Austerity? Let's buy an Arena !

Stockwood Pete isn't too fussed about an Arena. Having clicked through the programmes and the prices now on offer at other Arenas – Cardiff, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Coventry, (not much on here), and Birmingham, it's clear that Stockwood Pete's bum is unlikely to occupy any of the Bristol Arena's 10,000 seats.

But on Thursday, the Mayor, with the support of his chosen Cabinet, will certainly commit Bristol residents to borrowing – and repaying - many millions of pounds, just to make sure that I and my fellow Bristolians have the opportunity.

It won't be a business decision (no business would touch it); it will be populist and political.

Most Bristolians will probably never go to our Arena (in the absence of naming rights, lets call it the Red Trousers Arena) just as they don't feel the need to go to professional football matches. Even so, it's been elevated to a matter of civic pride, and political pragmatism, that we should have one, just like every other self-respecting city. If we don't, the others will laugh at us. It's also a useful distraction from more serious matters.

Original nicked from Dru Marland.  Trousers by Stockwood Pete

In pursuit of the dream, many public servants and quite a few consultants have for years been fully occupied trying to find a business rationale for building an Arena. Back in 2003, the now defunct South West Regional Development Agency had a head start with it, and poured £9 million into acquiring the site, the heavily contaminated 'Diesel Depot' alongside Temple Meads. Then they spent a few million more on remediation. They even got as far as committing another £14 million to build a bridge from Cattle Market Road, giving not just access but essential services too. They found a global corporate arena operator, SMG Europe, plus other developers ready to make maximum use of the site. Then, in 2007, it went pear shaped. The operator argued (as private sector partners tend to do) that their own investment couldn't be justified without further effective public subsidy. SWRDA quickly backed off. As they explained at the time: 

“the Bristol Arena will not be able to go ahead. Following a thorough look at the scheme, rising costs for the project mean it would simply not be a good use of public money. The amount of public cash needed for the scheme would have been £86m, including the £15m we've already spent.”

Of course, SWRDA never had to depend on votes. They were more dependent on government imposed financial targets and on shrinking budgets. Your average elector, not to mention the Bristol Evening Post, didn't matter too much to them. Their days were numbered anyway, so they could afford to take this unpopular, but commercially sound, decision.

Enter the mayoral system. The Arena Promise was thought to be an essential part of any winning electoral strategy, and the Red Trousers Arena won. Back came the consultants and the development teams. Plus the new boys on the block, the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership – a powerful mix of elected members and businessmen self-appointed in backroom deals. By this time SWRDA had been dissolved, and its assets, including the now 'clean' diesel depot, transferred to the government's Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

On Thursday, the Mayor and Cabinet will – after an earlier item about cutting £90 million from the city's public services – agree to borrow £90 million for an Arena. (That's before they've actually found the cash to buy the land it will stand on from the HCA.)

It's called, in the language of council finance, 'prudential borrowing'. The security – and the repayments - on the loan will rely on three funding streams : 

• Rent paid by the Arena operator over 25 years
• Car parking fees
• Anticipated income from new business rates in the Enterprise Zone.

The first two are 'new' money – they won't happen unless, and until, the Arena's built. Reliance on car parking revenue suggests that (in spite of the rhetoric) this will be a very heavily car-dependent venture, because it's based on a projection of 1,000 new nearby parking spaces (ie one car to every ten Arena seats) at £6 a throw and each occupied a hundred times a year. That would bring in £600K and a whole load of traffic on Cattle Market Road, while giving the customers every opportunity to drive back home without getting round to spending anything off-site. (The notion of a proper city public transport hub at Temple Meads gets its customary mention in the blurb around the Arena, but in truth it remains as woolly and opaque as ever)

The last income stream to cover the Arena debt and repayments – the hoped-for business rate income from the Enterprise Zone – covers the bulk of it, at £53 million. But that's not guaranteed, and more important, if it wasn't used for the Arena it would be available (the LEP permitting) for other things. So in effect it's far from being a new income, it's a massive new cost to the public purse.

Nobody pretends the city coffers will end up in the black from all this. It's much more about trying not to be too much in the red when it's all over.

On Thursday, will we really see the Mayor, backed by his Cabinet, within a few minutes of imposing a budget of £90 million in cuts, decide to commit a similar amount to what, in a time of austerity, can only be a vanity project?

Sadly, yes. And will we see any protests from the business elite, the people whose commercial nous has put them in the LEP driving seat to manage these public funds ?  Like hell we will.

