Bristol’s wasted year as European Green Capital (posts passim) may be over, but the greenwash* continues, as shown by the advertising hoarding below by the side of the A4032 Easton Way, a dual carriageway blasted through this inner-city community in the late 1960s or early 1970s to speed motorists from one jam to another. To be more specific, the hoarding itself is conveniently situated next to the traffic lights by the Stapleton Road bus gate, where bored commuters can gawp at it waiting for the lights to change as they suffocate in their own traffic fumes and poison the rest of us.
As can be seen from the photo, at least one local hasn’t fallen for the greenwash and has said so, pinpointing the source as the trousers of Bristol’s elected mayor. đ
The mayor – and the local authority he runs – had an ideal opportunity during Green Capital Year to tackle some of Bristol’s endemic problems, such as the chronic over-reliance on the motor car, abysmal public transport and the unending stream of litter and fly-tipping blighting the inner city, but decided to do very little on these matters, preferring instead to spend money on pointless art projects and mutual back-slapping events for the great and good.
* Greenwash (n.), a superficial or insincere display of concern for the environment that is shown by an organisation.
My late mother Gladys grew up living next door to the village poacher – a gentleman now long departed called Tom Cook – in her childhood home of Blo’ Norton in Norfolk.
During my youth in Market Drayton, Shropshire, Derek Podmore – otherwise known as Poddy the Poacher – was another character one encountered who achieved a certain notoriety. At one stage this notoriety reached national level when he featured on the centre pages of the now defunct News of the World after breaking into the Duke of Bedford’s safari park at Woburn Abbey one night and shooting milord’s bison… for a bet.
I was therefore very pleased to learn that Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG) is organising a talk on poaching by Steve Mills at 7.00 p.m. on Thursday 28th January at Hydra Books in Old Market Street, Bristol, BS2 0EZ (map).
Entitled “Poaching in the South West: The Berkeley Case“, Steve’s talk will cover the contents of his recent BRHG pamphlet “Poaching in the South West“, which considers the poaching wars in rural areas in the 18th and 19th Centuries and the arms race conducted between the poaching gangs, landowners and gamekeepers. He will also look at the development of the “poaching” laws in the period and the famous Berkeley Case.
William Hemsley, The Young Poacher (1874). Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Now landing on Bristol Mayor George Ferguson‘s desk are postcards from residents of BS5 to bring him back down to earth with a thump after being honoured with a prestigious award by Lord Gnome of Private Eye (posts passim).
The cards remind George that BS5 residents are fed up with the fly-tipping they have to endure every day, a problem that was neither tackled nor mitigated by council action during the city’s wasted year as European Green Capital (posts passim).
If you have difficulty getting hold of a postcard, supplies are available from the Up Our Street office in the Beacon Centre in Russell Town Avenue (map).
Your correspondent took a dozen or so with him to the pub the other night and had no difficulty coming home minus his entire stock of postcards. There are evidently lots of fed up BS5ers out there, George, so you’d better exdigitate on getting to grips with fly-tipping in East Bristol and not just send any postcards you receive down to Streetscene Enforcement to clutter up their desks, as Tidy BS5’s spies down the Counts Louse inform us you are doing. đ
As part of Alternative Bristol’s Breaking the Frame series of talks, an email encryption talk for beginners will be taking place at Hydra Books in Old Market Street, Bristol (map) from 7.30-9.30 p.m. on Friday 22nd January.
How public key encryption works
According to the organisers, an ordinary e-mail is like a postcard without an envelope: anybody who can put their hands on it can read it. Unlike a postcard an email is copied (rather than moved) to many different computers on its travels. All of these computersâ owners we canât possibly trust and know. This makes them feel uncomfortable and is not necessary with simple email
encryption.
After this short (one hour!) workshop attendees will be able to email anyone else who makes it to the workshop without the email being intercepted by a third party.
Certain organisations (e.g. journalists, unions, activists, etc.) have a responsibility to transmit sensitive messages securely and currently do not always do this. Donât think what does this one email say about me? (or its recipient), think rather when examined en masse over time (most emails are stored indefinitely these days) what does this reveal about the way you live?
It would save time if prospective attendees had Thunderbird set up and receiving your emails. If you have Ubuntu or another Linux distribution, it would help if you installed both Thunderbird and GPG before attending the talk. If you already use email encryption and want to help or share your key please come by too. No experience necessary, but if you have a laptop and USB stick please bring them with you.
