Tag Archives: Totterdown

NIGHT OF THE LIVING HOUSING CRISIS

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No, not the opening treatment for a new horror movie being shot soon in Bristol but a local resident’s comments about proposed tower blocks for Mead Street in the shadow of Totterdown. The developers of the scheme are a pension fund fronted by corporate real estate business DTZ Investors and the architects are “award winning” Sheppard Robson.

Someone urgently needs to drive a stake into the hearts of these bloodsuckers.

REVEREND’S HARA KIRI ELECTION PLAN

REVEREND'S HARA KIRI ELECTION PLAN

Is Bristol’s Labour Group at the council, led by the Reverend Rees, attempting to commit some weird form of RITUAL POLITICAL SUICIDE before the local elections next May? What other explanation is there for the STUPID DECISIONS and CRAZED OUTBURSTS emanating from the Reverend Mayor and his daft councillors?

The Reverend has already pissed off loads of communities throughout the city who are unlikely to vote for him or his party next year. These include WHITCHURCH where he’s proposed running a ring road through the community past a primary school; HOTWELLS, ASHTON and SOUTHVILLE where he wants to build his corporate high rise wet dream on their doorstep; STOKE BISHOP where he’s allowed their open space to be fenced off by Cotham School; TOTTERDOWN where his councillors voted through, contrary to the Local Plan, a hideous 15 storey tower block on the Bath Road; KNOWLE where he’s backed another tower block and WINDMILL HILL and BEDMINSTER where the Reverend’s been unable to get any grip on unruly private developers at Bedminster Green.

Then there’s the Reverend’s thicko cabinet sidekick, Kye “The” Dudd’s treatment of the FLY PROBLEM in Avonmouth. The Dudd has courted voters by variously accusing residents of planting dead flies to create a FAKE PROBLEM; blaming the flies on DOMESTIC WASTE left on St Andrews Road and, even, claiming there’s NO FLY PROBLEM and that fly levels in Avonmouth are the same as other areas of Bristol. A claim recently rubbished by the BBC who did their own tests for their ‘Inside Out West’ documentary slot.

Remarkably, things now seem to be TAKING A TURN FOR THE WORSE for Labour. At September’s Full Council, the Reverend, behaving like the last officer standing on a Pacific island as GIs storm the beach, raged about “SABOTAGE” by opposition councillors before burnishing his ANTI-UNION CREDENTIALS by refusing to allow his council to be involved in the Climate Strike on 20 September. The Reverend’s Labour colleague, Tom “Charming” Brooks, then PLUMBED FURTHER DEPTHS while responding to a petition from 3,979 voters calling for a moratorium on 5G rollout.

Rather than calmly quote scientific sources to rationally dispute the petitioners health claims, the Horfield councillor launched into a DEMENTED RANT instead. The petitioners were “naive people who had been taken in by MALICIOUS MISINFORMATION” and “conspiracy theorists fuelled by
fake news and misinformation” and were “PEDDLING PSEUDO-SCIENCE using technical sounding words to confuse people”. However, Brooks dismally failed to cite ANY EVIDENCE to support his insults. Instead, he argued, he was right because he had “the ability to Google and was also as an engineer working in risk and safety”.

Lib Dem, Green and, even, Tory councillors were much CANNIER and CALMER towards this large group of potential voters. Explaining they accepted Public Health England’s view on 5G for now but agreed the health situation should be monitored as the technology was rolled out.

That’s another 4,000 votes down the pan for Labour next May then

 

AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS CRISIS

As it emerges that they’re going to miss their affordable housing target of 800 homes by 2020, the Reverend and his housing sidekick, Paul “Wolfie” Smith are now resorting to DESPERATE MEASURES and cheerleading some pretty shabby development proposals through the planning system.

In June a Bristol City Council planning committee waved through permission for a 15 storey tower block on the Bath Road at Totterdown. THE HUGE AMOUNT OF CONCERN in the local community over a development that doesn’t meet the requirements for tall buildings outlined in the Local Plan – a policy revised just months before by the Reverend’s administration – was overlooked by a Labour majority Planning Committee, apparently IN A HURRY TO JUST GET SHIT BUILT.

The Reverend’s Housing Czar, Paul “Wolfie” Smith took to social media before the planning meeting to give the development a PR BOOST, announcing, “Great to see Hadley group commit to at least 30% affordable housing and up to 50% for their proposed development on the old garage site on the Bath Road”.

Although developers, Hadley, had actually committed to just 20 per cent affordable housing and the council had agreed to SUBSIDISE a further 10 per cent (with possibly a bigger bung to come) with public money. This is despite the development being unsuitable for families and children, not least because it’s on one of Bristol’s busiest roads and has NO OUTDOOR PLAY AREA.

Meanwhile over at Hengrove Park – where the council’s vision of 1,500 homes on a public park was thrown out by planners just a few months ago because it didn’t comply with the Neighbourhood Plan – A NEW PLAN has appeared proposing just 50 houses less, which still doesn’t comply with the Neighbourhood Plan.

Residents in Hengrove and Whitchurch are UP IN ARMS at the poorly revised plans, which look set to be forced through by another Labour majority planning committee seeking affordable housing numbers rather than decent development. However, if the committee passes the plans, the community are promising a messy Judicial Review. And we all know Bristol City Council’s record at Judicial Review is ABYSMAL.

Watch this space.

GREEDY GREEN EVICTS TENANT

Another greedy green

Looks like yet another Green Party councillor’s PUBLIC pronouncements on housing don’t quite match his PRIVATE arrangements.

