Tag Archives: Tony Nichols

“Dick” Edrich: the latest boss drafted in to sort out the council’s docks and markets shambles

Over FOUR YEARS after we told them so, Bristol City Council finally notice that their HARBOUR OFFICE and MARKETS SERVICE are expensively mismanaged basketcases.

The council is now threatening some sort of ACTION after finally publicly acknowledging, “poor governance arrangements; a poorly managed balance between commercial rigour and democratic accountability; a failure to maintain the Harbour assets and poor management” at its Harbour Office.

This comes four years after The BRISTOLIAN revealed that turd in human form, Harbour Master, Cap’n Tony “Ahab” Nichol, was a serial and, apparently, unsackable BULLY who has got away with MULTIPLE BULLYING OFFENCES towards staff over many years.

The docks infrastructure that he’s responsible for, meanwhile, remains at near-collapse after years of CHRONIC MISMANAGEMENT by underqualified Ahab and his handpicked team of clueless over-promoted supervisors and absent civil engineers.

We’re told that Bill “Dick” Edrich – the man who helped set up the loss-making Bristol Energy fiasco – has been urgently drafted in to BANG HEADS TOGETHER at the Harbour Master’s Office and in Markets, managed, for no coherent reason, by one of Ahab’s hapless minions in recent years.

However, those with longer memories may recall that recently departed property boss, Robert “SPUNKFACE” Orrett, was similarly ordered by Mayor No More Red Trousers – back in 2014 – to sort out the embarrassing management shambles exposed by The BRISTOLIAN in docks and markets.

Although the opposite happened when Spunkface left Ahab to reorganise the docks service as he saw fit. Ahab then used the opportunity to FIRE any experienced workers who had complained about his bullying and incompetence while ensuring his useless crew of management and supervisory bullies were kept on with enhanced salaries.

We can probably look forward to not much happening for a few years yet then

BOG WANKING BOSS BANS BOATS FROM BOAT FEST

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With just a week to go until our annual Harbour Festival, it’s time for Bristol City Council and its prize turd in human form, the Hitler of the harbour, Cap’n Tony “Ahab” Nichol, to treat some Bristol residents LIKE SHIT in order to facilitate some vacuous piece of old crap for the WEALTHY and PRIVILEGED.

This year’s victims are the 30-odd boat-owning residents of HANNOVER QUAY who have been instructed by Harbour Master Ahab, still apparently struggling with his considerable number of mental health issues, to shift their homes out of the way to the end of the harbour at Poole’s Wharf for TEN DAYS during a festival that’s supposed to celebrate, er, boats and our harbour.

We understand these residents are being uprooted so that Ahab and his tragic council management mates and hangers-on can move a SUPER YACHT on to Hannover Quay for the weekend so they can spend time aboard the vessel getting pissed and tugging each other off in style.

Perhaps they’ll be celebrating Ahab’s oversight of the dodgy repair of the Princes Street Swing Bridge? This only took him about THREE YEARS, cost MILLIONS and, we’re reliably assured, “will last about FIVE MINUTES“! Or perhaps they’ll raise a glass to Ahab’s last round of staff cuts, which created 1.25 bosses to every member of working staff accompanied by an unprecedented rise in the DEATH TOLL in his docks?

The boat owners are, of course, livid. Not least because there’s NO ELECTRICITY at Poole’s Wharf, which means the council are treating their long-term paying customers to ten days of living in the dark and eating cold food in the arse end of the harbour while they all enjoy themselves. What’s not to like?

The boat owners are also less than impressed that the consultation they were promised months ago by Bristol City Council prior to any move NEVER MATERIALISED. Instead Ahab – who only has a job because an investigation into his systematic workplace bullying practices in 2014 was called off because it took so long the investigator had retired – simply wandered down to Hannover Quay one day and INSTRUCTED the boat owners to leave or else.

Subsequent complaints to Ahab have all fallen on DEAF EARS, not least because he’s actually very, very ill and isn’t mentally capable of giving a fuck about people. But that’s only when boat owners have managed to get hold him at all. “He’s been spending a lot of time lately in the Harbour Office toilet with his prized copy of ‘Superyacht’ magazine,” we’re told.

