1 | July | 2015 | Steve Woods

On the buses: greenwash

01/07/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

Perhaps the most visible aspect of Bristol’s year as European Green Capital is the year’s sponsorship by local transport monopolists FirstGroup.

As a result, there have been some strange coloured – one might almost say greenwashed – buses thundering through this proud and ancient city, as captured below.

However, FirstBus has also been able to buy a ‘greenwash-lite‘ version for its sponsorship that consists of the Bristol Green Capital logo slapped on top of its usual ‘Barbie‘ livery.
The flanks of the Barabie double-deckers now have the Bristol Green Capital logo splashed across their sides, whilst the single-deckers have a smaller version the logo above the driver’s cab.

Barbie meets greenwash

Whilst public transport is a greener option than using a private motor car, emissions from the diesel fuel on which buses run.

According to Wikipedia:

It is reported that emissions from diesel vehicles are significantly more harmful than those from petrol ones.Diesel exhaust contains toxic air contaminants and is listed as carcinogen for humans by the IARC (part of the World Health Organization of the United Nations) in group 1. Diesel exhaust contains fine particles which are harmful. Diesel exhaust pollution was thought to account for around one quarter of the pollution in the air in previous decades, and a high share of sickness caused by automotive pollution.

Any resemblance between the full greenwash livery and the British Racing Green livery of the old Bristol Omnibus Company is purely coincidental.

Whatever would Blakey say? 😉

Bristol has a fly-tipping crisis, not a PR crisis

01/07/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

Do you know how many press and PR officers are employed by Bristol City Council?

Go on, have a guess!

If you didn’t know, the latest available figure is 43, according to this Press Gazette article from April 2015 on its the Freedom of Information Act request which asked 435 city, borough and district councils across the UK how many people they employ in their communications departments.

Bristol City Council actually has the equal third largest press and PR staff of all local authorities in the UK, a position it shares with Sheffield City Council:

Manchester City Council: 77
Leeds City Council: 47
Bristol City Council: 43
Sheffield City Council: 43
Glasgow City Council: 41

Remember that figure of 43. Now try and guess how many ‘streetscene‘ (litter & fly-tipping) enforcement officers Bristol City Council employs. The people that deal with prosecuting the abuse of communal bins by traders (posts passim) and the like.

Fly-tipped trade and other waste in Pennywell Road, Easton, earlier this week

The answer is 6. That’s equivalent to one council enforcement officer for over 71,600 residents.

The answer was revealed in a FoI request I submitted back in November 2014, as per the transcript below.

Kindly disclose the number of streetscene enforcement officers employed by Bristol City Council during all financial years since April 2010 to the present day.

There were seven streetscene enforcement officer [sic] employed between April 2010 and March 2014. From April 2014 until present day there are six.

That’s right! Six enforcement officers for the whole of Bristol. However, there’s enough grot and bad waste management behaviour just in Easton and Lawrence Hill wards alone to keep all 6 of those officers permanently occupied.

Returning to the number of officers per head of population outlined above, Bristol City Council has one press/PR wonk per 1,000 inhabitants.

Anyone would think the local authority was suffering a public relations crisis.