Brief Encounter 2

Temple Meads, today, 12.45 - 12.50pm.

On the left, the 1pm Cross-Country train to Manchester Picadilly.  Busy with passengers headed north to Birmingham and beyond.  

Drawn up alongside, the Direct Rail Services freight from Bridgwater.   On board, two flasks of highly irradiated spent nuclear fuel rods from Hinkley Point, on their way to Sellafield where the plutonium will be extracted and stored to try to keep it out of the way.    

Full international cast of Brief Encounter 2 includes:
Direct Rail Services, the only publicly owned rail-freight company in the UK, being run by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.  Hinkley Point is owned by Electricite de France (EDF), who will aim to keep the waste flowing by building Hinkley Point C, with French and Chinese capital and generous operating subsidies from the UK government.   Sellafield is, like the trains, in the ownership of the NDA, but is run by Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of the URS Corporation (USA), AMEC (UK) and Areva (France).  Emergency Planning services at Sellafield have been contracted out to those exemplars of integrity and good practice, SERCO  (honest!).   Emergency planning in Bristol is provided by the council's Civil Protection Unit.   Cross Country is owned by Deutsche Bahn.

Unlike the 1945 film, in which the head finally rules the heart, this 2013 release gives full rein to to the recklessness of the lead characters. And sod the children! 

 Now showing at railway stations across Britain

Edited 31/12/13

Horrors of SERC

It's three years since the Localism Bill was proudly unveiled by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles. It would, he said

“herald a ground-breaking shift in power to councils and communities overturning decades of central government control and starting a new era of people power “ . 

There was a lot more of the same sort of populist guff....

Six months earlier, South Glos councillors had turned down an application from SITA to build an incinerator – sorry, waste-to-energy facility – sorry, Severnside Energy Recovery Centre - at Hallen, three miles north of Avonmouth. It was much more than a NIMBY decision; the area was already overcommitted to waste treatment plant over and above the local need, and the West of England councils were committed to a 'dispersal' strategy to reduce distances that waste must be carried . [Since then, our councils, with that unlikely Local Hero Gary Hopkins at the fore, have abandoned incineration altogether and gone for more advanced technology, along with then innovative food waste colections which are both proving themselves well . Gary survived the Evening Post vilification treatment. Lets hope Daniella Radice is equally resilient ].

But SITA now saw a commercial opportunity to burn as much as half the industrial and commercial waste produced in the West of England area. They appealed to the Secretary of State against the South Glos. decision. In 2011 there was a planning inquiry, at which Mr Pickles' Inspector took the SITA side. Pickles duly overturned the local councillors' decision. So SITA got their permission, but, in the absence of the local customers they'd described in their appeal, they still had nothing to give investors the confidence to put up the cash.

Incinerators need an assured flow of waste to burn – so the operators build in contract terms so that their customers must pay dearly for any shortfall in supply. Who cares that that obstructs any new measures to reduce waste or divert materials for recycling? If local authorities, desperate to avoid landfill taxes, commit to paying out £1.4 billion to burn waste by open combustion in an incinerator for 25 years; well, it's a proven if primitive technology, and financiers are keen to put up the capital with such low risks and high prospective profits. That's the theory.

Having had no more luck selling disposal contracts to local businesses than it had with the West of England local authorities, SITA cast its net wider. In west London it found a consortium of 6 underperforming and unambitious boroughs that were still sending high levels of waste to landfill, and were pretty low down the recycling tables. A deal was done. The incinerator would be built at Hallen as that champion of localisation, Pickles, had ruled; the waste to feed it would now come from the bins of Ealing, Brent, Hounslow, Richmond, Harrow, and Hillingdon.

Of the incinerator outputs, some would be the stack emissions, mostly drifting across North Bristol; some would be 'bottom ash'; some would be highly hazardous fly ash. Some of the heat would generate electricity for the grid, but unless neighbouring customers could be found for the bulk of the waste heat, that would just be dissipated to atmosphere.

Even given the deal, the promise of a cast iron long-term contract, and the profits and low risks that go with it, it seems that investors still didn't exactly queue up waving their cheque books.

Enter the Green Investment Bank. Set up about the same time as Pickles was banging on about the virtues of small government and local decision making, the GIB is supposed dip into its £3.8 billion to back 'green' projects in offshore wind, energy efficiency (especially the 'green deal') , or waste reduction/treatment where its “capital, knowledge and reputation make the difference that enables a project to be successfully financed“.

The GIB must be struggling, what with investors pulling out of offshore wind and the controversy over the big energy companies 'taxing' consumers with what Cameron reportedly dismisses as 'green crap'. It's been putting money into such bizarrely ungreen projects as converting Drax from coal to biomass – wood pellets imported from the forest clearance in the USA. Apparently that's a net reduction in local CO2 emissions, so it qualifies.

At Hallen, the GIB has put £20 million into SERC. As their press release put it, “GIB will invest £20 million of the senior debt alongside a lending club of Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Mizuho Bank. Equity will be provided by SITA UK, Japan's ITOCHU Corporation and Scottish Widows Investment Partnership.”