“He’s not known around the Harbour Office as “crispy trousers” for nothing”!

WE’RE SUNK!

Stark scenes confronted the dock staff on the morning 23 March this year.

Where once a fourth emergency service vessel sat moored there was now a partly sunken walkway with an even more sunken Harbour Master’s engineer’s boat, The Albion, attached to it.

Several members of the dock team reported back in September that The Albion was holed above the waterline but docks boss Cap’n Tony ‘Ahab’ Nichols, in his infinite wisdom, decided not to fix it until its anual service due in May.

Since then the docks have laid off their experienced, qualified and ticketed team in preferring inexperienced managers, who left the damaged boat loaded over the weekend. Presumably getting home early on a Friday afternoon is a priority for managers, not the safety and security of out boats and harbour?

It beggars belief that while we’re being force fed rising tide and flood risk stories the City Council can be so blase about our safety.

We’re pretty sure it says somewhere in Cap’n Ahab’s job description that he’s supposed to keep the boats afloat. Are we getting value for money from council cuts? Certainly the Albion has cost us an extra bob or two and the essential vessel was out of action for weeks.

THAT SINKING FEELING

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A whistleblower has broken cover to reveal a SCANDALOUS series of HAZARDOUS health and safety breaches in the infrastructure of Bristol Docks.

The major problems we EXPOSE represent a danger to the public, to users of the docks and to the city as whole as it’s unlikely that the city’s flood defences are properly maintained.

Our contact claims that council docks boss, the notorious bully and incompetent, TONY “AHAB” NICHOLS and his useless sidekick, Chief Engineer KEVIN “WHAT DOCK? ” POMEROY have allowed the docks to fall into this serious state of disrepair “due to either their total INDIFFERENCE or complete INCOMPETENCE”.

We’re also told that this is after the pair were entrusted with £17m of tax payer investment for the docks. Here’s the full list of issues:

Outer Gates

☠ Not ‘de-muddied’ in four years

☠ Bearings on operating arms seized

☠ Shear joints (an engineered weak spot to protect gates and machinery) welded top and bottom

Inner Gate

☠ As outer gates, except water ingress to High Pressure Units (HPUs) running biodegradeable oil and causing damage to delicate machinery

Sluices

☠ Spear post ends to sluice gate not repaired – refitted in very worn condition

93 Stop Gates

☠ Not recoated inside depite promises to the Environment Agency as condition of securing money for new stop gates

Brunel Sluices

☠ Only one of four operational for many years Emergency Paddle House

☠ Over six years spent changing from geared operation to hydraulic. Still none operational. (Wrong size rams were bought, wrong HPU. New HPU taken from Brunel subways)

Bridges

☠ Plimsoll: gutter is still not cleaned six months after breakdown, which was ultimately caused by this. Breakdown occurred at 16:15. Chief Docks Engineer Kevin Pomeroy would not answer his phone (during core working hours). He arrived eventually at 20:00. He did not call any engineering staff out although press were told they had

☠Redcliffe and Prince Street Bridge: badly corroded, massive holes in structure

Dredging

☠ More mud in the dock and Feeder Canal than at any time in the last 20 years.

It’s clear that out City Docks have been mismanaged and abused by Cap’n Ahab and Pomeroy. And it’s clear that they are simply not up to their well-paid jobs.

Now we say to the pair of them: “For gods sake – and for everyone’s sake – go. And go now .”

FERRY STRANGE

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MAYOR AT CENTRE OF FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF DOCK’S FERRY SERVICE

A scandal is emerging around Bristol Mayor, “Uncle” George Ferguson’s role in the failed BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY LTD. The company, which ran the blue and yellow ferries around the docks and received considerable council and government subsidies, crashed with £300K DEBTS, no paid-up basic insurance cover for passengers and owing Bristol City Council £11k in mooring fees at the time Ferguson was elected in November 2012.

