Bristol

  • Chronicling allergy

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    At least once a week, the Bristol Post, the city’s newspaper of warped record, comes up with an exclusive, although this might not be immediately apparent to the casual reader.

    Today is no exception as, buried in this report on the recall of dodgy products is the revelation that some people are allergic to written records of discrete events organised by date, as revealed by the following screenshot.

    text reads this poses a serious risk to anyone with a diary intolerance

    No illiteracy or lack of proof-reading skills should be inferred concerning the alleged “journalist” involved. 🙂

  • GB Spring Clean weekend in Bristol

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    Last weekend was the highlight of the Great British Spring Clean campaign when Brits were exhorted to go out and do their bit to tidy up the UK.

    Bristol did its part, needless to say with the campaign dovetailing neatly into Mayor Marvin Rees’ Bristol Clean Streets campaign, for which he’s has made a pledge that Bristol will be measurably cleaner by 2020.

    Marvin launched the Great British Spring Clean weekend in Bristol by returning to his old school in Easton.

    Marvin Rees on Stapleton Road with children from Hannah More Primary School, plus Tracey Morgan, CEO of Bristol Waste and Kurt James, Bristol Clean Streets lead officer
    Marvin Rees on Stapleton Road with children from Hannah More Primary School, plus Tracey Morgan, CEO of Bristol Waste and Kurt James, Bristol Clean Streets lead officer. Picture credit: Bristol City Council.

    Litter picks were organised all over the city in both (so-called) deprived areas and prosperous communities alike, from Lockleaze to leafy and well-to-do Stockwood. It seems that litter is a problem with no class distinctions.

    Needless to say the Tidy BS5 volunteers were out as well, getting their hands dirty. Two were spotted doing their own impromptu litter pick in Easton’s All Hallows Road, whilst there was a more premeditated litter pick of Owen Square Park organised by Up Our Street as part of the Love Your Community day at next-door Easton Community Centre.

    In addition, Tidy BS5 also organised a stall on Lawrence Hill, near the entrance to Lidl. Leaflets featuring a residents’ pledge (along the lines of “I will do my bit to keep BS5 tidy” Ed.) were handed out to Saturday morning shoppers, mainly as a means to get them giving their views on the general state of the area. The photo below shows Hannah and Anthea on the stall, which also comprised daffodils which were handed out as a thank-you to all who stopped by.

    The Tidy BS5 stall at Lidl

    Finally, there was also some public service grafitti on the footways of Easton for the Great British Spring Clean campaign. Did it survive long enough in the weekend rain to get the message across?

    grafitto reads drop your litter in a bin

  • Struck off and die

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    There’s a skill to writing an intriguing headline that invites the reader to engage with an article.

    Besides the above that skill also involves the ability to make the headline make sense.

    It’s an ability that seems to be lacking down at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth, headquarters of the Bristol Post, the city’s newspaper of (warped) record, as shown by the screenshot below of the head of this article.

    headline reads Nurse who forced feeding tube into girl's stomach and died is struck off

    Comments on the piece accuse the Post’s headline of not making sense, but to your correspondent it does make perfect sense… as long as nurses can get struck off posthumously.

    Update 07/03/17: Perhaps prompted by the mocking nature of the comments, the headline has now been amended to reflect the gist of what actually happened.

  • Touting for trade

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    Some time ago in a meeting with Bristol Waste, the council-owned company responsible for cleaning the city’s streets and emptying residents’ bins, it was revealed that the company wanted to try and find commercial customers for its services.

    Evidence has emerged that the company has now started seeking business customers for its collection services.

    Bristol Waste employees have started handing out flyers like the one below to local shops, businesses, voluntary and community sector organisations in the Easton area of the city, all of which are responsible for making their own waste disposal arrangements (and which can be fined by the city council if these are found not be exist or be suitable. Ed.).

    Bristol Waste trade flyer

    My informant from whom I acquired the flyer told me that Bristol Waste is trialling this scheme in Easton. This presumably follows the same line of thinking as that for the Stapleton Road waste trial (posts passim), which is generally along the lines of “if it works in Easton, we can get it to work anywhere in the city“. 🙂

    Update: Bristol Waste was contacted for a comment and replied as follows:

    We are speaking to businesses in a number of locations across the city including Stapleton Road, Bedminster & Avonmouth in this first phase of our commercial roll-out. The service will be available city-wide.

    In addition, the Bristol Waste website has a dedicated commercial page.

  • Stapleton Road waste trial

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    On Wednesday, Bristol Waste held a drop-in session at the Newton Hall for residents to get some (more) feedback on trial removal of communal waste bins along the Stapleton Road corridor.

    Projected onto a wall was a presentation giving some facts, figures and information about the trial removal of the area’s 164 communal bins and their replacement with regular wheelie bins and bag collections (for those with no off-street storage space. Ed.).

    Since the start of the trial at the end of October/beginning of November, it seems the trial has had a drastic effect, as the following figures reveal.

    • Recyling: up 16.7%
    • Refuse: down by 40.9%
    • Street cleansing requirement: down by 35.8%

    In addition, fly-tipping enforcement in the area has been increased, with 62 notices served on individuals on how to present waste and 16 Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) served on individuals. Moreover, there are currently 35 active investigations into fly-tipping from domestic properties, whilst 8 local businesses have been served FPNs and another 8 are being investigated.

    The most encouraging news came at the end of the presentation, as follows:

    Due to the success of the scheme in terms of reduced waste, bulky fly-tipping and increased recycling levels we are proposing that we will continue the trial until March in order to gather more data and feedback.

    In March, we anticipate recommending to the Neighbourhood Partnership that the service changes we have introduced remain in place for the area.

