BRT 2: WOTSIT 4

The Bus Rapid Transit route that will bring north Somerset commuters from the Long Ashton Park and Ride into town by a different route, didn't start that way. Originally it was part of an ambitious new network that would traverse the city. BRT2 itself was to continue right through to Emersons Green by commandeering the Bristol-Bath cycle path for the its north-eastern leg. It was also intended to be a substantially different form of transport, using guided bus ways and sufficiently unlike a bus to attract drivers to make the switch from cars to public transport.

All that fell to pieces, of course. First with the successful defence of the cycle path against the encroachment of 'rapid' buses; then with the forced budget cuts that the Department of transport insisted on (the cuts were, of, course, in the government grant. The local contribution actually went up to £15 million plus extras). The latest change is to (perhaps) revert to a rather more eco-friendly bus instead of the diesel bendy-buses that have been the first choice up to now, and to fiddle a bit with the route at Temple Meads. 

In all, the current scheme is a very different animal from the original, except in the route it's to take from the Park and Ride into the city centre.

So it's legitimate to ask what it's actually for now.

The official answer seems to be that the government has offered some money towards it. That's a bit like going into a posh shop, seeing a very expensive item that you have no use for with a big “70% OFF!” price tag, and finding the offer irresistible. Then, after paying, finding there are many more built in costs than you bargained for. And it's not something you ever wanted anyway, and now you've got to find more money for the things you really need.

Another part of the downside is the despoilation of the popular waterside walks and rides along the New Cut and the Harbourside, as tarmac and diverted buses take over from the Create Centre to the M-Shed.

Benefits? We're told that the BRT2 will clip a minute or two off some journeys into town – though that will depend heavily on budgets, frequencies and, of course, on choice of destination. It could do the same for all the other buses from north Somerset that will be diverted onto the same route instead of coming through Hotwells and Anchor Road. And it will free up bits of the Cumberland Basin highways from some of those buses, in turn encouraging more private traffic, including all the extra that will be brought by the new South Bristol Link Road. Don't expect improved traffic flow there, then!

It's that South Bristol Link Road that probably explains why BRT2 (pretty pointless in itself even for its sole beneficiaries, the north Somerset commuters) is still on the table.

Ripe for development - the S Bristol Link Road route

The Link Road (read 'Ring Road') really is a money-spinner. It's key to developing the Green Belt to the southwest of the city, just as was proposed in the Regional Spatial Strategy with the enthusiastic support of land speculators and builders. The airport expansionists have been lobbying hard for it. But it would never win funding unless there was a veneer of 'sustainability' about it. 

That's where another of the rapid transit routes comes in.
 

This one follows the alignment of the South Bristol Link Road, and wraps it in a 'sustainable public transport' label. Nobody's really  fooled of course... everyone knows that if you want to invest in a useful rapid transit system, a link between Hengrove and Ashton Vale will be near the bottom of the wish-list. But the promise of these vehicles on the new road gives planners and politicians in Bristol and London the excuse they want to build a road, opening up the green belt.

To give this BRT link a bit of added credibility (because predicted passenger figures prove it would be nowhere near economic, or even socially necessary, or accessible to most potential passengers) the route has to do more. That's where BRT2 comes in, providing that essential link to take the South Bristol Link BRT on into the city, albeit by a tortuous and time consuming route that makes nonsense of the word 'rapid'.

If BRT2 should be abandoned, there's an inescapable knock-on effect on the South Bristol Link BRT, which would lose any shred of credibility that it might still retain. And if that BRT gets abandoned in turn, it removes the sole figleaf of 'sustainability' that covered the destructive potential of the Ring Road.

I think that's why they're clinging on to BRT2.

Note: A petition has been launched asking the new mayor (whoever it may be) to cancel BRT2. You can read and sign it at https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-mayor-of-bristol-please-stop-brt2

Jackets for Goal Posts. Nectar Points for Stadia.

