Bristol | Steve Woods

Ashton Gate station petition

14/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

One transport project which is moving closer to realisation in the Bristol area – and is popular with locals too – is the reopening to passenger traffic of the railway line to Portishead (which is currently only used by freight trains to and from Portbury Dock. Ed.).

The project will entail building a new station at Portishead and reopening Pill station.

However, there’s also a petition to rally support for the building of a new station at Ashton Gate to replace the now-vanished original Ashton Gate station.

The site of the original Ashton Gate station. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The petition reads as follows.

We are local residents and organisations (big and small) in BS3 campaigning for a new railway station in Ashton Gate on the Portishead branch line.

We want a new station opening in 2019 with two trains an hour in both directions – towards Portishead and Temple Meads.

In 2019 the Portishead rail line will be upgraded for new passenger services linking Bristol, Bath, Avonmouth and Portishead. New stations are being built at Pill and Portishead. Four trains an hour will pass through Ashton Gate.

A station linked into the local bus network would encourage visits to the area and promote the local economy. We believe trains must stop at Ashton Gate to allow residents, workers and visitors to come and go easily and comfortably whilst decreasing the strain on the heavily-used local road network.

A new station would bring substantial, long-term benefits to South West Bristol. Local people are increasingly turning to public transport and more rail services help to promote the city as a European Green Capital.

Sign the petition.
There, their, they’re Bristol Post

12/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

The minions of the Bristol Post, possibly under strain from toiling away at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth looking for the city’s blandest news content, seem to have particular difficulty with homophones, i.e. words that are pronounced the same as another word but differ in meaning and may differ in spelling.

This was amply illustrated below by a photo gallery posted this morning on the local organ’s website.

Should the Post’s ‘journalists’ wish to cure themselves of acute homophonia, help is at hand up at Bristol University.

Its website has a handy grammar tutorial page for the illiterati on the simple differences between there, their and they’re.

To quote from that page

There is the place, i.e. not here.

Their is the possessive form indicating belonging to them.

They’re is the contracted form of “they are”.

Have you got that, Bristol Post, if so Bristol University’s site also has a useful exercise to check whether the lesson has sunk in.
The birds are nesting; time to fell more trees

08/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

The weather is warming up, summer migrant birds are returning to the UK to breed in the trees, shrubs and other traditional nesting sites; and as regular as clockwork, Bristol City Council sends workmen out to destroy those same traditional nesting sites, as witnessed this morning at the junction of Lawrence Hill and Croydon Street.

During the few minutes it took me to buy a tin of coffee up the road, the two trunks seen standing in the photo had been felled, joining a previously felled companion. All three felled were – as far as I could see – healthy specimens.

As regards protecting breeding birds and mitigating harm during the breeding season, Natural England’s advice (PDF, p. 4) is as follows:

The main mitigation route to reduce the likelihood of harm to breeding birds is to undertake clearance or destruction of any vegetation or structure which may be used as a breeding site outside the bird breeding season when breeding birds are unlikely to be present (based upon habitat features) or where survey work has confirmed their absence. Avoidance of such features is best achieved through timing of work (see below) but may also be possible by temporarily preventing birds from using these features, before they start doing so. Examples include physical exclusion (preventing access to potential nest sites) or use of visual or audible deterrents. Such measures should only be undertaken following the advice of a suitably experienced ecologist, taking account of relevant legislation and welfare considerations.

The bird breeding season will be dependent upon weather conditions and will vary from year to year, but in general is the period between early March and late August.

Natural England acts as an adviser to central government on the natural environment, providing practical science-based advice on how best to safeguard England’s natural wealth for the benefit of all.

By carrying out such works at this time of year, Bristol City Council is not only disregarding the advice given by Natural England, but also its own advice which it gives to community groups (PDF) carrying out conservation works involving trees. Page 2 of this document clearly states in relation to coppicing that this should be carried out between October and February. In the exact words of the guidance (page 2), this

Should be done during the dormant season and outside the bird nesting season.

In another city council document (PDF) entitled Tree Management Standards, page 4 clearly states:

Nesting birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (and other related wildlife law).

