Babs, Gary, and the Age of Stupid

Barbara Janke was an onlooker at Wednesday's scrutiny commissions meeting where her councillor underlings spent over five hours going over the plans to sell off green spaces, all across the city.

Who knows whether she'd managed to read the 400-page plus documentation, let alone the public statements, but she did hear very clear reports of a flawed consultation, mislaid papers and petitions, expert advice disregarded, Freedom of Information requests unfulfilled, all of it showing that the 'consultation report' is founded on unreliable envidence. Probably the inevitable result of asking a heavily cut-back department to deliver and assess a huge consultation and review of the city's open spaces, way beyond its own resources.

The five hour session was enough to persuade the councillors that a hasty decision to sell the land on such dodgy grounds would be unwise; far better to give it just a bit more time to make sure we get it right. After all, these are final decisions, there's no going back, and there's no rush. So that's what they recommended to the LibDem Cabinet.

The Scrutiny Commissions' appeal was echoed by many others, including even the independent Parks Forum which had until now been 100% behind the sell-off plan (and is being vilified by the Evening Post for it). Add to that the pleas of more councillors, groups like our own Friends of Stockwood Open Spaces and the Neighbourhood Partnership, residents groups and individuals.

To defer a decision on the sales seemed obvious..... Everything to gain, to make sure the eventual decisions are well founded, sustainable, and in keeping with sensible city planning. Anything else would be stupid.

A pity the Cabinet was unanimous in rejecting their advice, and chose the stupid option instead.

Something to do with false pride, the pleasure of exercising power........ or even, possibly, just being stupid?

The Big Shift

Meanwhile, back on the ground....

Here's a nice contrast with the Zaragoza junket (previous post), with its focus on the abstractions of brands and image as the key to a golden future.

It's about the real world, and it's much cheaper and easier to get to, too. (Council House, Sunday 28th, 9.30 till 5, £14/£8)

I wonder if Barbara Janke or our Director of Place-Making will find the time to go....

www.shiftbristol.org.uk/?page_id=306

Bristol goes to Zaragoza

This search on the city council's website really was for 'eurocities' and not, as they feared, 'atrocities'. I'll save that one for another day....

It did find a few references, too - but none of them were about the trip that Leader Barbara Janke has just taken to the four-day Eurocities Conference at Zaragoza. That doesn't seem to be on record anywhere.


Barbara's big Zaragoza opportunity was to join a panel discussion where she could share with fellow leaders "the process of developing Bristol's identity, and the consequences of building an internationally recognized city brand". That may be why she took our newly appointed Director of Place Making along with her.

I see that one Steve Woods has been wondering about the value of trips like this (perhaps remembering how they jetted off to Copenhagen for the Climate Change conference, and came back to twitter about an innovative bicycle wheel that we knew about anyway). Steve wants to know if anyone else went to Spain and what it all cost us, so he's put in an FoI request.

He misses the big questions, though. After the Conference closed on Friday, there was still 24 hours entertainment available for anyone not rushing back home. So did Bristol's finest hang back for the guided Zaragoza bus tour? Or the dramatised tour? Or the tapas tour? Or the Saturday morning Chocotour ("Let yourself be sweetened and discover Zaragoza’s chocolate tradition in some of the city’s most well known chocolate cafés").

I think we should be told...

Coalition... Environment.... Localism: the Tory Way

10th June 2010:
Bristol's LibDem Cabinet agrees to run a pilot scheme penalising residents who persist in putting 'black box' recyclable waste into the 'residual waste' wheelie bins. Grounds? - 25% of wheelie bin contents could have been recycled from the kerb-side.

15th July 2010:
Council leader Barbara Janke meets with top LibDems in government. “With Lib Dems in power nationally,” she said, “we will ensure that the city’s needs, concerns and ambitions are understood by ministers and do everything to reinforce the need for closer relations.”

16th July 2010:
Environment Secretary Caroline Spellman announces changes to the Climate Change Act to prevent councils trialling or implementing 'pay-as-you-throw' schemes. It's particularly aimed at the Bristol initiative, and is (honest!) part of the Tory 'Localism' agenda.

Babs' Banquets - and other things to do in Copenhagen

Turns out it's the 'Climate Summit for Mayors' that's Barbara Janke's must-go destination next week - together with her counterparts from London, Birmingham, Manchester, and 70-odd cities throughout the world.

What they're all getting up to is listed here (pdf file). Looks like a long week of royal receptions and other bunfights, corporate presentations and tours - plus a good few events that many of us in Bristol would get a lot from, helping to see how we can make a low-carbon future actually happen.

Still, no doubt Babs will be writing an extensive report on the plane trip back, so we won't have to bother.

"Labour is flying in the face of the spirit of Copenhagen" says Hughes - as Janke jets to the Summit

Bristol's Liberal Democrat council leader, Barbara Janke, is jetting off for a couple of days in Copenhagen. Meanwhile her website condemns government officials for travelling to the climate change talks the same polluting way.

Just another example of LibDem hypocrisy. Makes a change from wanting prestige buildings on the green belt, or new roads to bring more traffic and congestion.

Bristol City Council has made no official announcement of the council leader's trip, so its purpose and justification - if any - is unclear.

But you have to ask why the city (on our behalf) will pay the environmental and financial costs of Janke's junket when they're desperately searching for ways to cut spending on essential public services and to reduce our carbon footprint.

Maybe Babs didn't have time to read what LibDem front-bencher Simon Hughes had to say about flying to Copenhagen before she quoted it on her web site.....

"At least half of the 38 Ministers and officials that the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are taking to the Copenhagen Conference will be travelling by plane, research by the Liberal Democrats has revealed.

The information was released in answer to Parliamentary Questions.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Simon Hughes will be travelling to the Copenhagen conference by train next weekend. The cost of his travel will be cheaper than the average £460 that DECC is paying to send each of its ministers and civil servants to the Conference.

Commenting, Simon Hughes said:

“It’s a disgrace that ministers and officials are flying today to attend the Copenhagen Conference.

“They are supposed to be discussing how to save the world from a climate crisis and yet many of them are using the most polluting form of transport available - and at a very high cost to the public.

“I will be travelling to the conference by train, a method of transport far less damaging to the environment. It may take a little longer to get there, but it certainly will cost less than the people at the Department of Climate Change are spending on their travel.

“Labour has to wake up and realise that words are not what is needed to avert a climate crisis, it is real action that counts.”



[Added 10.15 on 10/12/09]:
Jankepage link above now working - until the item drops off the page, anyway.

Meanwhile, the view from the cockpit - it's not my usual reading, but here's the story from the Bristol chapter of the Professional Pilots Rumour Network

The new (radioactive) neighbours

Nice to hear Cllr Mark Wright speaking up on Original Radio on behalf of Bristolians who might be alarmed at the prospect of a new nuclear reactor being built at Oldbury - just nine miles from the city. Mark wants us to have more of a say in the decision - or at the very least, for the authorities to come and ask us what we think.

Once upon a time Bristol's people did have just such a forum, when the city council was part of the Association of Nuclear Free Local Authorities, a mutually supportive group of councils to help with fact-finding and with organising resistance to the threats that come from all things nuclear.

Today's LibDem council may be nominally anti-nuclear, but it's not going down that road. Last month, Mark's leader, Barbara Janke, turned down - for the second time - a Green Party appeal to rejoin the Association, on grounds of the cost (could be as much as a bank-breaking £30K).

Obviously she didn't ask Mark first. Too preoccupied with the World Cup bid, perhaps?