Tag Archives: Town Green

TALES FROM TURBO ISLAND

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CONFUSED COUNCILLORS

Confused councillors have pointlessly delayed the Turbo Island Town Green application for three months on the advice of their clueless legal team.

At a Public Rights of Way and Greens (PROWG) meeting in April the applicants and objectors presented their evidence to the committee and a council lawyer admitted he had no idea how to decide the issue.

Normally, an expert inspector would be appointed by the council to look at the evidence and provide the way forward. Instead the council have decided to take three months out to figure out what the hell to do.

However, it seems unlikely the council’s legal team can produce a recommendation without landing themselves in the hot water of an expensive judicial review. That means they will need to appoint an inspector.

Why didn’t they just do this in April?

sofas Turbo Island

SECRET OWNER SHOCKER

The Nazi Post and Bristol 24/7 breathlessly assured us in October that Turbo Island had been sold by owners Wildstone Investments to ‘a mystery buyer’.

This ‘mystery buyer’ was reputed to be Bedminster printing company Out of Hand, a claim vigorously denied by the Nazi Post who won’t identify the actual ‘mystery buyer’ of the land.

This ‘mystery buyer’ mystery becomes more tangled in the bundle of documents for the Turbo Island item at the PROWG in April.

It includes a letter from Merret & Co solicitors who say “we act on behalf of the local freehold owner of the Property” and the council lists Out of Hand as the firm represented by Merret & Co.

Who actually owns the land and why’s it being disguised by local press?

**UPDATE: papers released this week by the council for a PROWG meeting next week have confirmed Out of Hand as the owners of the land.

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DEAL OR NO DEAL?

Campaigners for the Town Green, led by the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, are pushing for a deal where the landowner – whoever they are – voluntarily registers the land as a Town Green in exchange for concessions on public access to the site.

Councillors on the PROWG, allegedly concerned about costs being run up, appeared blissfully unaware that a deal could be on the table.

Instead, they opted for the expensive option of funding their own legal team to look at an issue they know nothing about for three months before appointing a barrister as an inspector to decide the issue.

Bizarrely, the council’s PROWG lawyer quoted a cost of at least £1,000 for an inspector.

It will be, at least, ten times that.

DERANGED ACADEMY TRASHES PUBLIC OPEN SPACE

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Cotham School’s determination to fence off their Stoke Lodge playing fields to “safeguard” pupils and keep the local community OUT has moved quickly from a little over-enthusiastic to stark raving bonkers in a remarkably short space of time.

The BATTLE over Stoke Lodge has been RAGING since 2011 and efforts to keep the city council land, used as recreational space by the community since 1947, public were finally thrown out by the High Court last year when it rejected a Town Green registration by Bristol City Council.

Now Cotham School are going ahead with their unpopular £160k plan to fence off most of the 26 acre site using dubious ‘PERMITTED DEVELOPMENT’ rules signed off by council planning officers. These rules conveniently stop the issue coming to a planning committee, despite the fact that the school’s plans are OPPOSED by the community, their councillors and their MP, Darren “Dipshit” Jones.

Although all is not quite going to plan for the school, who, since moving contractors on to the site in January, have been caught UNLAWFULLY attempting to put fence posts through the roots of ancient and protected trees and close enough to a badger sett to endanger the animals. Both actions are unlawful and the school already has been forced to quickly redraw their plans TWICE while on site.

Quite why the school needs to fence off the land, let alone DESTROY our city’s NATURAL HABITAT in the process, is something of a mystery. Many schools use public land WITHOUT FENCING as playing fields and, even, OFSTED, has agreed there’s no safeguarding reason why the land should be fenced off and the community effectively THROWN OFF THEIR OWN LAND.

Why can’t this annoying little school run by destructive nature-hating loonies share the space?

OUR TOWN GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND

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Town green

Despite the best efforts of the Tory government, supported by local councillors of all persuasions – who are never ones to shirk their responsibilities when it comes to helping out wealthy and influential PROPERTY DEVELOPERS – legitimate town and village green applications continue to get a hearing.

The Growth and Localism Act 2013, was supposed to spell an end to most town and village green applications. Legislation that was specifically drafted after the residents of Ashton Vale STUFFED Bristol’s richest man Steve Lansdown and his little coterie of Bristol City Council helpers trying to build a football stadium on their open space

However, it increasingly looks like the new law is not the developer free-for-all planned. In and around Bristol there’s due to be TVG hearings for COLSTON’S FIELDS, neighbouring Eastville Park, after the Merchant Venturer’s Colston School tried to build luxury houses on open space there and on CLAVERHAM GREEN in the North Somerset village where developers have designs on designated open space.

Our TVG expert tells us, “It feels like there’s a BIG SELL OFF of green land planned for after the mayoral election to build houses. Communities need to look at their green spaces NOW because local authorities might SELL them.

“It’s likely to happen in North Somerset and South Gloucester more than Bristol I reckon. Mostly AGRICULTURAL LAND on fringes of housed areas or sports pitches.  As soon as it’s zoned for development in local plans, it’s too late to apply for a TVG. Same if there’s already been a planning application in last two years.”

If you have open space nearby and you value it, apply for a Town Green NOW before the bastards rezone the land for their developer friends.

The Bristolian can put you in touch with people who can help.

RED ALERT! GREEN SPACE SELL-OFF..?

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Open space campaigners tell us that part-time council property boss, Robert ‘Spunkface’ Orrett has OPENLY ADMITTED that he sees his role as obtaining the maximum cash sale value of all council land in Bristol – including any local green or open space.

This was why Spunkface endlessly delayed voluntarily registering council-owned open space such as Wellington Hill Playing Fields as ‘Town Greens’.

Locals should therefore be on alert to protect their green and open spaces not protected by town green law, as the man in charge considers it all up for sale for development and he DOESN’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. This applies to all parkland and allotments too.

At least what we have always suspected is now confirmed: that Bristol City Council sees open spaces primarily as financial assets for itself and not as spaces of value for Bristolians.