Stockwood hits the headlines – for better or worse

Strange that this Bristol backwater should suddenly attract media mentions across the British Isles. Stranger still that it should happen twice in successive months.

Both stories have what the press loves – the chance to write a story that will produce a titter or a snigger among the readers.

In March, it was the BioBus, usually described as the Poo Bus. I'm sure it's no accident that First introduced it on the Number Two route, gifting an easy line to the journalists and guaranteeing media attention. Apparently the bio-methane fuelled bus is a first for the UK, though the technology is well established.

Long before moving to Bristol over a decade ago, I organised a Green Party trip to see Wessex Water's plant at Avonmouth. What made it special was that while other water companies were still pumping sewage into the sea, or taking it out in barges to be dumped, Wessex already had the foresight to treat it onshore. The biogas provided a renewable fuel, used primarily to generate electricity, while the dried granular byproduct could be used to enrich or remediate soil. It's that biogas that's now being used as a (relatively) clean renewable fuel to carry passengers from Stockwood to Cribbs Causeway (if they have the staying power, and nothing better to do!) and all points in between.

So it's a good news story.... well done First, well done Geneco and Wessex.

….............

This month's Stockwood story has a very much darker side. I don't know how the media got hold of it, though I have my suspicions. In the coming local elections, UKIP's candidate to succeed Jay Jethwa as one of Stockwood's two ward councillors apparently has a 'professional' life as Johnny Rockard (snigger) a maker, promoter, and actor in pornographic videos. Google his name if you must - I did, but a click or two more was enough before I abandoned the enquiry!

Cue lots of press and broadcasting media attention for the candidate, who's the vice-chair of the local party. Cue righteous indignation from UKIP and its supporters, complaining of being picked on by the media. My guess is that all the attention was inevitable, no matter what colour rosette the candidate was wearing.

Apart from the press enjoying the chance to describe in detail the 'plot' of one such video, and a huge burst in public awareness of UKIP's man in Stockwood, just before an election, the story is a bit of a non-event. It won't bring about a multi-million local tourism boom. Most people accept that for better or worse, the sex trade exists and people do work in it and they do meet a demand.

But despite of UKIP's defence of its candidate, making and selling porn is not like more legitimate businesses. It's a very dark sector of the economy, strongly associated with exploitation, with people trafficking, with drugs, violence and even modern slavery. Perhaps the media should have used this story to raise these much more serious aspects of the industry, instead of just treating it as a bit of a joke.  [added 14/04/15] Looks like 'Object' are presenting them with the evidence now.

Meanwhile, for balance, here's a list of the other candidates aspiring join David Morris as Stockwood's councillor for the coming year, until the first 'whole council' election in 2016. Sadly, like the UKIP man, none of them actually live in the ward.

Phil Bishop – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

Ian Campion-Smith – LibDem

David McLeod – Labour

Graham Morris – Tory (David's son, I understand. Part of the Tory's inheritance strategy?)

Ellie Vowles – Green. Best of luck, Ellie!

Little local difficulties

For most of us, this was the first sighting of The Man from Stoke Bishop in Hengrove. At centre stage, too, as it turned out to be his turn to chair the Neighbourhood Partnership meeting on Wednesday.

It didn't start well. After inviting the other councillors to introduce themselves to those residents who'd bothered to turn up in the lecture hall of the Oasis Academy, Mike Frost took his own turn.... “I'm Councillor Mike Frost, the newly elected UKIP councillor for Hengrove....” To add a bit of emphasis, he then asked those present to raise their hands if they'd voted for him – and looked a bit crestfallen at the minimalist response. Evidently UKIP voters are rare among those who actually take part in local democracy.

It could only get better after that embarrassing intro, and it did, mostly because Cllr Frost generally deferred to the more experienced officers who really run the show in these parts.

There were a couple more fireworks in the box, though.

The threat of a new bus stop

Not just any old bus stop. This one, proposed for Fortfield Road, will not merely inconvenience those living nearby. Peeping toms (well, you know what bus passengers are like) will threaten privacy, walls will collapse under their weight, vandalism and rowdyism will be rife, road accidents will rocket, and civilisation as we know it will come to an abrupt end. ( Somehow Stockwood Pete hadn't realised this when he blogged about it over a year ago.)