    So it looks like scenes like the one below, taken in April 2016, will finally be a thing of the past along the Stapleton Road corridor. 😀

    communal bin in Milsom Street buried under a pile of fly-tipped furniture
    Somewhere under that pile of furniture is a communal bin.

  • Neighbourhood Forum – Bristol Waste update

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    An update has been received via Up our Street to questions raised by residents at the recent Neighbourhood Forum (posts passim).

    The responses from Bristol Waste are reproduced verbatim below.

    1. Litter bins at the Junction 3 development are reported to be too small and rarely emptied – is BWC responsible for these do you know?

    Junction 3 is not yet adopted and therefore not BWC responsibility to cleanse although we did cleanse it this week due to a complaint. It would be the developer who would take up this until the road becomes adopted by BCC. It is very close to becoming adopted, so in light of this we will begin attending to avoid further issues for the community as it would appear the developer has relinquished all responsibility. It’s been added to the crew maps for this week.

    2. Waverley Street communal bin is servicing some Fox Road properties from the back – a resident queried whether the replacement service brought in during the pilot could replicate this.

    We have looked at this in more detail and we intend to keep the service as consistent as possible for residents so as not to cause confusion or inconvenience where a set up suits them in terms of the point of collection. We will therefore be able to empty wheelie bins and boxes from Waverley Street for the houses which back onto there from Fox Road. We have amended the pilot map accordingly.

    Other updates

    Reporting fly-tipping and illegal waste dumping

    Tom Ward, the Streetscene Enforcement Officer for the area attended the meeting asked that local residents help him find and prosecute illegal fly tipping by reporting offences to him, try and take photos and record as much detail as possible if you witness this behaviour. Report online at https://www2.bristol.gov.uk/forms/fly-tipping#step1 or call Tom Ward on 07585307379.

    Reporting issues with drains

    One resident raised an issue with drains across the area – they are often blocked and smell bad. Please report any drain issues to Bristol City Council’s street issue area of the website: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/report-a-street-issue.

    Finally, don’t forget the drop-in session later this week for the Stapleton Road communal bins trial (posts passim).

  • Communal bins to go in local pilot

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    Bristol Waste Company, the wholly-owned council company that’s responsible for cleaning the streets, emptying the bins and collecting residents’ recycling (amongst other things. Ed.) is holding a drop-in session next week in Easton as part of the consultation on the pilot project removing communal bins along the Stapleton Road corridor.

    The event will be held at Muller Hall, 39 Seymour Road, Bristol, BS5 0UW (map) on Thursday 29th September from 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

    flyer for event

    Bristol Waste would like as many local residents and other interested parties as possible to come and give their views and prospective attendees are asked to confirm they will be coming so sufficient tea, coffee and biscuits can be arranged.

    To confirm your attendance or for further details of the event please contact Jessica Tulit, Bristol Waste’s Community Engagement Officer, by emailing Jessica.Tulit [at] bristolwastecompany.co.uk or telephoning 0117 304 9022.

    Unfortunately, your correspondent’s attendance is doubtful due to a family bereavement, but he will be there in spirit.

    It’s good to see that Bristol Waste is prepared to tackled the problems that communal bins are causing locally after two and a half years of inaction from Bristol City Council, which introduced the 1,280-litre bins some years ago as a response to fly-tipping.

    Despite a communal bin consultation (posts passim) last year revealed that the majority of residents believed fly-tipping had not been improved by the introduction of these monster bins: and my own fly-tipping records support this perception; communal bins are implicated in 60-67% of all the fly-tipping I report to the council.

    However, despite this evidence, Bristol City Council has not had the courage to remove them, but merely tinkered with the details of their deployment.

    In meetings with Bristol Waste, it has been made quite clear to both councillors and local residents that the company is just as fed up as we are with the problems caused by the local communal bins, which don’t just act as a magnet for fly-tipping. Analysis of the contents of the bins has revealed that only one-third is the stuff for which they were intended: the rest is made up of equal parts of recyclable materials and trade waste.

    Those recyclable materials can still be recycled, but will attract a lower price due to the contamination to which they are subject in the communal bins.

    Traders are supposed to have their own waste disposal contracts appropriate to their businesses. However, lots tend to cut corners – and their costs – by abusing the black communal bins earmarked specifically for use by residents (posts passim).

  • Reuse Festival in Easton next month

    Steve WoodsBristol

    Provisional planning is underway for a reuse festival to be held in east Bristol on Saturday, 29th October.

    The festival will take place around the St Marks Road area of Easton. The organisers are hoping space can be made available either at St Mark’s Baptist Church, the mosque in St Mark’s Road and Mivart Street Studios.

    The provisional programme of activities is as follows:

    Further details will be posted here as and when received.

  • Free digital skills session at J3

    Steve WoodsBristol, Social Media, Tech

    Your ‘umble scribe has today received an email from Kurt James, Neighbourhood Partnership Co-ordinator at Bristol City Council, announcing an event next month in east Bristol.

    get online at J3 with the Neighbourhood Partnership and local volunteers

    Bristol Libraries is organising a free (as in beer. Ed. 😀 ) digital skills workshop next month in collaboration with the Ashton, Easton and Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Partnership and local volunteers to help local residents who haven’t already done so get online.

    The event will be held at Junction 3 Library, Baptist Mills Court, Easton, Bristol, BS5 0FJ (map).

    The date and time: Tuesday 11th October, 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.

    Attendees will learn how to:

    • Get online for the first time;
    • Shop and bank online;
    • Access government services online;
    • Use social media.

    Those interested can book a space at the workshop by contacting the library by telephoning 0117 9223001. Call that number too if you want more information on the workshop.

    Originally posted on Bristol Wireless.

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