Thanks to them, and Mr “where there's muck there's brass” Pickles, household waste with plenty of recyclable materials still in it will be rail freighted from London to be burned here, in an area where our more progressive local authories have already found ways to recycle more, to pollute less, and to keep it local.

Happy Christmas.

Bristol opts for the Barnet model?

The announcement that Bristol has recruited Max Wide to become the city's 'Strategic Director for Business Change' raises some alarming questions. Not so much about the new man, but on the agenda of those who chose to recruit him.

It doesn't look good. Mr Wide has history, inside and outside local authorities. His CV shows he has 'worked with over 60 local authorities delivering change programmes' either as employee, on secondment from BT Local Government (the IT services arm of BT), or with consultancies such as iMPOWER. There's one constant theme running through the lot – outsourcing and privatisation.

Local government watchers will be well aware of 'Broken Barnet', the London borough whose political leadership has gone to unprecedented lengths to cut services and farm out what's left to expensive and inefficient 'services' companies. Mr Wide was very deeply involved in making it happen.

Then there was Suffolk CountyCouncil, with much the same agenda (since abandoned) . And the West Midlands borough of Sandwell, where the management of Children's Services was contracted out to Mr Wide's iMPOWER, led (oddly enough) by their newest employee, Suffolk's director of Childrens Services. After that it was Doncaster, where the government insisted that management of the failing Children's Services be privatised – and iMPOWER got the contract, at least until an 'independent' trust can take over.

So that's what Max Wide is about. Privatisation and outsourcing is what he does. And now he's been invited to take up a lucrative post in Bristol.

But the real story, surely, is to ask who chose him, and why... what's the political programme he is to carry out?.

It's inconceivable that his record as an arch-privatiser is not the reason.

Abraham's 'Empty Heads' Law.

It's always going to be difficult when elected councillors are asked to rule on planning applications from their own councils. When it happens, they're expected to exercise the same dispassionate and independent judgement as they apply to any other planning application. That includes, in particular, avoiding any possible charge that they have prejudged the decision.

That was the situation on Wednesday, when Bristol City Council sought the blessing of its own Development Control Comittee to construct the in-city leg of the South Bristol Link Road, attracting heavy traffic through Withywood and across Highridge Common to the A38. There it joins the North Somerset leg, already approved for construction, and primarily a route that opens up green belt for development while clipping as much as a minute off airport journey times. (It will also save busy commuters the embarrassment and inconvenience of running over Barrow Gurney villagers)

On the day, the Bristol councillors voted the Withywood leg through by 8 votes to 2.

One of the dissidents was the Greens' Daniella Radice, who found a host of reasons (reinforced by the transparent failure of officers to offer convincing answers to her questions) to vote against. The other was Labour's Sean Beynon, who could not reconcile the undoubted expense of a very dubious project with a cash-strapped council being forced into harsh austerity measures by a ruthlessly ideological government (my words, not Sean's!). It just doesn't add up.

Helen Holland would surely have joined them – but as a long-standing and very public objector to the project she did the decent thing and stood down from the Committee – only to be replaced by a Labour colleague, Afzhal Shah, who decided to go with the flow and approve the road.

Of course Helen should have invoked Abraham's Empty Heads Law. All she needed was a simple statement saying “But I wish to give an absolute assurance, and that assurance is, that I come to this with a completely open mind. That must be done, and that is what I shall do.” It worked for Peter Abraham on the Ashton Vale Town Green debacle.

At least two previously-declared cheerleaders for the Link Road weren't troubled by any suspicion that they might have formed a view before the meeting. 

Both Claire Campion-Smith and Mark Wright had been part of the LibDem Cabinet that unanimously agreed to bid for government support for the road back in March 2010. Mark Wright had, at that meeting, (and in comments on this blog) rehearsed some of the same pro-road arguments as he repeated on Wednesday before voting in favour of the new road.

Planning applicants..... planning committees...... sometimes they just seem to merge into one.

(more on the nosouthbristollink website)

HorseWorld fails to convince

HorseWorld's bid to build 125 houses - and a very big visitor centre - on green belt land at Whitchurch village was roundly rejected by BaNES development Control Committee today.

The ailing charity had claimed that it must have the revenue from selling off its current visitor centre for housing if it was to survive. It's Big Idea was to use the development cash to build a bigger better visitor centre. With similar amenities as the old centre, but a bigger shop and and a bigger cafe and (wait for it) a new 250-seater Indoor Arena, it could up the visitor numbers by a third, and get them to stay longer, while paying more per admission, and spending more in the shop and in the cafe. Problem solved.

The BaNES councillors weren't persuaded. The business plan didn't convince them. They didn't like being told that only 10% of the houses could be 'affordable'. The traffic figures suggested much more congestion in an already congested area. The schools didn't have the capacity. An hourly bus diverted to pass the site (except evenings and Sundays) wouldn't make anyone abandon their cars. And the new visitor centre would be a blot on the landscape. All in all, there were no 'very special circumstances' that might make it ok to permanently build over the Green Belt.