[Cllr Cook's appalling misrepresentation of developments in the Ashton Vale Town Green Saga, and the failure so far of the professional media to report it, won't be covered here. Other blogs (try Anthony Butcher, the Ashton Gate Blogger and Bristol Indymedia for instance, or even, I'm told, on the OTIB boards) have been filling the void left by journalists and city lawyers very well without my help. Here, I'll stick to this more reflective piece about stadiamania. There may well be more.... ]

My own upbringing in the exhilaration, and more often the frustration, of supporting a football club started at Grainger Road (greyhound) stadium, then at Roots Hall, successive homes of Southend United. During that time, I must have seen both Rovers and City on their travels.  A lasting memory is the strains of 'Goodnight Irene' from the stands, and I came across this lovely
Pathe report of the 1952 United - Rovers cup match
 I was there. Probably!
Away games were a rare excursion and although we made it to Bath and to Torquay for the cup, we never reached Bristol.

 Later, Middlesbrough became my home side, and for a long while Ayresome Park was a Saturday afternoon destination of choice. But once the game had priced itself out of reach, the only time I saw the inside of the north-east's spanking new stadia, was as a guest of Her Majesty when her civil servants hired the venues for conferences. But after forty years, the Boro habit got pretty ingrained, and it's always their result I check first.

So far as I know, Sainsbury's played no part at all in Boro's move to the Riverside Stadium; that was down an ambitious club owner and the public money poured into the regeneration of the largely derelict Ironmasters District, along with a the promise – still unfulfilled – that it would trigger squillions of new private inward investment. The artwork – and the stadium – look nice, though!

Meanwhile, back in both Southend and Bristol, it's Sainsburys commercial ambitions that are being relentlessly pursued on the back of fans' passion and owners expanding egos. Whilst the Sainsbury's interest in the City and Rovers relocation, freeing them up to build megastores on the old club sites, are familiar enough, it's interesting to see how a similar strategy is being followed over in Southend.

Roots Hall is within a comfortable walk of the town centre, but well detached from its amenities. A park, some pubs, and a suburban station are close, and plenty of buses go by too. The site is is in multiple ownership, and Sainsburys want the lot to accommodate a 7,000sq.m (net) megastore with parking below and offices above (at Ashton Gate they're going for 9,300sq.m). There are 270 homes too. The minor independent owners, are ready to sell if the price is right.

The club itself is owned by a property developer, Ron Martin, through his company Martin Dawn. But the ground itself, bought largely by those fifties fans, no longer belongs to the club; it had to be sold back in 1999 to clear debts, with very little of the capital left to use for the club itself. The new ground owner, Roots Hall Ltd., is simply another corporate embodiment of Ron Martin. So Roots Hall Ltd leases the ground back to Southend United (owner, Ron Martin, as Martin Dawn) for £400,000 a year – creating such a drain on its accounts that it couldn't possibly survive without further support. OK, it's actually much more complicated than that.

 Enter Sainsburys.

They reckon Roots Hall would make a great supermarket + filling station. To get hold of it, they've provided United's life support machine for years, paying off the tax bills in last minute court deals and allowing the team and the club to survive – just. Regularly. On credit, of course.

And down on Fossetts Farm – that idyllic sounding edge-of town greenfield location where SUFC believe their destiny lies, it's Sainsburys who've offered to pay for construction of three of the four stands. I say four, though the fourth one seems to have been dropped because of the financial pressures. Just like the Ashton Vale project, the big deal isn't the stadium itself but the linked greenfield developments; a retail park, including a giant B&Q, a big hotel, and the usual outlets. There was to be a casino, too; but the sea front operators managed to stop that one. There'll be more money spinning at the Roots Hall supermarket and the value of the 'released' Sainsbury store floorspace in the town centre.

So it's not really about sport – even the professional game has only a tiny part in the big project.

The council in Southend has always backed the scheme, but without going to such expensive lengths as Bristol Council has backed City's Ashton Vale bid. In Essex, no-one's successfully gone cap-in-hand to the Civic Centre to ask for special planning concessions; normal standards apply. If meetings have been fixed and councillors' have been threatened, the evidence in Southend  is very hard to find. No public land has been sold to the applicants below its true value. The council has, however, agreed to bring a Compulsory Purchase Order to secure any land at Roots Hall that can't be secured by negotiation. That's about it.