Indeed, on his very first day at work at the Council House on November 18 2012, it seems super successful businessman Uncle George, who owned A 40% STAKE in the company, was busy planning to LAY OFF 30 STAFF at his failed company and calling in the administrators! Although he blustered to gullible Nazi Post reporters at the time, “I have never been involved in the day-today running of the company.”
Then things get murkier. By early January 2013 a new company, with a remarkably similar name, FERRYBOATS BRISTOL had appeared and was running the very same boats on the very same routes around the docks. This new company, operated by what was described as “a consortium of investors”, curiously, was managed by one of the directors of Ferguson’s failed ferry company, IAN ‘BUNGLE” BUNGARD.

However, Bristol Ferry Boats Ltd didn’t last long either. By May 2013 a third entity, this time a cooperative venture, with yet another similar name took over the boats and the operation, BRISTOL COMMUNITY FERRY BOAT COMPANY.

Again the director from Ferguson’s failed ferries, BUNGLE, was aboard along with his wife, PHILLIPA, and they were joined by Ferguson associates like his old WELLINGTON SCHOOL chum, Sustrans twit JOHN “REALLY” GRIMSHAW; local urbanist and architect twerp KEITH “TIMMY” HALLETT; Merchant Venturer JAY TIDMARSH and, our favourite, SUE LEARNER, described in the company prospectus as Phillipa Bungard’s midwife!

A lot of questions can be asked about what this gang of posh Bristol establishment insiders, random midwives and ‘FRIENDS OF GEORGE’ were up to.

Not least, how did they manage to obtain a series of PRIME FERRY ROUTES around the city docks without having to go through a city council tender process against the vastly better run NUMBER 7 FERRY company?

This tender process, coincidentally, is the direct responsibility of our old friend, the city council’s dribbling mentally ill loon of a docks boss, CAP’N TONY “AHAB” NICHOLS.

Legally, neither of these new ferry companies had any right whatsoever to routes that were awarded by open tender to a completely separate legal entity. Public procurement rules forbid this. So why didn’t Ahab RETENDER the routes as he’s LEGALLY OBLIGED to do rather than hand them quietly over to a local group of wealthy and influential individuals who just happened to be very friendly with the mayor?

Another unanswered question is what happened to all the PUBLIC MONEY that went in to the original basketcase ferry boat company, 40% owned by the mayor? Hundreds of thousands have been poured in by the city council since 2002 and the company even received a government development loan of £125k in 2009.

How were DEBTS OF £300K ever run up? How was the company able to obtain city council tenders while being FINANCIALLY UNVIABLE? Especially strange when you consider that rival firm, Number 7 Ferries, operates similar routes on the same waterway at a PROFIT.

The final question arises over the use of so-called “PHOENIX COMPANIES”. These are new companies set up to trade in the same activities as a former company so it looks like “business as usual” to customers. Phoenix companies can also use directors from a former failed company.

However, while this is legal in certain cases if investors have been properly notified of the circumstances, elsewhere companies that have carried out this DODGY PRACTICE have attracted criticism in the media and parliament as it allows companies to effectively dump their liabilities, walk away from debt and start all over again at an unfair advantage.
The formation of a Phoenix Company is subject to regulation by the DTI. So watch this space …

DOCKS UPDATE: SHOW US THE MONEY. Why is controversial council service withholding their accounts from the public? What are they trying to hide?

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Cap’n Tony ‘Ahab’ Nichols

More news on Bristol City Council’s Docks service and the bullying, incompetent loony they’ve got in charge down there, Cap’n Tony ‘Ahab’ Nichols. We’ve now been reliably informed that to help steady Ahab’s listing ship and manage the growing storm of public Outrage over his dodgy management practices and shit attitude, the council has dragged in a troubleshooter.

Welcome, then to our old friend, the private sector property boss paid from the public purse Robert ‘Spunkface’ Orrett, to take personal charge of matters.

Those with longer memories may recall Spunkface took “personal responsibility” for the council’s bent Markets service in early 2013 – only for the boss directly accountable for markets, Facilities Management boss, Tony Harvey, to kill himself by early 2014. No doubt Ahab is suitably chilled by this news too.