The scheme's not dead though. BaNES themselves are looking at releasing local Green Belt for development to meet their housing targets. A proposal's just been floated to release a chunk of HorseWorld land and neighbouring fields for 200 homes. If that's agreed in the Core Strategy, HorseWorld will be back. And if BaNES nominate other space for new homes, the developers will be queueing.

Hoofnote: 1st Dec.

A curious feature of HorseWorld's application to build 125 houses on the greenbelt with a minimum of 'affordable' dwellings among them was the announcement to the BaNES planning committee that Bristol had withdrawn its objection.

Not so. It's true that Bristol's LibDem leader Tim Kent had been lobbied beforehand by HorseWorld chief Mark Owen, who told him that without the planning permission the ailing charity would go belly up. And it's true that Tim, in turn, had lobbied the other south Bristol councilors asking for their support in getting the Bristol objection withdrawn. And it's true that Bristol did put in a surprise 11^th hour 'comment' to BaNES about the application.

But it didn't withdraw the objection. The secretive attempt by Tim (and any henchpersons who might have been equally worried that they might be portrayed as 'cruel to horses') to overturn the case made by their own officers didn't withdraw anything, even though the BaNES officers tried to make it look that way.

A Little Bit Faster. A Whole Lot Worse

Mayor George is busy creating, not to mention advertising,  a thousand 'Calmer Crescents' with the roll-out of 20mph limits on the city's residential streets.

But not in King Georges Road.

 

That doesn't get the mayoral treatment, it gets an appropriately royal going over from the West of England Partnership, egged on by the motoring and business lobbies. The Madness of King Georges Road .

Today it provides a path for around 500 vehicles a day – and it rarely, if ever, sees a juggernaut. But as soon as the South Bristol Link opens, everything changes – ten thousand 'car equivalents' will pass these front doors each day.

 

Perhaps a few will come from local businesses, rerouted from current journeys down Hartcliffe Way or along Airport Road. But by far the majority will be the traffic that already flows – or inches from standstill to standstill - along Airport Road, heading for the A38 or for the Cumberland Basin and the M5 at Avonmouth.

  

   

They'll save a few seconds too – unless the road is a victim of its own 'success' and attracts enough new traffic to cancel out even that small benefit for the driving public. As tends to happen in real life.

A little bit faster?   A Whole Lot Worse

[The Planning Application for the South Bristol section of the Link is expected to be held on Wednesday27th November at City Hall (6pm).   More on the 'NO to the South Bristol Link Road' pages]

Controversy at the other football ground

The planning decision had been clear, very popular, and democratically arrived at by the elected members. Twice. But some time later, the unsuccessful party, driven by self interest, chose to go against the will of the majority and challenge the planners to get the decision overturned.

To deal with this dissident minority, the council has to assemble a legal team at great expense, headed by a barrister and drawing on evidence from 'expert' professional witnesses. Likewise, the self-interest group get themselves a QC plus a team of advisers. A venue is hired for the hearing, which will be in public. There's plenty to be said: this will take at least four full days, maybe more.

But the Bristol Post (in whose distribution area all this controversy is happening) ignores it. No headlines about 'spitting in the face of democracy' or 'holding Bristol to ransom'. There's no orchestrated vilification of anyone. This time, it has nothing to do with Sainsburys and only a very tenuous link with Rovers

Yesterday was the first day of the appeal into BaNES' rejection of a bid to build over the green belt between Stockwood and Whitchurch village, and it was held at the Bath City ground, Twerton Park, before a Planning Inspector, Mike Robbins. He'll eventually report his findings to that localisation hero and champion of the Green Belt, Eric Pickles. Expect a final decision sometime in the spring.

At some stage in the hearings, the Inspector will be doing a site visit. He'll find it's been prepared for him... the usual rough grazing and wildlife-rich hedgerows have been harshly cut back in anticipation, so that it looks less like real countryside

The first day saw introductions and explanations, opening statements from the two sides, and an examination of the landscape impacts of the proposed development. It was notable mostly for what his website describes as “the pure theatre of his cross-examination “ performed by the appellants' Anthony Crean QC – a silk who's evidently in high demand, and usually from the rich bad guys. It was uncomfortable theatre, too – he could switch between bullying, patronising, warmth and anger almost within a single sentence, in his efforts to confuse and break down his witness. Not nice.

The hearings will run from 10 till 5 or later for the rest of the week, and maybe stretch into next week.   They won't be looking at the scheme for 295 houses that originally got turned down by BaNES - this is about a revised 'concept plan' with a 'mere' 200 homes, which the developers have introduced since.   It goes straight into the appeal/Pickles stage without first having being tested by local councillors.  

Lunchbreak nostalgia.... Stockwood Pete's first visit to Twerton Park since 1952 (when Southend United lost 3-1 to City in the cup)

[Meanwhile, Horseworld's application to build a new estate and visitor centre has been delayed while BaNES sorts out its housing allocations for the area.  The Bristolian has plenty to say about that one]