Decision Time

We are where we are. Few really want a city mayor, still less want a Police & Crime Commissioner (I love that title.... which gets commissioned first?). But in 48 hours will have one of each, so we might as well limit the damage by voting to minimise the damage.

Or even to really change the face of Bristol for the better.

First choice for mayor – Daniella Radice, of course. Uniquely, she offers a clear manifesto, strong commitments to neighbourhood democracy, to equality, and to a green city, plus an honest commitment to reduce cuts. Not forgetting my favourite... a real interchange at Temple Meads. 

It's not a wasted vote, either; if the unlikely doesn't happen (though sometimes it does), there's always the second preference vote.

Mine goes to George Ferguson. Some doubts – there's little commitment to equalities, a suspect over-reliance on market forces, and promises of neighbourhood democracy are very vague. But those are over-ridden by a freedom from party dependency, by a broad commitment to green issues, by an impressive track record – and by being less bad than the rest!

Marvin Rees might have got that second vote but for being so deeply bound into Labour Party structures and expectations to the exclusion of all and everyone else. Geoff Gollop was never in the running for me because of the company he keeps, and ex-Doctor JonRogers.... well, even apart from his loyalty to the party that lets this government claim a mandate to do what it does, who wants a mayor who treats the residents as gullible idiots, as so much of his publicity does?

For PCC, Pete Levy gets my first vote. His comprehensive manifesto shows he's thought it through, and his priorities and values look both right and realistic. Pity about the LibDem party label.

The others seem much of a muchness, all offering similar platitudes that will offend no-one. So Sue Mountstevens gets the second vote, simply because she's independent of party ties.

Supplementary (mayoral) voting made easy

First preference:  vote for your actual first preference.

Second preference:  guess who the top two are going to be when first preference votes are counted - and then vote for the one who's least bad!

Or:   the first with the heart - the second with the calculating head


Why?  Daniella Radice explains...

BRT – the new mayor's parlour game

In a surprise change of course, Bristol City Council – and presumably, its West of England Partners – have decided that bendybuses aren't the answer after all.  Or so we are led to believe....

What we really want is longer single-deckers with (like bendy-buses) two doors. Which means all those artists impressions might as well be binned. I wonder if they've told the bus manufacturers..... there'll be some worried workers in Ballymena tonight.

What's more, the BRT2 route will, at last, be diverted to serve Temple Meads!   Just what I've been saying for years......

It didn't need a meeting to decide it, it didn't need a consultants report, it didn't need the Cabinet Member with responsibility for Transport. It didn't even need the input of the council's own press officers.  

Instead, it came as a press release (*) from the LibDem group.   And instead of quoting the councillor responsible, the credit for this welcome proposal goes to none other than the deputy leader, one Jon Rogers, who also just happens to be running for mayor.

Which makes it even less credible than all the other unexpected announcements that emerge from the LibDems' transport spokesmen. Like Gary's transport hub and Tim's unmanned pods.

*  later discreetly removed - I wonder why

The Promises of Power

Here's an advance look at the mayoral election booklet. that should come through your letterbox before long.  Page 12 brings this list of hard promises from Labour candidate Marvin Rees.

If elected I will:

• Build 4,000 affordable homes and crack down on bad private sector landlords
• Build an Arena and back the two football stadiums
• Make Bristol a Living Wage City, paying at least £7.20 an hour
• Get cheaper, more flexible childcare - working with businesses, schools, and sports clubs
• Introduce cheaper fares with a Brunel Travelcard and more accountable bus services
• Make Bristol Greener, supporting local markets and sustainable energy
• Involve more people in our city's decision making with four question times a year and weekly phone-ins.

As part of a booklet containing 14 rival mini-manifestos, this is more likely to be speed-read than considered in depth. That's a pity.... not many candidates make firm promises, and these are worth a second, if sceptical, glance. At least the Greens' Daniella Radice has provided a much more comprehensive manifesto that covers most of Marvin's shortlist in much more depth, and a website where these and other ideas can be challenged. 

Marvin must have been advised not to go down that path....

Every Labour promise begs more questions (not practicable here) about how, or whether, any mayor could deliver – especially when there are so many enforced government cuts threatening everything local government does.

More than that, his unashamed “I will build an Arena” bid to tap popular calls for stadia and an Arena is, to say the least, rash. 

Can Marvin really be talking about pouring public money (what money?) into someone else's commercial Arena, or is it just part of the same wish-list shared by nearly all the candidates? 

