and any other Labour Party vandal who think they can fuck with our open space.

Try it and we will make you pay …

VICTORIA PARK: DIRECT AND TO THE POINT

There’s dark mutterings about “direct action” emerging from Windmill Hill and Totterdown if the Rev Rees, Mark “BEAR” Bradshaw and the cycle lobby fanatics running their transport department go ahead with their plan to build a road for cyclists through Victoria Park.

The economics of this are pretty straightforward. How much extra money is the Rev Rees prepared to throw at a pointless £500k cycling project to secure it? Five per cent? Ten Per cent? £50k doesn’t go far in repairs and security these days does it? Metrobus has reputedly spent more than £1m securing their Stapleton allotments site from protestors.

And remember, while the £500k for the road may come from central government, Rees will have to find any overspend on the project from his own shot-to-fuck council budgets. So if Rees wants to take the piss out of local residents; local residents can easily take the piss back and hit him where it really hurts – in the wallet.

To the barricades park lovers!

VICTORIA PARK PLANNING: FUNNY BUSINESS

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Dick Ed: road builder-in-chief

There’s some FUNNY BUSINESS going on with the Bristol City Council’s planning application to itself to build an inane cycle superhighway through Victoria Park.

The application appears to be a joint effort between Sustrans and the council’s Sustainable Transport Team headed up by “DICK” Ed Plowden, a career civil servant. Although many of us struggle to tell the difference between the local civil engineering outfit for cycling and Dick Ed’s department.

When Dick Ed’s minions originally uploaded the planning documents for their road on 28 November for comment by the public prior to a planning decision later this month, there were NO REPORTS relating to the impact on the ecology or biodiversity of Victoria Park. However, this was rectified last Thursday when these documents miraculously appeared.

Even more miraculously, the date listed for the uploading of these the documents that only appeared on 6 January was November 28. Creating the impression that the documents had been available to the public for SIX WEEKS when they hadn’t. How has this sleight-of-hand been allowed to happen and who authorised MISLEADING THE PUBLIC and a quasi-statutory planning committee in this way?

Naturally Bristol Sutrancity Council responded ‘NO‘ to “Section 13 Biodiversity and Geological Conservation” on their application form as to whether there is a reasonable likelihood of [biodiversity] being affected adversely. Although, due to some CONVENIENT OVERSIGHTS, this isn’t really borne out by their limited (and late) report.

Hall: long term prat

“Dick” Ed Plowden the man responsible for making this application arrived in Bristol as a lower middle manager for John Prescott’s HOPELESS Government Office of the South West (GOSW). A bizarre provincial civil service outpost based at Temple Quay that mainly served as a repository for lower ranking civil servants who couldn’t really make the grade in London. Another alumni of the department is the Green Party’s Red Trouser fan-in-chief, Darren “TAMMANY” Hall.

In those days Plowden’s specialism was in CRIME REDUCTION. Then he waltzed into a senior transport manager role at Bristol City Council, apparently thanks to his experience of making a stately cycle commute to work from his large suburban pile in Knowle every day.

Judging by his approach to planning applications, former crime fighter, Dick Ed, isn’t much interested in reducing crimes in low-level local government corruption. In fact he’s helping create it!