Spotted on the pavement opposite House of Fraser, Cabot Circus, Bristol – one red bra.
Whose could it be?
There’s one person in Bristol who is well known for wearing red – the city’s elected Mayor, George Ferguson.
It is suspected that George has shed his clothing in public before, notably in Easton (posts passim).
Could the Mayor’s secret penchant for transvestism or covert gender reassignment finally have been revealed? If so, when will George tell the citizens of Bristol?
That’s a matter for George’s conscience and our speculation.
However, turning to serious matters, shedding clothing on the highway is technically littering. Bristolians can report litter, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and the like online via the links on the city council’s street care and cleaning page.
There’s now a petition online calling on Bristol City Council to increase its efforts to get a grip on litter and fly-tipping in its Easton and Lawrence Hill wards (posts passim) and make scenes like the one below of Jane Street in Redfield a thing of the past.
Image courtesy of Amy Harrison
The text of the petition reads as follows:
We, the undersigned, petition Bristol City Council to enforce penalties for fly-tipping and dropping litter and find lasting solutions to these two problems. Easton and Lawrence Hill wards have for many decades suffered from both litter and fly-tipping. Where communal household waste bins have been installed, residents have found that they are used by people from outside the area for disposing of their waste, as well as local traders abusing them to dispose of trade waste. The fly-tipping sometimes involves hazardous materials. Litter and fly-tipping also encourage the presence of vermin such as rats. In some places the communal bins are also used as a cover for unhygienic actions such as defecating and urinating in the street, making them unsafe for children to play in.
As part of the campaign to tidy up the Easton and Lawrence Hill areas of Bristol, we residents are attempting to ensure that we can use all the council services for which we pay through our taxes.
These include such things as recycling collections on Stapleton Road and the provision of adequate recycling facilities in the inner city’s council-owned tower blocks (posts passim).
Bristol City Council’s St Philips Recycling Centre (aka Day’s Road tip). Looks welcoming, doesn’t it?
Another bone of contention was the fact that Bristol City Council’s Day’s Road ‘recycling centre’ (better known to locals as ‘the tip’. Ed.) appeared to be off limits to callers on foot. The Kier/May Gurney staff that run the facility for the council had even gone so far as to place a sign at the entrance stating no callers on foot. Furthermore, I’d heard anecdotally that the reason for this prohibition was down to that favourite old ‘excuse’ – health and safety.
It’s only February and Bristol’s year as European Green Capital is already deeply mired in controversy and hypocrisy.
While the city’s great and good gush praise for an art installation shrouding Pero’s Bridge in fog, ostensibly to draw attention to climate change (how wreathing a bridge heavily used by pedestrians and cyclists does that, I fail to see. Ed.), habitat destruction is happening in parts of the city well removed from rarefied confines in which city elite’s generally move.
Firstly, there’s the destruction of mature trees in Stapleton that’ll be taking place as part of the Metrobus project – a £100 mn. white elephant of a scheme that’ll knock a mere three and a half minutes off the journey time across the city (according to p.85 of Appendix 6 of the Metrobus Planning Statement. Ed.). The trees will be felled as soon as the protesters currently occupying them are finally evicted by the council’s bailiffs.
Allied to the Metrobus project, there’s the South Bristol Link Road project. This will result in a loss of environmental amenity for many south Bristol residents in its path. It was announced today that work on this £44 mn. act of environmental vandalism will start at Easter. Presumably more trees will be felled in the process.
Finally, work has started in the Easton area of the city alongside Easton Way to put in a new cycle facility alongside the dual carriageway. Below is a photograph of the progress of these works to date.
At this point an explanation of what can – and cannot – be seen is advisable.
The works are to provide a new cycle route alongside the dual carriageway.
The digger is sitting atop the remains of a berm originally built to provide a noise barrier to the maisonettes alongside the dual carriageway.
Over the years the berm had become covered with mature London plane trees and scrub, providing some much-needed inner city greenery and a valuable habitat for urban wildlife.
Both the trees and the berm are being removed to provide the above-mentioned cycle facility.
Being a local, I’m surprised the council has not simply adapted the footpath running alongside the foot of the now vanished berm to shared use.
That would have been the simplest and least destructive option.
I can imagine the dialogue down at the Counts Louse City Hall: “What do a few trees and a bit of scrub matter in the inner city? Nobody will notice!” “After all, it is for a cycle facility, so that makes everything all right!”
As this year’s European Green Capital, doesn’t Bristol City Council’s putting the environment at the bottom of its list of priorities positively reek of greenwash?
The video below features very first performance of ‘Mama’, which was composed by the youth campaigners of Integrate Bristol, a local charity formed to help with the integration of young people and children who have arrived from other countries and cultures.
Integrate Bristol is also active combating violence against women and girls; this includes the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM).
‘Mama’ was written in honour of Efua Dorkenoo, also known as Efua Mama, the ‘mother’ of the movement to end FGM.
Yesterday, 5th February, was National Voter Registration Day.
Many political parties, civil society organisations and others were yesterday encouraging the disenfranchised to register to vote for the forthcoming local council and general elections on 7th May.
One of those parties campaigning was UKIP, which doubtless was ignorant of the hypocrisy of its message in the tweet shown in the following screenshot.
That’s right! A party actively opposing immigration to the UK is actively encouraging UK citizens who’ve become immigrants in other countries to register to vote in elections in the old mother country.