An irate ACORN tenants union member calls to tell us that the Green Party Councillor for Southville, Bristol Pound bigwig and er, ACORN tenants union member Stephen “Daddy” Clarke, has EVICTED a tenant from one of his numerous local buy-to-let investments after the tenant told him that his rent increase of 28 per cent was unaffordable!

The evicted tenant had been sharing with Daddy Clarke’s daughter, Katie “Snowflake” Finnegan-Clarke, a self-styled ‘SOCIAL JUSTICE CONSULTANT‘ who’s main contribution to progressive causes is ‘being around when the media arrive’ we’re told. Snowflake originally advertised daddy’s house as “LOW RENT in line with local housing allowance so people on a low income can afford to live here.”

At £292 per month plus £60 towards bills, the idea seemed to be about building a stable and secure home for people on low incomes. However towards the end of the tenant’s six month contract they received an email from Ms Finnegan-Clarke advising them of CHANGES to the rent.

Snowflake explained that daddy wanted to INCREASE the rent so each room was rented at the same price as THE REST of his properties in Bedminster and Totterdown. This would be £382 every four weeks. Snowflake claimed she had been trying to negotiate with daddy but “without a huge amount of luck”. So the rent would be increasing to £375 a month (excluding bills) from 27 June. “In-line with comparable properties in Easton,” she claimed.

When asked why the rent was being increased, Snowflake explained that daddy, who bought the property on a buy-to-let mortgage, was affected by changes in tax law to TOP RATE taxpaying landlords. This meant the poor dear could no longer put his mortgage repayments against his business expenses and Daddy didn’t want to ‘LOSE MONEY‘ … On a property which had only gone up £100,000 since he purchased it five years ago!

The tenant complained that the rent rise was not something they could AFFORD and Ms Finnegan-Clarke told them to negotiate directly with Daddy Clarke. However, the following Monday an email arrived from Snowflake.

“As  I labored to make clear in the room advert, in our initial skype interview and during our face-to-face interview, the lodgers agreement was only supposed to last six months in order to give us (and now me) the flexibility required and was reflected in the LOW RENT.

“The HOUSE DYNAMICS haven’t been working for me, and you do not seem happy in the house either, so I would like to formally end the extended lodgers agreement. Please accept this email as WRITTEN NOTICE of the end of your Lodger Agreement at Hinton Road, Bristol.”

And with that Clarke and his social justice warrior daughter –  who does lots of ‘work’ to raise awareness about issues of gender and race – evicted the tenant because the “house dynamics” were wrong.

#walrustrial: PRASHAR HAS 48 HOURS TO COMPLY!

City council legal boss, SANJAY “UNDER” PRASHAR wants to threaten local people does he? That’s a two way street isn’t it? So let’s see how the dodgy little lawyer likes it up him.

According to the letter below, he’s got 48 hours to explain his legal threats before the material he’s desperately trying to conceal from the public to cover-up corruption, crime and wrongdoing at Bristol City Council goes into the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Such an outcome will be another personal humiliation for Sanjay. It would be the second time he’s issued EMPTY THREATS based on pseudo-legal lies to try and gag the public only to be ignored and ridiculed. Is anyone ever likely to believe a word he ever says if his gagging efforts flop again?

 The soppy little wimp isn’t exactly projecting power and authority is he?

Request for clarification letter to Sanjay Prashar legal

#walrustrial: CITY COUNCIL DISASTER PENDING …

‘No’, Councillor Gary Hopkins, watercolour & crayon, 2013, guriben

‘No’, Councillor Gary Hopkins, watercolour & crayon, 2013, guriben

More extraordinary scenes at BRISTOL MAGISTRATES COURT on Monday when the legendary #walrustrial recommenced after a Christmas break.

The trial, ostensibly a prosecution of a short let home – the MANSION HOUSE on Knowle Road, Totterdown – for noise pollution, has turned into something of a forensic analysis of the conduct of the city council’s environmental health department and especially the malign influence Councillor Gary “FUCKBUCKET” Hopkins seems to be able to exert over their work.

Monday saw more bad news for the council when an EXPERT WITNESS for the defence on noise pollution took the stand and DEMOLISHED the council’s utterly crap evidence based on lost log books and zero sound recordings.

This was followed by a BIZARRE summing up from the council’s barrister – paid handsomely by you, dear reader – in which she accused Andrew Forsey of the Mansion House of writing the BRISTOLIAN!

This is obviously a pile of evidence-free bullshit, which shows just how WEAK the council’s case is if they have to focus a prosecution for noise pollution on YER LOCAL SMITER rather than any evidence of, er … Actual noise!

The council barrister then went on to distance herself from her own star witness, Mansion House next door neighbour and RACIST Jonathan Ross. And then finished with a flourish by privately accusing the defence of “VINDICTIVENESS” after it transpired that an anonymous complaint had been made to the NSPCC and social services regarding Ross’s racist language towards a child.

Nice to see the city council speculating on the identity of ANONYMOUS complainants in respect of child SAFEGUARDING allegations don’t you think?

The magistrates then adjourned for three hours to consider a verdict only to return and announce they were unable to reach one and were therefore adjourning the court until 9 FEBRUARY.

Presumably buying themselves some time to work out a way to find the defendants GUILTY despite a key prosecution witness, council boss Mark Curtis admitting under oath that the whole prosecution was in fact a VENDETTA against the defendants and there being no evidence of noise pollution at the Mansion House at all!

Watch this space …