Monthly Archives: September 2015

  • Response to fly-posting FoI request

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    One of the many irritants and banes of urban life which can be reported online to Bristol City Council is fly-posting (unauthorised advertising).

    fly-posting in St Judes area of Bristol
    Fly-posting in St Judes, Bristol reported to council earlier this year

    Your correspondent recently submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to Bristol City Council via the excellent WhatDoTheyKnow on fly-posting enforcement in Bristol as a whole and the 2 inner city wards of Lawrence Hill and Easton in particular.

    The text of the FoI request reads:

    Dear Bristol City Council,

    This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Kindly disclose the number of:

    a) fixed penalty notices issued
    b) prosecutions brought

    in the last 5 years for fly-posting

    1. within the entire local authority area
    2. within Easton & Lawrence Hill wards

    Yours etc.

    The council has now replied. The salient part of the response – minus the copyright notice and procedure for those dissatisfied with the reply – reads as follows:

    You sent us a Freedom of Information request on 12/08/2015

    Your request number is CRN00017905

    Our reply to your request is:

    FPNs – 68 with 2x in Easton/Lawrence Hill wards

    Pros – 6x with 3x in in Easton/Lawrence Hill wards

    This response should answer your request in full.

    Considering that Bristol is a city of 430,000 people, these figures do seem rather small, but then again so is the city council’s enforcement team (posts passim) which deals not just with fly-tipping, litter dog fouling and the like, but also fly-posting.

    Perhaps consideration should also be given to redeploying the council’s excessive numbers of press and PR staff.

  • Bing Translator shows its cluelessness again

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Tech

    This blog recently drew attention (posts passim) to the fact that Microsoft’s Bing Translator tool had difficulty distinguishing English from Norwegian.

    It now seems this is not the only two languages with which it has trouble since it also cannot differentiate between Dutch and English, as per the following screenshot of a tweet from Hallen FC from my Twitter feed this afternoon.

    screenshot showing Bing Translator confusing English and Dutch

    I wonder if the rest of the Beast of Redmond’s software offerings are as reliable as Bing Translator. 😉

  • Greenwash Capital news: streets of Bristol to get filthier

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics, Social Media

    In a move that will put yet another black mark against they city’s undeserved year as European Green Capital, the streets of Bristol are set to get even filthier than they are already.

    Today’s Bristol Post reports that the number of street cleaners in Bristol has been cut by nearly a fifth since Bristol City Council took waste management and street cleansing back in-house last month from contractors Kier Group, those well-known supporters of former worker blacklisting outfit The Consulting Association.

    Fly-tipping on Pennywell Road, Easton
    Fly-tipping on Pennywell Road, Easton

    According to the Post, the council-run Bristol Waste Company (BWC) has notified “30 to 40” agency workers at the Hartcliffe depot that they would no longer be required as of yesterday (Monday). This will cut their numbers by about one-fifth. These workers deal with street cleaning and collecting fly-tipping.

    In addition, the Hartcliffe staff claim they have not been consulted on the cuts and accused the council of trying to save money at the expense of cleanliness (Bristol City Council has a long and proud tradition of avoiding and/or messing up consultation. Ed.).

    Furthermore, the Hartcliffe depot staff also claim they been provided with inadequate equipment to do the job. One anonymous worker is quoted by the Post as saying:

    Some of the guys haven’t been given clean gloves or protective gear, and many are still working with Kier equipment. The protective clothing is not adequate, and we have to deal with needles and dog poo and stuff.

    If there are insufficient staff available at BWC for the job in hand, perhaps Bristol City Council could reassign staff from elsewhere: ideal candidates for redployment and kitting out with a fluorescent uniform, safety gloves, boots and a broom would be those working in the local authority’s overstaffed press and PR department.

    In other Greenwash Capital news, it would appear that Bristol Mayor George Ferguson couldn’t really care less about the city’s cleanliness according to the tweet below from Kerry McCarthy MP.

    tweet from Kerry McCarthy stating when I last met George he was particularly unimpressed that people tweet him pics of rubbish

    Synonyms for unimpressed include apathetic, disinterested, unconcerned, undisturbed, untroubled and unmoved.

    If Kerry’s report of her meeting with the Mayor is accurate, that is a most disturbing development in the person whose supposed job is to take care the best interests of the city and its welfare.

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