From your correspondent’s vantage point in the inner city, it has to be said that Bristol’s year as Europe’s beacon of best environmental practice has hardly been crowned with glory, with money wasted on pointless art projects, widespread wildlife habitat destruction and the continuing blight of fly-tipping.
Will George Ferguson be collecting his award in person from Lord Gnome? đ
This morning saw a typo as bold as brass courtesy of London’s Evening Standard.
The Standard’s tweet intimates the raid on Ms Ora’s home was carried out by a gang which recently raided the home of Simon Cowell, an event which caused orthographical problems for Bristol’s own Western Daily Press (posts passim).
Bristol boffins have developed a pair of socks embedded with miniaturised microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and fuelled with urine pumped by the wearer’s footsteps that have powered a wireless transmitter to send a signal to a PC. This is the first self-sufficient system powered by a wearable energy generator based on microbial fuel cell technology, the University of the West of England (UWE) reports.
Soft MFCs embedded within a pair of socks were supplied with fresh urine, which was then circulated by the human operator walking. Normally, continuous-flow MFCs would rely on a mains powered pump to circulate the urine over the microbial fuel cells, but this experiment relied solely on human activity. The manual pump was based on a simple fish circulatory system and the action of walking caused the urine to pass over the MFCs and generate energy. Soft tubes, placed under the heels, ensured frequent fluid pushâpull by walking. The wearable MFC system successfully ran a wireless transmission board, which was able to send a message every two minutes to the PC-controlled receiver module.
Professor Ieropoulos says, âHaving already powered a mobile phone with MFCs using urine as fuel, we wanted to see if we could replicate this success in wearable technology. We also wanted the system to be entirely self-sufficient, running only on human power â using urine as fuel and the action of the foot as the pump.â
âThis work opens up possibilities of using waste for powering portable and wearable electronics. For example, recent research shows it should be possible to develop a system based on wearable MFC technology to transmit a person’s coordinates in an emergency situation. At the same time this would indicate proof of life since the device will only work if the operator’s urine fuels the MFCs.â
MFCs use bacteria to generate electricity from waste fluids. They tap into the biochemical energy used for microbial growth and convert it directly into electricity. This technology can use any form of organic waste and turn it into useful energy without reliance on fossil fuels, making this a valuable green technology.
On Wednesday councillors on Bristol City Council’s Development Control Committee B voted overwhelmingly – by 8 votes to 2 with one abstention – to accept the planning officers’ recommendation to refuse an application filed by UK Power Reserve Ltd. for 14 gas-fired generators with 11 metre high flues for a site off Gatton Road.
The recommendation for refusal was soundly based on both national and local planning guidelines for reasons of noise and air pollution, plus visual amenity.
One of the 14 generators refused planning permission
The application attracted nearly 700 objections and over 50 personal statements by members of the public, including your correspondent, whose statement is reproduced below.
I have been a resident of the Easton area for nearly 4 decades.
I have read the case officer’s report on this application and am pleased to note he has recommended its rejection since it contravenes both local and national planning policies in many regards.
It should be pointed out that this speculative application â one of 3 for fossil fuel generating plants in Bristol’s less prosperous communities â is being driven by central government’s ideologically-driven mismanagement of electricity production in the UK.
I live downwind of the proposed facility and feel the air quality in my part of Easton is already bad enough with the traffic pollution from the M32 and Stapleton Road, plus diesel fumes from the nearby railway line.
By filing this application in the way it did, the applicant has shown contempt both for the local authority and local residents in St Werburghs and Easton.
Contempt to the local authority is demonstrated by the application’s filing during Bristol’s year as European Green Capital. Nothing further need be said on that point in respect of a generating plant powered by polluting fossil fuels.
As regards local residents, consultation has been minimal and I believe that the applicant is guilty of what is called âenvironmental racismâ. This is a concept from the United States defined as: âis placement of low-income or minority communities in proximity of environmentally hazardous or degraded environments, such as toxic waste, pollution and urban decayâ.
If this facility is so clean and aesthetically pleasing to the eye, why did the applicant not decide to site in, say, Stoke Bishop?
Any future applicant thinking of indulging in further environmental racism in Bristol’s inner city communities will be told very firmly what they can do with their applications and where they can stick their proposed facilities.
Three local councillors – Rob Telford and Gus Hoyt from Ashley ward – and Lawrence Hill’s Marg Hickman also spoke against UKPR’s plans.
There was only one speaker from the public gallery in support of the application; and that was from UKPR’s agent. He urged the committee to defer a decision to allow them to mitigate the air quality impact by fitting catalytic converters, reduce noise problems and reduce the height of the chimneys. However, the councillors on the committee gave this late concession short shrift.