As for the stadia (read BCFC Ashton Vale) what form will his promised backing take? Everything's already in place, thanks to all the costly concessions already made by the council – except for one obstacle, the controversial Town Green application. That's a quasi-judicial matter, to be dealt with according to law, not by political influence. Does Marvin maybe intend to pack the relevant committee with people who'll 'vote the right way' ? It's hard to see how else he could guarantee delivery. As bobs commented to the Ashton Gate Blogger: “Marvin Rees – the first public servant to declare an intention to commit misfeasance in public office before he is even elected. “

As for the final promise, and given my own recent problems with local – neighbourhood – democracy, I'm keeping an eye on what the candidates have to say on making it happen. Marvin says nothing.     Mayoral Question Times and phone ins don't even start to do it.

The overall picture, from the promise list and the rest of the battery of propaganda coming from Labour's national electoral machine, is very much one of an autocratic all-powerful 'city mayor'; just the thing I voted against earlier this year.

My own first preference vote is, of course, committed. But - just in case that doesn't deliver - it would have been nice to cast a second preference vote for a socialist with a chance of winning. Pity there's no-one fits the bill.

A real First Preference? Or a Mayoral front-runner?

For many years I lived bordering two of the boroughs that first elected executive mayors.

In Middlesbrough it was an independent, Ray Mallon aka 'Robocop' or sometimes 'red braces', who won. Mallon had become a highly controversial figure, and a hero to some, in the everlasting scandals within the local police force.

Across the Tees in Hartlepool, to everyone's complete surprise, local MP Peter Mandelson's fury, and international hilarity, it was another independent, Stuart Drummond, who narrowly defeated the 'safe' labour candidate. Drummond had campaigned in the persona of the Hartlepool United mascot, 'H'angus the Monkey, on a platform promising free bananas to local school children. 

The day before the election - Mandelson and Drummond cosy up for the photographers.

It was a brief romance!

Both elections were run under the first-past-the-post system. Mallon probably won on charisma and populist policy; for Drummond it was more likely a freak brought about by contempt for the tribalistic mainstream party political system.  Bristol councillors be warned.

But ten years later, both mayors are still there.  They've both been re-elected twice.  Neither has turned their town around (ignore the hype, mayors don't do that). But neither have they made any spectacular mistakes.  Whilst Mallon always had close links with Labour,  Drummond's strength does seem to lie in his independence, and his majority has increased dramatically. But while we're voting for our first Bristol mayor, Hartlepudlians will be holding a referendum on whether they want to revert to a 'council committee' structure.

If a rank outsider, a joke candidate, like Stuart Drummond could be elected in Hartlepool, and then repeat the victory twice as a 'sitting' mayor, all under the first-past-the-post system, is is possible that a much more serious outsider in Bristol could do the same under the more favourable Supplementary Vote system? Of course – but only if voters have the confidence and understanding to use their votes carefully.

This time, THERE IS NOTHING TO BE LOST BY GIVING THE FIRST PREFERENCE VOTE TO YOUR FIRST PREFERENCE, no matter what the hype – or the Post, or the bookies - might say about their prospects. With a big field and three 'favourites', it's very probable that no-one will get over 50% of those first preference votes, so all but the top two candidates will be eliminated. The 'losers' second preference votes will become the decider; the top two get their votes topped up by second preference votes from the others, and the new total decides the winner.

So - unless there's a 'H'angus moment (which, of course, there could be - imagine the MPs' faces!)  it's the second preference that counts. For once, at least with the first vote, there's no need to second guess the way other voters will behave. It should be what it says - a real first preference.

Pickles and Gollop

The 'Second Preference' dilemma

The prospect of casting a 'second preference' vote at next month's mayoral elections means looking beyond a preferred (but outsider) candidate to 'the men most likely to'.

The 'Supplementary Vote' is far from democratic (which is probably appropriate in an election that will concentrate public power in one pair of – probably masculine - hands) . But it does give the chance to cast a second vote, and that makes it possible to cast an honest first vote for a preferred 'outsider' candidate. If at the first count they don't make it into the first two, then the second vote will count toward the final result – so long as it happens to be for one of the two who top the list when first preference votes are counted.

The current bookie's favourites are listed here. Note that the LibDem's are now down to third in the betting – but don't expect a correction to appear in Jon Roger's hype now. And note that the chances of a female mayor are assessed at 66 to 1 !

According to the same bookies, Geoff Gollop falls between the outsider and favourite groups – embarrassingly behind Independent Spud Murphy, his one time colleague on the council's Tory benches.

photo- the Post

Geoff won't be helped, either, by being seen at a Fishponds photo-op alongside the much reviled Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, who would (according to the Post) effectively be his line manager as Mayor. I'm sure that command line isn't what was wanted even by the 13% of the electorate who want a mayor for Bristol. Eric may be one of the few 'state grammar' plebs among the toffs in the Cabinet, but even that wins him few admirers. He despises local government, as his own record running Bradford shows.