Progress in Southend is painfully slow, and wholly reliant on the continuing goodwill of the supermarket; who are now so deep in the club's affairs that it's hard to see them walking away. But, new ground or not, the long-suffering Southend fans do have some reason to be cheerful. On the pitch, they've come back from the dead and are riding high.

 It doesn't look as much fun as in 1952. But that doesn't matter to Sainsburys.

Ain't nature wonderful?

The footpath runs through a nature reserve. Among the wealth of wild flowers and trees, there's an abundance of birds, insects and mammals. At this time of year, there's plenty of wild blackberry and elderberry be enjoyed, too, to be followed by the sloes, and, if the squirrels don't get there first, some nuts.

There's not much unnatural noise, either; just the constant hum of traffic on the A4 at the Bath Road Park and Ride.

In the southern part of the reserve, volunteers from Friends of Stockwood Open Spaces have spent months clearing some of the thick undergrowth of bramble to regain access to the old orchard.

So far around 100 apple trees have been rediscovered, plus some pears, plums, and damsons. In October, there'll be an apple pressing day - locals can bring their own apples, or those freely gathered from the orchard, for pressing and go home with bottles of the fresh juice.

The Open Space is a free luxury - somewhere to escape to, to enjoy, to value - even to feed from.

But put a spade in the soil, and as likely as not its blade won't sink right in - there'll be a brick or other rubble, or a bit of old iron in the way. Between 1954 and 1978 this was the Stockwood Lane municipal tip, taking industrial, commercial and household waste. The footpath in the picture was the main access road, down which a procession of loaded wagons would bring the city's rubbish. Strictly, it isn't a landfill; like most tips, it was really a 'land-raise' operation, altering the natural topography of the countryside.

I'm not a great fan of landfill - it's generally the worst possible of options for all the 'stuff' that we no longer have any immediate use for. But thirty years on, this part of the Stockwood Open Space shows little evidence of this ugly period of its history. The wildlife and the fruits thrive, and the local people (those in the know) come to enjoy it.

Four or five miles to the west, another more controversial one-time landfill site, Parsonage Farm, is not being returned to nature so easily. Like Stockwood, this one was farmland commandeered for refuse disposal, and it received the same kind of treatment - but without the household waste. Now, it's become the battleground between those who want it protected as an Ashton Vale Town Green, and those who see it as a vital stepping stone for Bristol City's future success in the upper heights of English football. Possibly others see it as a way of making lots of money, but that's another story.

This Ashton Vale ex-landfill site is once again being dismissed in the comment columns of the Evening Post as a muddy field, a rubbish tip, a dog's toilet, or worse. Just the place for a dream stadium, fast-food outlets, car parking, a hotel, and the rest.

I don't doubt that the Stockwood Open Space could have been dismissed just as strongly a few years back.

It's our good fortune that it wasn't.

AVTG - The Biggest Fix Yet?

Over the last couple of years, we've got used to the council insisting on getting its own way, whatever the evidence or the legal niceties might do to get in the way. As Harry commented on this blog, "The council doesn't care anymore. They can break any law. Break any convention. Do anything they want. "

How far can they go with it? Back in March of last year, building a ring road on the shallow pretence that it's really to get jobseekers in Hartcliffe a bendy bus to find work in Ashton Vale seemed to me to be pushing the limits.

But that was easily capped by the long drawn out saga of the Green Space sell-off, which for sheer consistency of denial in the face of reality broke new ground, only to be halted (perhaps - but that's another matter!) on May 5th when the electorate made it impossible to continue with the charade.

Now they're set to go one better even than that, with the Ashton Vale Town Green decision, to be considered by the PROWG Committee on Thursday.

I and others have already commented on the self-evident 'predetermination' of the decision by key Committee members. But now we can also see the advice those members will be getting. It's carefully honed to give them an excuse to reach the decision the Administration (not to mention the landowners) want, while simultaneously rejecting the independent opinion of the expert assessor brought in by the council. In fact that expensively gathered opinion doesn't even seem to be among the meeting papers.