Indeed, the only councillor on the committee to speak in favour of the application was Conservative Richard Eddy (described as a ‘dickhead’ by a fellow councillor. Ed.). He and fellow Tory Kevin Quartley voted in favour of the power plant, whilst Chris Windows, the third Tory on the committee, abstained.
Two further planning applications for similar plants powered by dirty diesel in Lockleaze and at Avonbank (posts passim) were withdrawn a few days before the meeting. Along with the St Werburgh’s application, they would have formed part of the STOR back-up energy programme subsidised by the Government.
Good news has been received regarding the planning applications two diesel generating stations (posts passim) just a few days before they were due to be considered by councillors on the relevant Development Control Committee.
A diesel generating plant somewhere in Africa
Plutus Energy has withdrawn both its planning applications for diesel generating facilities in both Lawrence Hill and Lockleaze wards.
All 3 applications that were due to be considered by councillors had been recommended for rejection by planning officers.
Your correspondent objected to the application at Feeder Road in Lawrence Hill ward as follows:
The fact that the applicant has filed this application during Bristol’s year as European Green Capital shows the applicant’s utter contempt for the city’s aspiration to be a showcase for good environmental practice.
The applicant’s proposals will result in a loss of amenity for neighbours in terms of visual amenity and more particularly as regards air quality.
Visual amenity: standby generating stations featuring diesel generators and associated flues/chimneys are not the most aesthetic of facilities.
Air quality: the site is on Feeder Road and is crossed by St Philip’s Causeway. Both of these roads are already high levels of traffic with the associated repercussions for local air quality. Local air quality will be further impaired by the addition of diesel generators, not only in terms of carbon dioxide/monoxide and NOx, but also particulates. Diesel combustion exhaust is a source of atmospheric soot and fine particles, which is a component of the air pollution implicated in human cancer, heart and lung damage and mental functioning.
Lack of environmental impact assessment: although the site is below the threshold for conducting this assessment, such an assessment should be requested due to the nature of the facility proposed by the applicant.
Unsatisfactory noise impact assessment: the applicant has not carried out a proper noise impact assessment for the site. Edward Road was chosen for the noise impact. This ignores the fact that noise from the facility will have a significant effect on St Philip’s Marsh School, which is far nearer to the site than Edward Road. As the applicant has shown poor faith in this regard, the application should be rejected.
Impact on St Philip’s Marsh School: this proposal will have a negative impact on the amenity of this establishment in terms of noise, air quality and visual amenity, not to mention the possible effect of the poorer air quality on any pupils with respiratory problems such as asthma. For this reason too, the application should be rejected.
Safety concerns re 2 diesel storage tanks with a capacity of 22,000 litres: this represents a hazard to neighbours, both industrial and residential.
Finally, I believe the only reason this application has been filed by the applicant is that because it is in a poor, deprived council ward, the applicant thinks it can get approval for its noisy, polluting facility is that fewer people are likely to object. If this is so, I think the applicant’s reasoning is seriously flawed.
For all the reasons cited above, the application should be rejected.
Application No. 15/02310/F
Site address: Avonbank, Feeder Road, Bristol BS2 0TH
Proposal: Proposed installation of diesel powered generators and associated infrastructure for the provision of a Flexible Generation Facility to provide energy balancing services via the capacity market for the National Grid.
Further to the recent letter advising you that the above application was due to be considered by Development Control B committee, on the 9 December 2015 I now write to advise that the application has been withdrawn and will no longer be considered by the committee.
Should a new application be received, you will have the opportunity to comment on that application.
Development Management
Bristol City Council
Talking to Bristol 24/7, Lawrence Hill councillor Marg Hickman said: “We have won. It is just quite remarkable and wonderful. The local community has come together on this and we have won because we have got such a good campaign together.”
This still leaves an application for a similar gas-powered plant in St Werburgh’s, which has gained 684 objections, on the table.
There was a great clanger in a tweet this morning from Bristol’s Western Daily Press, the sister publication of the Bristol Post (and joint occupier with it of Bristol’s Temple Way Ministry of Truth. Ed.) and likewise subject to many of the latter’s failings with the English language.
Here’s an image of the tweet in question.
The morals of this tale are clear: if you run a tawdry TV talent show orthography is as dangerous as shut-eye if housebreakers are around; if you run the social media account of a mediocre regional paper, learn to proof-read before posting online*! đ
* The spelling error in the tweet originally appeared in the article itself, but has since been corrected.
