Interesting local Labour Party response to an Inns Court residents meeting in the autumn to discuss the building of an Onside Youth Zone on their valued open space.

Learning that local residents had had the sheer affront to hold a meeting and propose alternative brownfield sites for this large sports complex in a corporate shed, Tom “Arse” Canham, the LGBTQ Officer for Bristol South’s CLP, took to Twitter to condemn the working class upstarts.

Just hours after a meeting where residents described the proposed site as a well-used green space with lots of wildlife, Tom Arse popped up on Twitter to claim the land was “public land that isn’t being used at all and isn’t much use to any one”. He continued, “Somehow some people oppose [the Youth Zone] being built on a roundabout where literally nothing is there,” and “It’s literally an empty field”!

None of this is true. It’s a wildlife rich open space and residents hadn’t opposed the Youth Zone. They had just suggested building it on a local brownfield site such as at Filwood Broadway, Hengrove Leisure Park or Imperial Park. Proposals that reflected a spirit of compromise rather than opposition.

No such spirit of compromise from Labour’s Tom Arse when presented with the facts, however. Instead he switched on caps lock to shout “NIMBYs gonna NIMBY” at anyone daring to disagree with him. He then claimed that the people of Inns Court had a problem with young people.

A ludicrous claim as Inns Court and Knowle West residents have worked together recently to pay for and create a garden for a local 7 year old girl with Downs Syndrome as she had been unable to use her dangerous garden since she was born. What’s Tom Arse doing for young people in the area apart from demanding their open space is concreted over as soon as possible?

Vote Labour: get arseholes.