Most of the residents present had come simply to alert us to this threat, so that we could act now to make sure it doesn't happen. And the newly elected UKIP councillor for Hengrove made no secret whose side he was on. He brought the topic straight to the top of the agenda from its lowly spot in 'Any Other Business'

The objectors were quickly reassured that the whole issue will be revisited, this time with extensive consultation through a couple of widely advertised drop-in sessions. That wasn't enough for the objectors, though. After they'd offered some pretty broad ranging contributions from the floor, the newly elected UKIP councillor for Hengrove closed the discussion and moved to the next agenda item. Cue a mass exodus by most of the objectors, loudly complaining they'd not been listened to. The newly elected UKIP councillor for Hengrove looked perplexed. You could tell he's not been around for long.

The threat of a public forum

It was Stockwood Pete who lit the blue touch paper on the second firework. And did he really, as Stockwood Cllr Jay Jethwa claimed, twist her words? Or was he untwisting them when he said that at the last NP she'd rejected suggestions (broadly supported by the Hengrove councillors and most others present) to open up a new dialogue between councillors and residents. Whichever was true, neither was mentioned in the draft Minutes, so they could not be a true record.

Stockwood has long stood out as a ward where the councillors take pains avoid any kind of public forum where they can be held to account. And this new threat to their cosy position was a suggestion, put to the last NP meeting, that “we have a spot in the ward forum meetings...... in which councillors can report back on their activities and deal with any related questions from the floor?”

Whatever the truth of how she responded at the last meeting, this time Cllr Jethwa was unequivocal. She has NOT turned down the suggestion, and she told us so.

So maybe.... just maybe.... our next ward forum might see our Stockwood councillors tell us for the first time what they get up to at City Hall. They might even let us ask them about it. Watch this space.

Stockwood Blues

It was sad, though predictable, to see Stockwood's two councillors' kneejerk support for rest of the Tory group at Tuesday's council meeting. They were wanting to stop any progress toward running buses as a public service, instead of the (largely monopoly) private business it is now. All the other councillors wanted to look more closely at 'Quality Bus Contracts' as a means of bringing Bristol a quality bus network. Not the Tories, though.

Don't the Stockwood councillors, Jay Jethwa and David Morris, know that Bristol's bus network is not fit for purpose?. Even if they don't travel on buses themselves, they must know someone who does. Presumably they read the papers. Perhaps they had even read the lengthy report that officers had prepared for them, setting out the background and spelling out some of the huge problems that crop up when the biggest bus operator by far shows no interest in co-operating with the local authority or with other companies.

All we got from the Tories in a disappointing debate on the proposals (to examine the business case for Quality Bus Contracts) was a feeble, ill-informed, irrelevant and irrational rant from their leader, Peter Abraham. But if the blue ranks around him were embarrassed, they didn't show it, and they dutifully followed his lead when it came to voting. As always.

In the Neighbourhood Partnership, local councillors have the opportunity to test local opinion on issues like this. They never use it. Nor have they ever used the online resources, (provided at public expense with local voluntary support) like the HandS ON forum, to keep us informed, or to invite our views.

It's self evident that the our councillors believe the mandate they get on the day they're elected is to represent the Tory line, however absurd, in the council for the next four years. And they carry out that duty one hundred per cent.

Free coach trip at public expense. Just join 'Senior Moments'

A Stockwood older peoples' group is to get a coach outing at public expense, at the insistence of Stockwood councillors David Morris and Jay Jethwa. 

A £500 chunk of the ward's 'wellbeing' fund will be used to pay for the trip by 'Senior Moments', the over-50s group that meets each month in the library.

The decision was driven through, despite protests from Partnership members, at this evening's meeting of the Hengrove and Stockwood Neighbourhood Partnership.

The Wellbeing fund is a fixed sum allocated to each partnership from central city council funds. Organisations can ask for grants from it ; every request for a grant is first closely examined by a subcommittee of Partnership members, using agreed guidelines to prioritise the best ones, and making recommendations to help the councillors decide which ones to accept.

Neither of the Stockwood councillors had been at the subcommittee meeting and only one, David Morris, was at the NP meeting. The other, Jay Jethwa, had already made it known that she'd like to see the money spent on the outing – but she wasn't there to vote. 

The consensus of the subcommittee, and the near-consensus of the Partnership, was that coach outings are not what the wellbeing money is for. 

The only other councillor present this evening, Sylvia Doubell of Hengrove, deferred to Cllr. Morris's judgement as it's ''Stockwood money” that's being spent. And he rallied in support of his absent colleague, and voted the £500 away.