All this is happening in the year when Bristol is allegedly European Green Capital. However, the city council seems more interested in press stunts than in sound environmental practice that protects the environment and wildlife.

Readers with long-term memories may remember that scrub clearance took place last year nearby at Lawrence Hill roundabout (posts passim).
Has Mammon discovered irony?

06/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

Spotted this morning in the bowels of Bristol’s tawdry temple to consumerism, Cabot Circus.

In the words – and with the intonation – of the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Bill Deedes: “Shome mishtake shurely?”

No further comment is necessary.
Plastic peregrine

05/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

Peregrine falcon
Yesterday it was a joy to discover that the peregrine falcons which nested on the old generator house by St Philip’s Bridge were nesting there again (posts passim). Talking to a gentleman on the bridge who’d been watching them through binoculars, it would appear our urban peregrines are also adapting to our urban environment and are also learning to hunt after sunset using the city’s streetlighting.

A couple of weeks ago, my attention was caught by peregrine calls when walking down Redcliff Street. They weren’t emanating from a falcon at all, but it’s taken your correspondent until now to track down their source. Looking up at the roof of the old, soon to be redeveloped Patterson’s building, I saw the sight below.

Note the electric wire and turntable. It’s a plastic peregrine which looks very realistic to the local gull population. It rotates on its turntable, flaps its wings and also calls like a real falcon from time to time. It won’t fool me again.

Update 09/04/15: Today I discovered the Redcliff Street plastic peregrine has a brother not far away in the city. He’s called Brian, lives on the roof of At-Bristol and has a Twitter account.
Good Friday in Bristol 5

03/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

When venturing out onto Stapleton Road earlier today, an unusual sight met my eyes – an open-air church service for Good Friday, the Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary.

Seeing the service in progress prompted me to look at the etymology of Good Friday. From whence does it originate.

According to Wikipedia, the etymology of the term “good” in the context of Good Friday is disputed, with some sources claiming it is from the senses pious, holy of the word “good“, whilst others contend that it is a corruption of “God Friday“. The Oxford English Dictionary supports the first etymology, giving “of a day or season observed as holy by the church” as an archaic sense of good and providing examples of good tide meaning “Christmas” or “Shrove Tuesday” and Good Wednesday meaning the Wednesday in Holy Week.

In German-speaking countries Good Friday is generally referred as Karfreitag (Kar from Old High German kara ‘bewail‘, ‘grieve‘, ‘mourn‘; Freitag for ‘Friday‘): Mourning Friday. The Kar prefix is an ancestor of the English word care in the sense of cares and woes; and thus mourning. The day is also known as Stiller Freitag (Silent Friday) and Hoher Freitag (High Friday, Holy Friday) in German-speaking countries.
Election special

02/04/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics

Yesterday I received my poll card from Bristol City Council cunningly inviting me to put a cross on pieces of paper in the forthcoming general election and council election both being held on Thursday, 7th May.

Spot the proofreading howler on the back of the poll card!
Big turnout for the Big Clean

30/03/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Politics
Saturday 28th March dawned grey and drizzly for the TidyBS5 Big Clean organised by Up Our Street and local residents.

For your correspondent it dawned even earlier; the alarm clock was set for 6.00 a.m. to ensure he was sufficiently awake to be interviewed down the line about TidyBS5 and the event on BBC Radio Bristol by their Saturday breakfast show presenter Ali Vowles.

However, the rain did not put off an amazing 33 people – including one PCSO from Trinity Road Police Station – turning up at Lawrence Hill roundabout at 11.00 a.m. to help remove litter from the area for a couple of hours. Indeed, such a number of participants was so unprecedented that more litter pick equipment had to be ferried down from the Up Our Street Office.

Photo courtesy of Lorena Alvarez

Also amongst the hardy souls who turned up was a contingent from the Good Gym, which takes exercise out of the gym. Members runs to a venue, help a local community project and then run back. Your ‘umble scribe is very pleased we attracted their support.