This new report to PROWG members relies instead on the council's own 'in-house' expertise to analyse the case for and against a Town Green. Expertise? Well, not quite. Instead of getting the report written by its most senior expert in planning matters and law, the council's commissioned it from a colleague on the Strategic Directorate; Will Godfrey, the Strategic Director of Corporate Resources. Planning isn't part of his brief; his corporate task is 'overseeing the Finance, Human Resources, Shared Transactional Services, ICT, Integrated Customer Services (including Benefits and Council Tax), Legal and Procurement functions. He also leads on work relating to Value for Money and Commissioning across the council'.

Handed this (for him) novel task, the Strategic Director has obligingly delivered just what the Administration wants. He recommends 'partial registration' of the site. This would fully meet the wishes of the Objectors (being, in effect, Steve Lansdown and the football club); they can build the stadium exactly as planned, while the remaining land would be a managed soakaway (or wetland) to cope with the drainage from the main site. This is, as ever, presented as a social benefit for residents.

But that's not what the original professional assessment, by Ross Crail, decided after ten days close examination of all the evidence. How does the Director square the two conflicting views? Simple. He rejects 'on the balance of probability' the original determination that the northern part of the site, at one time used as a landfill, meets the criteria for Town Green Registration.

Then he goes on to conveniently redefine the northern part of the site - not just as the one-time landfill, but as exactly the area required for the new developments and the linked infrastructure. It becomes bounded by the outer line of the proposed BRT route from Long Ashton Park and Ride.

Should any committee member be tempted to ask for the evidence of the public's failure to use this redefined area 'as of right' in the last twenty years, the report tells them that "There is no statutory requirement that a Committee reads this documentation". Trust me, I'm a lawyer. Trust me, I'm a finance expert. Trust me - but I'll not trust you.

Committee members are, however, offered a summary of the 'new' evidence, at Appendix B. The objectors side comes in some detail; the applicants side is so curtailed (and so misrepresented in the Evening Post) that they've since released the detail (linked from the Bristol Blogger's Indymedia post)

If there's a hole in the Strategic Director's report caused by the absence of any examination of this alleged evidence of non-use, it's been filled instead by an enthusiastic claim of what new development will do for the club and the city; 1,000 new jobs, £150 million investment.... you know, you've heard it before. Not of course that Members should let that promise sway their decision! These wonderful developments, the Director adds cautiously, are 'not a material consideration'. He just thought it was worth mentioning.

So on Thursday we'll have a prejudiced committee, and a prejudiced and inadequate report, a sidelined recommendation from a qualified inspector, along with huge pressure on the councillors involved to reach the decision that the landowners and the current administration and the Evening Post want.

You'd think, if there was a real case against Town Green registration, it would be easier than that.

NB. The meeting's at 4pm on Thursday at the Council House. A webcast is promised.

Fettered Discretion?

Tory group leader Peter Abraham has been around the council chamber for many years now. Long enough to know the council's constitution backwards, and quick to remind his colleagues of it whenever they threaten to stray from doing things strictly by the book. More than once I've seen him reminding fellow-councillors that the public will judge them by the way they conduct themselves, and that all too often it leaves a lot to be desired. Amen to that.

Peter will certainly be well aware of the rules governing councillors who might be thought to have 'predetermined' views on the decisions they take on the council's regulatory committees, like those dealing with development control. So when he comes to chair the Public Rights of Way & Greens Committee on June 16th, he'll want to ensure that such a sensitive decision (whether to register land at Ashton Vale as a Town Green) is beyond any possible reproach.

He could start by reminding members of Part 5 of the City Council constitution:

"Members who sit on a development control committee must be careful not to fetter their discretion and by consequence their ability to take part in a planning decision. Members would fetter their discretion if, for example, they made up their minds, or clearly appear to make up their minds ...... on how they intended to vote on a planning matter prior to the development control committee’s consideration of the matter and the hearing of the evidence and arguments from all the parties."

If that doesn't sink in, he could add that

"If such a member fetters his/her discretion then that member will put the Council at risk of legal proceedings on the grounds of bias, predetermination or a failure to take into account all the factors to enable the proposal to be considered on its own merits and/or a finding of maladministration by the ombudsman."