Of course Geoff already has a line manager in the shape of local Tory leader Peter Abraham – the fellow who claims he can empty his own mind at will. Peter should have been the warm up act for Geoff at the last council meeting – but he spent so long indulging in an irrelevant party political waffle (the kind that's being used to prove a mayor will represent us better ) that there was no time for Geoff's promised demolition of the case for Quality Bus Contracts. We'll have to wait a bit longer for that, then.

Geoff Gollop's mayoral website doesn't contain anything resembling a manifesto – but among the lists of good (or bad) intentions, these are the only firm commitments:

Education

• Scale back the role of the LEA
• Introduce a schools olympics
• Extend the period for intake/acceptance

Green Policy: 

• Install solar panels on council house roofs
• Create and restore nature reserves
• Open a community fund to create more allotments
• Make Bristol physically green (I suspect that needs rephrasing!)

Transport: 

• Go ahead with Bus Rapid Transit
• Scrap some bus-only lanes
• Continue the spread of a city-wide 20mph limit – but with exceptions

It doesn't tell us much else, though, even for those obligations for which any mayor must have a policy . Like how he'll face up to further deep cuts to the budget (or pay for the wish-list above). Or what he thinks about local (neighbourhood) democracy. Or anything about the care services.

Generally, Geoff Gollop is regarded as a decent, likeable man. But in the mayoral elections the balance tips away from him as a potential second preference vote.

There's his poor placing in the 'likely mayors' list, that would make the vote wasted.

There's the broad theme in his platform of outsourcing essential services

There's the failure to declare how he'd tackle the really big issues.

And there's the company he keeps.

Right, that's one ruled out.

Arenatherapy

Egged on by the Post, the mayoral candidates all seem desperate to confirm that they see an Arena as priority for Bristol under their mayoralty. Probably alongside bread and circuses.

So it's probably a heresy to suggest that an Arena isn't really all that vital. Except as a means of getting elected, anyway.

I admit that I'm unlikely to be a regular patron of a new Arena. I've just taken a look at the shows, and the kind of prices charged at Newcastle and Nottingham, and I know that if I lived in either of those cities I'd not be at the front of the queue for the hugely expensive tickets. Arenas are a stage for the most popular entertainers, the most expensive productions, and they have to be big enough to pull in crowds from far afield on a scale that will pay the bills and still deliver a profit. Me, I seem to get more out of smaller scale, and more original entertainment, so that will still get my custom.

It's clear, though, that an Arena visit to see a favourite entertainer is something special, whatever the price at the gate. That's why existing Arenas do bring in the crowds from far and wide. It's why Bristolians are prepared to travel over to Cardiff (not far) or up to London (maybe with an overnight stay) for a big event. Given the ticket prices, the travel is a minor cost – and arguably it adds to making the occasion special.

I'm guessing.... but if I was in the business of running an Arena, I'd be taking a very cautious look at the potential market in Bristol before I leapt in. That's why, reportedly, the SWRDA's plans fell through two or three years back. The developers just weren't interested, the sums didn't add up. If that was true then, it's hard to believe that things are any different now. Unless there are inducements.

The preferred Arena site is still the diesel depot site alongside Temple Meads. Now part of the Enterprise Zone, it's hemmed in by the A4 on one side, the tidal Avon on the other, without any public access. A bridge is to be built across the river from Cattle Market Road to allow first the construction access, and, later, the customers. Potentially, there's access from the Temple Meads platforms too.

As the site has already been given privileged planning freedoms, it's most unlikely that the elected council, or the mayor, will play much part in getting development kick-started. Of course, that won't stop them queueing up to be associated with any progress on the site.

Yesterday the Post published astory on the lines that (a) part of the site is being temporarily gifted to the Severn Project – an established food growing project that gives therapeutic training to people recovering from drug dependency, and that (b) we won't get an Arena tomorrow. The linking of these two facts was clearly intentional, and the Post's usual website commentators, not bothering to check the detail of the article, predictably found it proved (yet again) that the council, drug users and vegetarians are to blame for the international humiliation of our city.

The only sure thing is that an Arena, even before it is built, will provide a stage for political actors to read the lines they think the audience wants to hear. Pity, that. There really are many more important things that should occupy the minds of would-be mayors.

Daniella leads in Mayoral Race!***

Yes, Daniella Radice, the Greens' candidate, is leading the field in letting voters know exactly what she stands for in the mayoral elections. Her full manifesto was published today. None of the others have yet stuck their heads above the parapet with anything more than a headline grabbing soundbite.