So.... if you fancy a summer outing and you're over 50, get yourself up to the Library on the third Wednesday of the month, 10.30am. Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor. You'll probably find that 'Senior Moments' will provide good company for your free trip out.

And while everything around you is being cut back with the enthusiastic support of our Tory councillors, you can at least benefit from their utter inconsistency and their contempt for the concept of 'partnership'.   And wonder why you get the freebie and others will go without.

UPDATE:  1st October 2012.
A request goes in from an NP member  (Stockwood Pete himself) to get an item on the next NP agenda to try to stop this sort of thing happening again.   The idea is to invite the Partnership to suggest that councillors should give us an explanation if they choose to overturn a 'well-being' recommendation.   Councillors can give that undertaking, or not, as they choose - but it will be on record.
Officers and councillors flatly refuse to allow it on the agenda.   Under what powers is not clear.  

Tories for off-road biking

On Saturday, we'll have Lord Mayor Geoff Gollop here in Stockwood for the Grand Opening of the new bike track, set into the slopes behind the Whittock Road allotments. It's rumoured (well, I'm starting a rumour...) that he'll hurtle down the course on a penny-farthing borrowed from the M-Shed, to symbolise our rapid descent into the Tory World of Victorian Values.

No doubt our own Conservative ward councillors will be there too. The real credit for the new course, though, should go to the young people who put such effort into creating and improving the old one. It was enought to earn themselves Youth Opportunity Fund backing, to pay for all the earthworks on this impressive new run.

Question 1 is - will this new-found Tory enthusiasm for bikes off the road be matched by keeping their own cars on the road?

The new track's a good 100m off Whittock Road, across level grassland. It was always going to be tempting for those arriving by car (and it looks like there'll be plenty, this won't be a wholly 'Stockwood' track) to drive those final 100m over the grass, summer and winter. Will Bristol's Conservatives set them a permissive example on Saturday?
...........................

It certainly seems that Bristol's Tories are wedded to their cars. They've been pretty silent, but (like their Labour and LibDem counterparts) generally supportive of plans for Bus Rapid Transit for the city. Until, that is, they got round to reading the Cabinet papers for last week and realised that the cost wouldn't come out of general taxation - a big chunk of it must now (thanks to George Osborne) come from Bristol itself. And the only realistic way of doing that is to levy those businesses in the central area that have workplace parking, at a rate of (wait for it....) a pound a day a parking spot. Cue Tory Shock Horror.

Of course, there was no plan B from the Tories; why bother when you're not in power, and there's some easy political point-scoring that's there for the taking?

So Question 2 is, does the Tory reluctance to raise funds from those car-driving commuters blessed with free workplace parking in the city centre stretch as far as opposition to the South Bristol Ring Road which is an integral part of the BRT bid package? I think we should be told. After all, that road would have a far greater impact on the quantity of traffic in Bristol than all three BRT schemes put together. IMHO.
.............................

Back to the bikes. The conservatives' enthusiasm for the off-road bike track riders clearly doesn't extend to the safety of those who cycle to get from A to B on real roads. Stockwood Cllr David Morris, who's written to BaneS about proposed new housing development between Whitchurch and Stockwood, takes the opportunity in his objection to blame congestion on Wells Road on "the installation of cycle tracks along the A37 reducing the flow of traffic into and out of Bristol".

And there I was, thinking it was caused by too many cars and heavy lorries!

How Eric Pickles puts a squeeze on buses

[picture thanks to politics.co.uk via Mabinogogiblog ]

A copy of 'In Touch' drops through the letterbox. This one turns out to be seriously out of touch. Apart from the routine photos of glum councillors, it leads me optimistically to their website, wondering if our Stockwood councillors have at last launched some kind of an online dialogue with their constituents.

Sadly, No. The link takes me to the Bristol and South Glos Conservative website. Click on 'News' for the very latest - and there's a South Glos Tories' press release complaining at the "absolutely outrageous" Govt cut in bus subsidy.

But the Govt is a Labour government, and the date is February of last year. There's been no news since then. Still, it remains topical.

The bus subsidy is again being cut. One pledge this 'greenest government ever' is keeping is to protect the concessionary bus pass scheme introduced by Labour. Meaning it's making the same demands of councils and bus companies, but cutting the funding.

The impact is inevitable, and it will affect passengers of all ages. Councils, faced with less money and more costs across all their services, are having to cut the payment they make to the bus companies for every concessionary journey. Bus company income drops, and some journeys no longer generate the revenue to cover costs. Result - service withdrawn. It's already happening in South Glos, where the payment is to drop from 97p to 82p - about 15%.