Of course, if he'd come across a piece in the Evening Post earlier this month, attributing to one of his committee members the words:

"My personal view is that I am convinced we should reject the inspector's advice. I don't think this qualifies as a town green and it brings the process into disrepute."

then he might make a special effort to make sure that his committee's decision wasn't put at risk by the self-evident pre-judice of that member.

Lansdown's MPs - breaking the line, or breaking the law?

After the extraordinary 'A City United' statement that Bristol's MPs were cajoled into signing by BCFC, Simon Cook and the Evening Post, at least two have been under pressure to explain the bit at the end: “Councillors have an important and difficult decision to make. We urge them to stand up for the views of the majority of residents and bring the stadium to Bristol”. After all, that's a direct call on councillors to put populism ahead of an honest assessment of the Village Green application. Which would, of course, be unlawful.

Now, both Stephen Willams (in comments on his blog) and Kerry McCarthy (in comments on this blog) have given assurances that they expect councillors to act within the law - i.e. to consider the village green application only on the evidence of public use, not on the potential of the land to provide a stadium. Neither MP has yet gone so far as to retract that final sentence, though - even though it appears to have been drafted for them by the football club!

Of course, that leaves the other signatories - Dawn Primarolo, Charlotte Leslie, Chris Skidmore, and Tessa Munt, still totally unapologetic about urging Bristol's councillors to defy the law when they come to decide the village green designation.

Dear Kerry..... About that stadium statement.

Dear Kerry,

I've just read the extraordinary statement issued by the Bristol MPs, yourself included, about the proposed stadium site in Ashton Vale.

I don't know who wrote it (though it has the hallmarks of BCFC authorship), but I'm surprised that you and your colleagues have signed up so readily to such selective and sweeping unproven claims. Have you seen the piece by Marina Hyde  in today's Guardian nailing the myth that sports stadia bring urban regeneration, prosperity and jobs?

Equally important, your unqualified call on councillors to 'stand up for the views of the majority of residents and bring the stadium to Bristol' could amount to an invitation to break the law.

As things stand at present, councillors have ONLY the evidence that the land qualifies in law as a Town Green. There is nothing in the public domain to suggest that the independent inspector got it wrong.

As you must know, councillors must now make their judgement on the same issues as were dealt with by the Inspector - the use of the land by the public in the last twenty years.

The development potential of the land, for whatever purpose, is not a legal consideration. (I don't think the Evening Post has ever mentioned that inconvenient truth!).

If councillors allow the stadium issue to influence their decision, they are operating outside the law, and you are encouraging them in that.

If you really want the councillors to bring the stadium to Bristol, can I suggest an approach that would protect green belt, minority groups such as the Town Green applicants, and council assets - while allowing you to promote a stadium without having to publicly encourage councillors to break the law!

It isn't impossible for Bristol's two clubs to ground share, so both sets of fans would get the benefits of a new stadium. There's a choice of potential brownfield sites on post-industrial land to the north of Avonmouth. There's good access by road, and by public transport (especially given the potential of the existing rail infrastructure, including the Henbury loop.   By comparison, access to Ashton Vale is difficult and likely to be a victim of cuts). Arguably, at Avonmouth there are industrial hazards to contend with, but I feel sure they can be overcome - they certainly were at Middlesbrough, with a similar site close by COMAH-regulated chemical plant. 

The big obstacle seems to be the clubs themselves; a proposal a few years back was stymied by a refusal of Bristol City to entertain the idea of sharing. I'm sure your guess as to why they did that is a good as mine - and probably the same!

Clubs that cannot co-operate for the good of the city and for their own businesses frankly have no right to hold the council, the fans, the residents, and local MPs to ransom.

Yours

Pete Goodwin

25th Oct: Kerry's response added in the comments below

Prejudicial Interests

It's increasingly likely that that the PROWG committee may (understandably) duck out of making the decision on whether to accept or refuse the inspector's recommendation to register Ashton Vale as a Town Green, and instead refer it to full council so that it can be voted on there.
 