Photo courtesy of Lorena Alvarez

Local councillor Marg Hickman also attended to show her support. Wouldn’t it be good if we could get Bristol Mayor George Ferguson to turn out for the next one and put some physical effort into Bristol’s year as European Green Capital? 😉

After receiving safety instructions (avoid picking up broken glass, no needles, etc. Ed.) we then scattered to various sites around the area to get work.

Photo courtesy of Anthea Sweeney

Areas cleaned included:
- The grassed island in then centre of Lawrence Hill roundabout;
- The grassed area fronting Lawrence Hill at the end of Payne Drive;
- Public open space along Croydon Street;
- The old course of the River Frome beneath the railway adjacent to the Coach House off Stapleton Road; and
- The area of grass and shrubbery alongside the former Earl Russell pub (the ‘Big Russell’. Ed.) and Lidl on Lawrence Hill.
A fantastic amount of rubbish was removed and collected later in the weekend by Bristol City Council.

Photo courtesy of Lorena Alvarez

Well done and many thanks to all who took part.
Godwin 0, Vandals 1

27/03/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Early this morning the demolition crews finally starting their assault on the 1860s school in Marybush Lane, Bristol (posts passim).

Within a couple of hours the demolition contractors had all but flattened the Pennant sandstone and Bath stone structure built by eminent Victorian architect and Aesthetic Movement member, E.W. Godwin, as shown in the photos below.

More of East Bristol’s heritage turned to dust

One less of Godwin’s works now survives for people to appreciate. In Bristol his only remaining works are – to the best of my knowledge – the grade II*-listed Carriageworks on Stokes Croft dating from 1862 and his refurbishment of St. Philip & St. Jacob Church, which lies just across Tower Hill from Marybush Lane and was contemporaneous with the building of the school.

The efforts of The Victorian Society and local campaigners to save the school from demolition by the vandals from the site’s owners, the Homes & Communities Agency, have therefore been in vain. When objections were first raised to its demolition, the HCA displayed both ignorance and arrogance. Firstly, it denied that the school had been designed by Godwin. When presented with incontrovertible evidence by opponents, it then had the arrogance to deny its initial ignorance.

I shall shed a tear into my beer tonight for this loss of yet another part of East Bristol’s history and heritage. The east side of Bristol, traditionally its poorer side, has long been treated with contempt and disregarded by both the city’s great and good and outsiders; and this latest vandalism just confirms that.

During the 1930s the city’s unemployed, in the form of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM) used to hold their meetings at the school.

If a future walk by Bristol Radical History Group is ever done on the unemployed, a halt in Marybush Lane – no doubt in front of some cheap and nasty residential development, will be prefaced by the words, “On this site used to stand…”, a growing phenomenon in a city where only the heritage of the great and good seems to be valued.

So in conclusion well done Mayor George Ferguson and Bristol City Council for failing to lift a finger to save Godwin’s school and well done HCA for an act of heritage vandalism committed without compunction.
Trade insults BS5

26/03/2015 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Bristol City Council’s streetscene enforcement officers (the local authority’s litter and fly-tipping police. Ed.) are currently active in the Stapleton Road area of Bristol 5.

One of the major problems with which they’ve been getting to grips is that of traders fly-tipping in the streets and dumping their waste in the communal bins intended for household waste only.

Trade waste – in this case lots of flattened cardboard packaging – fly-tipped by a communal bin in Pennywell Road, Easton

Tidy BS5 campaigners are actively assisting the enforcement officers in the efforts by identifying suspected offenders and directing officers to regular sites for the fly-tipping of trade waste.

Traders are supposed to pay for their own waste disposal. By abusing the facilities provided for residents, they may be saving themselves money on their waste contracts, but are also insulting the community whose members constitute their customers; and that has to stop.

So far, the council has handed out 5 fixed penalty notices of £300 each to local traders for waste matters and more are clearly needed before their work is done, if it ever will be.

In the meantime, if you’ve got time free on Saturday, don’t forget to turn out for the Tidy BS5 Big Clean community litter pick, meeting at 11 a.m. at Lawrence Hill roundabout. Yours truly will be rising slightly earlier as BBC Radio Bristol wishes to interview me on its breakfast show.

Last but not least, yet another reminder about signing the TidyBS5 e-petition!

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