And what a start for Spunkface, with the BLATANT AND UNLAWFUL blocking by him and Ahab – who, between them, trouser more than £100k every year out of your Council tax – of a Freedom of Information request asking to see Ahab’s Docks service accounts.

It’s now been well over fifty days since the request went in, and we’re assured intervention by the Information Commissioner is “imminent” if these accounts aren’t produced pronto.

General opinion seems to be that Spunkface and Ahab are desperate to keep these accounts away from the public because they’re likely to reveal a Markets service-style BENT MANAGEMENT CULTURE of personal financial favours and deals that will have cost the council taxpayer a small fortune. The BRISTOLIAN has already been tipped to find out how much Mayor Ferguson’s former shit- pub-in-an-old-tug, the Grain Barge, hasn’t paid in mooring fees over the years.

Meanwhile, The BRISTOLIAN continues to receive plenty of tip-offs regarding Ahab. Complaints include his failure to not properly clean the docks, resulting in lots of rubbish floating around which wraps it self around boat propellers and threatens aquatic wildlife.

Ahab’s crap decision to shut the harbour Office early to bunk off home is another. In the past anybody who wanted to launch a boat into the harbour to enjoy the light evenings over the summer months was able to pay a fee at the office and float away.

No longer- the office is now shut. The fee also used to contain a small amount for third party and public liability insurance should there be any accidents, meaning that some control was kept over who was actually able to launch a boat. Now now; any idiot can launch, with neither any fees gathered or any insurance cover should they have a prang.

That’s progress Ahab style.

WOTTA DOCKER SHOCKA! MORE BULLYING EXPOSED AT BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL…

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TOP COUNCIL MANAGERS TURN A BLIND EYE TO BONKERS BOSS’S BIZARRE BEHAVIOUR ON THE DOCKS

The BRISTOLIAN can reveal that the city council’s DOCKS SERVICE is at the centre of a BULLYING SCANDAL stretching back years.

Bristol City Council’s docks boss Tony Nichols considers how to keep the scurvy sea dogs under him in line

Staff at the docks service, based at Underfall yard, have been persistently bullied by docks boss CAPTAIN TONY ‘AHAB’ NICHOLS and documents seen by The BRISTOLIAN reveal that he has even been openly targeting union representatives, apparently with impunity. As usual, senior council bosses’ response, despite a huge amount of evidence against Cap’n Ahab, has been LIMP AND PATHETIC.

Last year staff even uncovered an email from Ahab to his supervisory team (or “wankers” as he calls them when they’re not around) that openly attacked highly skilled and knowledgeable docks staff and union reps by name for being lazy and incompetent.

He accused them of “sitting on their backsides doing nothing”; “doing next to nothing for £17k a year” and claimed “99% of [people] would make a better job of it after 2 weeks training”.

He even had a pop at the public trying to use his increasingly poor and inaccessible service, saying we “need to plan our lives a bit better” to suit his crappy timetable! He then rounded off his email by explaining how he was dumbing down his staffs’ jobs so he could cut their paltry wages and benefits further!

When staff complained last year, Ahab’s bosses finally agreed to launch an investigation into this MAD MANAGER. However, the investigation lasted so long that the boss running the investigation retired before it was complete!

Council bosses then held a DISCIPLINARY HEARING IN SECRET for Ahab, which called no witnesses and decided that the best course of action was for staff to attend an equalities workshop and for Cap’n Ahab to deliver an apology to his staff and then let him to carry on as usual!

Staff are reported to be less than impressed with this outcome and tensions within the department are reputed to be “very high indeed” while there’s increasing evidence of “reduced performance in the service” while “sickness levels have soared”.

Our expert in workplace psychology says, “it’s pretty clear to any objective observer that Nichols is unfit for purpose and cannot do the job he’s paid to do. He appears to be suffering from a personality disorder of some kind and maybe other untreated mental health problems. He is simply NOT FIT TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for his staff or even to behave in a socially acceptable manner.”

“Basically long-suffering dock workers are being managed by a nutter and no one’s doing anything about it.”

The BRISTOLIAN

“Smiter of the High and Mighty”