If this should happen, any councillors who have already expressed an opinion on the overriding need - or otherwise - for a stadium will obviously have to abstain.  Neil Harrison, a member of the PROWG committee, had the good sense to anticipate this, and explained why on his blog in August

So, for example, Cllr Simon Cook would have to abstain because he has already made statements both in support of the new stadium and against the Town Green recommendation. On the other side, Tess Green would be unable to vote because she's already welcomed the judgement of the independent inspector. Neither would go to the decision making meeting with an open mind.
 
The OTIB ("One Team In Bristol") City fans' web site has suddenly closed down access for new subscribers - but not before publishing posts revealing other councillors' prejudicial views on the Town Green.

For instance, our own Stockwood councillor David Morris seems to have ruled himself out of any vote by making his (and, apparently, his party's) views known to the City fan who posted this message on OTIB:
 
"Hello i am a first timer so please go easy,i have read on the forum about people writing to there councillors and mp without little feed back. I have written to Councillor Morris to voice my concerns about Ashton vale like the club have asked us to expecting nothing back when today i had a knock on my front door and this guy introduced imself as councillor morris and he would like to talk about Ashton vale ,he said that he was in total agreement that bristol city should have a new stadium and he and alot of his other councillors will be voting in favour off our new stadium , the only time i will be voting blue is in the next elections if Mr morris stands"

I have no idea whether David Morris reads this blog; he and Jay Jethwa always seem reluctant to risk any dialogue in public on local issues, so there's never been any comment from either of them to my posts. If he does get the opportunity to vote on what is over-simplistically described in the above post as a 'stadium v town green' decision, then he must first explain this OTIB post and reveal who 'a lot of his other councillors' are.

I'm sure David wouldn't want his Conservative colleagues to vote against accepting the Town Green recommendation, while pretending that they have no predetermined views and would be influenced only by the evidence.

A Freebie from BCFC

To enjoy it live, you'd have had to buy a ticket. But now the club's making it available at absolutely no cost to the viewer. Chairman Steve rallies the crowd before yesterday's match at Ashton Gate.


So, in the interests of balance on this blog, here's the link.
..........................

So what's the legal position now?

The media are misrepresenting it as an open choice for the councillors on the Public Rights of Way and Greens Committee, choosing whether or not to accept the Inspector's report. Reject it, and Bristol gets its stadium, arena, world cup matches, pride, and its rightful place on the world map. Accept it, and we're a laughing stock, living on the edge of a dog's bog. Simple, innit?

Well no, according to the Inspector's report. The final paragraph (thanks to Sacred Spring for the tip) explains the law:

578. ............ the Registration Authority must make its own decision and is in law free to follow or not follow my recommendation as it thinks right, applying the correct legal principles and after due consideration of the evidence. It must, of course, leave out of account, as being wholly irrelevant to the statutory question which it has to decide, ..............all considerations of the desirability of the land's being registered as a green or being developed or put to other uses.

In other words... whether all the bluster about the benefits to Bristol has any substance or not, the task for the Rights of Way Committee (sitting in its role as Village Green Registration Authority) is simply to accept the Inspector's findings or to explain why she's wrong to say that Ashton Vale meets the legal criteria for registration.

Clearly the club's legal advisers and inquiry witnesses failed to expose any flaws in the application during the ten-day Inquiry. No wonder Steve Lansdown is calling on the fans to provide new evidence. If they should manage it, Steve should demand his money back from his lawyers.

He might need it anyway.

"Today I can announce that the Chancellor and I have agreed a package of new measures to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion. We will be ruthless with those often wealthy people and businesses who think they can treat paying tax as an optional extra."
(Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander today).

Spare a thought.....

The news is breaking that a Planning Inspector has recommended Town Green status for the Ashton Vale land that was targetted for Bristol City's new stadium (plus assorted other developments).

Spare a thought for the City fans whose hopes of a new stadium have been so carefully cultivated, and ruthlessly exploited, by the club as it pursued this speculative high-risk business venture.

It's those emotions that are football clubs' real stock-in-trade, the loyalties and goodwill without which the team and the stadium mean nothing. Just like money, the goodwill can be manipulated as part of a negotiation - and BCFC have certainly been doing that, aided and abetted by the Evening Post and certain senior politicians, in each of the somewhat suspect linked deals that underpinned the stadium project.