Expect a wave of bus service withdrawals. But don't expect the Tories to make much of a fuss.

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.

The yellow line cover-up

Ward councillors are still denying any suggestion of wrongdoing, after getting the threat of yellow lines outside a colleague's house withdrawn, and claiming the Neighbourhood Puppetship backed their decision.

The charge, as I described to the September NP meeting for Hengrove and Stockwood, was:

"The minutes record the very special treatment that the voting councillors gave to one public forum statement ; they agreed to reverse a recommendation for yellow lines at a road junction, at the sole request of the resident whose property fronts the junction. I (and I am sure most of those present) did not see any such decision being made, or any opportunity for residents or officers to give an opinion on it, or the agenda item it should relate to. It is all the more alarming that the resident making the statement - and winning instant councillor support - is an Alderman and a party colleague of the two Stockwood councillors."

This brought a heated, but wholly unconvincing, response from the councillors involved.

Cllr Jay Jethwa (who'd spent much of the previous 48 hrs calling a fellow councillor a liar) complained that my remarks were 'personal'

Cllr David Morris attempted an explanation to exonerate him: his original bid for yellow lines was at the request of another resident, but it wouldn't be considered anyway because that area's not in the Traffic Dept's programme, so reversing the decision wasn't necessary.

Their LibDem counterpart from Hengrove, Cllr Jos Clark, said the Minute must be right, because the minuting officer is good at his job.

None claimed that the decision had been made openly, or even attempted (given the Morris version) to explain why they'd bothered to take it. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no members of the public there who'd been at the previous meeting (that must say something...) so no-one else could challenge the written record.

The police intervened in the shape of Insp. Colin Salmon, who knocked our heads together (coppers can still do that, as long as they do it metaphorically). He suggested a simple word change ('could' for 'would') in the Minute that should make everyone happy. But the councillors wouldn't even make that concession. The official record remains intact. They took an unnecessary decision that no-one else saw, outside the agenda of the meeting, and which just happened to do a favour to a party friend.

So the charge remains. Until we know better, this was a blatant bid to give Neighbourhood Puppetship authority to a councillors' uniquely generous treatment of a party colleague.

The blue glass house in Stockwood

Jay Jethwa's Evening Post attack on LibDem councillors relied on an appeal for transparency and integrity in public life. It was motherhood and apple-pie stuff. But before we get any more calls for democracy to be seen to be done, our two Stockwood councillors should look very much closer to home.

The Hengrove and Stockwood Neighbourhood Partnership meeting in June was horribly chaotic, but otherwise seemed unremarkable. Once again, it was hard after the event to work out quite what (if anything) had been agreed by whom, and if so, just who was going to put it into practice. The only sure thing was that the residents wouldn't play much part in it.



The meeting kicked off with a couple of Public Forum statements, one of which dealt with that topic that should make every councillor run for cover - residential on-street parking. A local whose house fronts both the busy West Town Lane and the quieter Imperial Road (pictured) put his case against imposing parking restrictions at that corner, claiming they were unnecessary. So far, so good.

The norm for Public Forum statements is that they're received and passed to the relevant councillor or officer. There's no debate, no immediate response. Officers might know a bit about the issue - but aren't invited to explain. The meeting moved straight on to the next item. As it should.

The Minutes of the meeting tell a different story:
"A Public Forum Statement was received from Colin Williams concerning a proposal to install yellow lines at the West Town Lane/Imperial Road Junction. It was agreed that this scheme should not be proceeded with."

Eh?

OK, I know that it's the councillors who make the spending decisions, but isn't the whole idea of the Neighbourhood Partnership to sound out local opinion, to weigh up the pros and the cons, and reach a decision in public ? Uniquely, this one individual's public forum statement was taken as doing the job - though it certainly wasn't apparent at the time.

Hmmm.... demonstrable integrity, with decisions being taken openly, after due debate and without undue influence..... ??

Far from it. Here were our two Tory ward councillors (David Morris in the Chair, plus Jay), and one of the LibDems from Hengrove, cutting some highly unorthodox corners.

Could it be because the 'public forum statement' that triggered it came from an ex-Tory councillor, now an Alderman of this city, who didn't fancy having double yellows on his doorstep?

Jay Jethwa is throwing stones from a particularly fragile glass house.