Daniella's manifesto can be read on her blog, or on the Bristol Green Party's webpages

............................................................................................................................

***Couldn't resist it! The headline's a tongue-in-cheek parody of the half-truths that the LibDems are expert at using to promote themselves – as in this nonsense that landed on our mat last week.

 It draws mostly on a bookie's odds, plus presentation as if it were written as a newspaper report, not an advert. Plus the usual 'only the LibDems can beat (someone more popular)' pseudo-graphs. Shame on them.

Stalled. By the Men who would be Mayor.

Both requests should have been easy and straightforward. But it's more like pulling deeply embedded teeth.  Is it just council habit?  Or is there something more sinister?

At this evening's Cabinet, I'd tabled a question to Jon Rogers about the suppression of 'public forum statements' from the on-line record of council meetings. They've been doing it for over a year now.

Yeah, I know, it sounds (and is) pretty dull. Until, that is, you read the powerful and well-informed Statements submitted to the same meeting, in a last ditch attempt to dissuade the Cabinet from selling off old peoples' homes and the like, while contracting out the whole range of 'care' services to the private sector. By tomorrow, those statements, part of the decision making process, will be all but invisible. The only 'evidence' for the Cabinet's decision will be the barely comprehensible reports from officers, in the language of officers.

I was told that the Statements are 'disappeared' because there have been occasional complaints from their authors, or from people named in them, that they never wanted them to go on record. When I suggested that maybe they could be redacted (they wouldn't be the first council papers with heavily blacked out details!) Jon Rogers agreed to look at that possibility. Presumably it hadn't occurred to whoever decided to suppress the whole documents in the first place.

My trump card should have been a test sentence in a Public Forum statement made to a recent Neighbourhood Partnership meeting – it included a request to be be kept on the public on-line record. An easy decision, you might think - but Jon Rogers ducked it (and he's a wannabe Mayor?) For some reason the Head of Legal Services had not given Jon the benefit of his advice on this part of my questions, so instead of an answer, the buck just got passed back to the Head of Legal Services to consider and reply.

So.... simple matter, still waiting.

…....................

“I have checked with the law, and I have checked Standards, and I have checked with our officers, and it is perfectly in order for me to be the Chair” 

So said Cllr Peter Abrahams (another aspirant mayor) as he dismissed any question of his own prejudice, at the start of the PROWG meeting last year that decided to split the Ashton Vale site into part Town Green, part stadium/development site. The rest is history. The Committee's decision is now thoroughly discredited, and we're all back at square one - and a few thousand quid worse off.

Wondering whether the advice was that he was relying on was as flawed as the meeting he chaired, I put in an FoIrequest for the advice that he cited. On the last of the 20 statutory days for reply, I got a response of sorts. It invokes 'Legal Professional Privilege” as a barrier to disclosure. To a lay mind, that might not make much sense – after all, what on earth could the problem be, the advice has already been summed up in a public meeting ?

I'm promised a clearer reply in a few days. I won't hold my breath. In Bristol, The Road to FoI responses is paved with emptypromises .

So.... simple matter, still waiting.

[The FoI request (though little else!) is in the public domain here  . If you'd like to follow it, there's an option to be emailed about any developments]

Mayoral Referendum

Everybody has a bit of a moan about the way the council's run. Often, the citicism is well founded, but then democracy and consensus politics was never going to be as easy as sniping from the sidelines.

So along comes a bloke with a remedy, and a few 'wait and see' promises to persuade us to use it. Why not scrap the old system, he says, and have a nice Mayor instead?  You can even choose who it is.

He insists on an answer on May 3^rd.

You look at local government and know it's one of those situations where, as they say, something must be done. The coalition government is proposing something. So why not do it?

In the past, there have been plenty of alternative 'somethings' suggested, not least by the Greens. Some of them are listed, with reasons, on this newly released leaflet.

 

Yes, there's lots that's wrong with what we have, and councillors themselves often have to struggle with it.

We could certainly have a fairer, more representative, voting system.

We could make our elected reps more accountable, with a 'recall' system such as the Greens have already signed up to on a voluntary basis (other parties found all sorts of excuses not to).

We could change council procedure, so that it's less easy to abuse simply to score cheap party points.

We could strengthen the local, neighbourhood, element of our democracy, which is woefully lacking at present.

Concentrating all the power in the hands of a single, perhaps more personally ambitious and charismatic, 'leader' figure seems to be going in completely the wrong direction.