Now comes the big let-down for the fans whose ambitions had been raised, and probably brings on the anger that goes with it. The club, responsible for the whole fiasco in the first place, will certainly want to divert blame onto the Ashton TG objectors, the Inspector, and anyone else who's raised their head above the parapet.

It will be fascinating to see whether the promoters accept that the whole matter has been fairly and lawfully dealt with, or whether they go back to offering carrots to the fans and taking sticks to the objectors in an effort to get their way.

[Added 10.20pm]
They're wasting no time....

"There are a variety of options open to us and we will use all these options to fight this report. The anger must rest with the inspector and the evidence used to support it.

“This is a clarion call for Bristol not to be tramped upon this way. We need the people of Bristol to say this is absolute madness.
Colin Sexstone, quoted on Bristol 24/7

Cllr Simon Cook's not taking a very balanced view either. "The law behind this application is a complete nonsense, but I am utterly determined to find a way through it."
That's the official Bristol City Council / Commons Registration Authority view then?

The report itself - all 250 closely argued pages of it - can be read from the same official page.

The World Cup elephant in the Committee Room

I lived near World Cup hosts Middlesbrough in 1966. North Korea became our home team for a couple of weeks, and they provided plenty of entertainment. But the face of Middlesbrough, much less its global reputation, remained untouched.

How many times will the 2018 world cup will be mentioned tomorrow, when the planning committee meets to consider the application to develop Ashton Vale?

The phrase turns up twenty times in the 'officers report' (pdf), intended to guide councillors toward a recommended decision. That's in spite of their Chief Executive's assurance, in a letter to the Green party and quoted below, that it's not a 'material planning consideration'

The Greens themselves have been pointing out that to get the World Cup, the stadium designers will need to plan to FIFA's 'Green Goal' standards. Solar panels, less 'throwaway' catering, combined bus/entrance match tickets, that sort of thing.

Meanwhile our own 11th hour comments go in (apparently development.management@bristol.gov.uk take them till noon today):


We believe there is very good reason, taking into account all material planning considerations, to reject all elements of this application, or at the very least to defer a decision to see if the applicants can revise their proposals into something that offers a net 'public good'.  As it stands, it's a public bad.

Reasons:
a) The application relies on the principle of 'enabling development' - a material planning consideration.  But nowhere is there any attempt to define or quantify the 'public benefits' to set against the acknowledged disbenefits of much of the proposal.  Therefore, an informed judgement is impossible.

b) The applicants are inconsistent in their reliance on current planing policy.  When it suits, they claim that only the policies laid down in the Local Plan should be enforced; at other times, they claim that the RSS (still in draft and subject to legal challenge) should guide decisions.

c) The applicants' financial case for 'enabling development' has not been proved - in fact the council's own advisors (among others) have taken it to pieces.

d) The proposed waiving of some £millions of Sec 106 payments amounts to a further indirect public subsidy, of dubious legality, to the football club.

e) The prospect of bringing some World Cup matches to Bristol in 2018 has been repeatedly touted as a 'benefit' arising from the new stadium.  For instance, the phrase 'World Cup' crops up twenty times in your Officers Report alone.  That is not a material planning consideration, and should be discounted.  In fact your Chief Executive has written "the Council, its officers and members are fully able to distinguish between the aspirational nature of the (World Cup) bid process and the need for the Local Planning Authority to determine the applications for the new Stadium and the former Ashton Gate site upon material planning considerations alone".

In any case, as Tony Dyer pointed out to the last Cabinet meeting, the proposed stadium should be built and operated to FIFA 'Green Goal' standards to give Bristol a good chance to host the games and live up to its 'Green Capital' aspirations; the proposed stadium just doesn't come near those standards.

f) the failure of the applicants to include affordable housing in their proposals - in defiance of planning policy and of real need.  The result is an elitist proposal for housing, while exporting the task of actually meeting real housing need to other areas that are already under pressure.  This is a major disbenefit.

g) loss of Green Belt land.  Utterly unjustified and undesirable, and without any basis in planning policy.

h) Alternative options.  One of the best (and most efficient use of scarce land) is a dual use stadium shared by Bristol City FC and another club (either Rovers or the rugby club).  The failure of the clubs concerned to take up this option is their own responsibility - not a burden to be borne by the city.

i) Peak Oil.  The city, as part of the Bristol Partnership, has just commissioned and welcomed the report 'Building a positive future for Bristol after Peak Oil'.  This will mean absolutely nothing if the city fails to take its values and recommendations into planning and 'future-proofing' new developments such as this.