Capita Translating & Interpreting has been ordered to pay costs of £16,000 by judge Sir James Munby, president of the family division, over its failure to provide interpreters seven times in the course of a single adoption case, The Guardian reports.
The case in question was initiated in the family court in 2012. On six occasions at Dover Family Proceedings Court and Canterbury County Court, Capita T&I’s interpreters failed to appear or arrived too late, forcing the abandonment of hearings at which the Slovak-speaking parents were contesting the removal of their children. When the case was transferred to the High Court in London in May 2014 to be heard by Sir James, Capita T&I’s interpreters once again failed to appear. He was forced to adjourn the proceedings and ordered that HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) should provide interpreters instead.
There have been serial failures by Capita in this case against a background of wider systemic problems… [These were] not minor but extensive, and, at two different stages of the litigation, they had a profound effect on the conduct of the proceedings.
Sir James ordered Capita to pay Kent County Council £15,927.36.
TidyBS5 campaigners met the Mayor at the junction of Stapleton Road and Milsom Street – a notorious fly-tipping hotspot – to express their concerns about litter and fly-tipping locally, as reported by Bristol 24/7 (bit different from North Street, isn’t it, George? Ed.).
The Bristol Post also reported on George’s visit to Stapleton Road, managing in its own inimitable, cock-eyed way to describe TidyBS as a “street-cleaning community group“.
Although your ‘umble scribe was unable to attend due to other commitments, feedback has been positive. Witnesses report that George seemed genuinely shocked by the stinky bin by which he was confronted/ambushed. In addition, he gave a commitment to bring one of the Make Sunday Special events to Stapleton Road.
On Tuesday this week, local councillors Marg Hickman and Afzal Shah, together with local residents and Lorena from Up Our Street took Bristol’s Assistant Mayor for Neighbourhoods Daniella Radice on a walk around the Stapleton Road area to acquaint her with our local litter and fly-tipping difficulties.
One thing that shocked Daniella was the way the council’s contractors May Gurney dump the plastic liner bags from litter bins on the pavement for later collection (sometimes the next day. Ed.), which also contributes to making the BS5 area look grotty; this was a practice Daniella undertook to investigate and/or change. We also drew her attention to concerns in reporting street cleansing problems via Twitter, the council’s online reporting system and by telephone (0117 922 2100 if you’d care to give it a go. Ed.).
Daniella was also alerted to the totally inadequate – if any – recycling facilities provided for residents of the city’s tower blocks. For instance, Twinnell House in Easton houses hundreds of people. Their recycling “facilities” are illustrated below.
That’s right, a mere 6 wheelie bins!
Marg Hickman also pointed out that millions of pounds are and have been spent in refurbishing the city’s council-owned high-rise blocks. However, the refurbishment plans include no provision for recycling facilities. This is incredible for a city that allegedly prides itself on its green credentials and is the current European Green Capital!
Another item raised with Daniella was the lack of recycling collections for residents living on the lower part of Stapleton Road above the shops. They’re being charged for recycling collections in their council tax, but these collections are not provided. If I lived on Stapleton Road, I’d report Bristol City Council to the police for fraud and/or obtaining pecuniary advantage! 🙂
On Wednesday evening this week Up Our Street hosted a TidyBS5 task force meeting, which attracted about a dozen local residents from across the BS5 area, as well as councillor Marg Hickman and representatives from the local ACORN branch. Various priorities from the Residents’ Rubbish Summit (posts passim), planned forthcoming activities (e.g. consultations, litter picks, etc.) and discovered what skills attendees could provide to benefit TidyBS5.
Afterwards, we had the compulsory campaign photo taken.
The latest French anti-radicalisation publicity in the wake of France’s recent mass murders (posts passim) at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Parisian kosher supermarket has now been released.
Yesterday, the Law Gazette website reported that 3 years into its courts and tribunals interpreting contract with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Capita Translation & Interpreting has yet to meet its key performance target – that of the percentage of requests filled for the provision of court interpreters.
According to the latest figures released by the MoJ, Capita Translation & Interpreting completed 94.8% of requests for language services in the 3rd quarter (July to September) of 2014, i.e. well short of the 98% target specified in its contract.
The Ministry of Justice said this was the hapless outsourcer’s highest success rate since the contract started in 2012.
Capita Translation & Interpreting is supposed to hit that 98% target every month and has yet to meet it at all in one single month over the last 3 years.
There’s a phrase for this: abject failure.
However, the MoJ seems to have a particular blind spot for its pet contractor’s pathetic performance. Courts minister Shailesh Vara said the interpreting contract had continued to deliver significant improvements since being introduced to tackle inefficiencies and inconsistencies (my weasel words detector is working overtime. Ed.).
Others involved in the administration of justice differ radically from the MoJ stance.
The Law Society said it was “shocking” that after nearly 3 years of the MoJ having a sole provider, the service was still failing to reach its performance target.
“A lack of available interpreters costs time and causes unnecessary adjournments, resulting in avoidable distress to victims and inconvenience to witnesses,” the Society said.
Furthermore, Shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter said it was shocking the government was unable to get a grip after three years into the contract.
I cannot disagree with either the Law Society or Mr. Slaughter. Had my failure to meet targets been of the order of that of Capita Translation & Interpreting, I would not have survived the last quarter of a century as a freelance linguist and been consigned to the dole queue long since.
You should seriously think of showing Capita T&I the door, MoJ. If they haven’t been up to the job for the last 3 years, what makes you think they’ll ever change?
Capita Translating & Interpreting has been ordered to pay costs of £16,000 by judge 