Traffic to rise 20% in congestion hot-spot.

......and they're thinking of adding a Tesco Extra to the mix!

One of the two proposals for a South Bristol Ring Road, which won the blessing of the West of England's transport bosses on Thursday, would add over 7,000 vehicles a day to the traffic on Ashton Way as it approaches the Cumberland Basin.

That's before adding further to it by building 230 houses, a stadium, hotel, and fast food outlets at Ashton Vale, and a Tesco megastore at Ashton Gate, as Bristol City Football Club are demanding.

Is it the transport planners, or the football club owners, that are on some other planet? All of them, I reckon.

Edit, 2.30pm 7/10:

The 7,000 figure above comes from the Options Appraisal (App7.1), showing an increase from 35350 (do minimum option) to 42950 vehicles/day for Option 1 - a road from Hengrove to A370 Long Ashton

Lots more on this topic from the Bristol Blogger (look out specially for Tony Dyer's comment on the regeneration myth) and on Chris Hutt's 'Green Bristol Blog'

BRT Questions for WoE Partnership

An item on Chris Hutt's Green Bristol Blog starts me on a hunt for information from the West of England Partnership.

WoEP have just put in a funding bid for the Ashton Vale Bus Rapid Transit scheme, and have published the 'outline business case' (OBC) that they've sent to the government. Fair enough - the plan had been approved by the Executive Members form each of the four authorities back in January, and by the Cabinets of the key councils, Bristol and North Somerset, the following month.

It had also got through the scrutiny process without any blips, in fact Jon Rogers (still in political opposition at that time) was moved to describe the 'interchange' at Temple Meads as 'a very exciting, innovative element of the scheme'. He was referring to that exciting, innovative new bus stop 400 metres from the rail station.

But the OBC that the transport planners have sent to Westminster doesn't seem to reflect the plans that our elected reps gave their blessing to a couple of months ago.

Take the Prince Street Bridge crossing of the Floating Harbour. The plans said no more than that the bridge would certainly need a bit of work, to accommodate the width and frequency of the BRT and the rerouted buses at this pinch point. There had been mention of a new bridge, or a new cycle and pedestrian bridge.

What the OBC suggests is nothing of the sort: it's very much the same bridge, but with cyclists in both directions expected to share a carriageway with the shuttling buses and, apparently, with cars and commercial traffic excluded.

I have no problem with that last bit, but I know it's controversial! You might expect the motorists' champions, the Tories, not to mention the Evening Post, to be up in arms about the exclusion of cars. After all, their leader Richard Eddy had led the campaign to prevent it back in 2006, and with some success.

Today, they had their big chance to object using the official 'scrutiny' provisions of the Partnership. But they remained silent. Reason - their very own chair of the scrutiny committee, Barbara Lewis, had cancelled the meeting because it had no business of sufficient importance! And this is the only group that scrutinises the West of England's many functions. Has the partnership done nothing worth looking at this last month?

On Friday, the four West of England Transport Executive members will be meeting at Temple Quay, and they'll be asked to 'note' that the OBC has gone in as they agreed. Except, of course, that it doesn't seem to be what they agreed. Jon Rogers, as an assiduous blog reader and twitterer, should know that by now, if he didn't already.

I've tabled some questions for answer at the same meeting, to try to bring out this and other issues around the weaknesses of the BRT scheme - not least the opportunity loss of a decent Temple Meads interchange. It will be interesting to see what the members think of them.

I'm not holding out much hope of constructive answers though. Today I got an e-mail from the same transport planners after I'd pointed out crucial contradictions (items 8 and 9 below) in the case made out for South Bristol Link Road. It said " I'm not proposing to comment on specific elements of it at this stage".

Well, if they don't tell the Executive members what they're up to, why should they treat me any better?