tidybs5 | Steve Woods

Illiteracy or obstinacy?

12/01/2026 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

The Tenovus charity shop on St Mark’s Road is currently closed for refurbishment.

However, this does not seem to have been noticed by the local members of the Hard of Thinking Club, who are continuing to dump their donations outside the shop’s door.

The operators/owners of the shop have recently decided to post a notice on the shop’s door shutter informing those generous but misguided patrons of the error of their ways.

Let’s ignore the writing on the wall.

Just like other notices in Bristol, e.g. the ones that say no parking, Tenovus’ sign has been ignored.

Is ignoring the notice due to illiteracy or plain, simple bloody-mindedness? Have your say in the comments.

Meanwhile, if you see fly-tipping, any other environmental crime or something that needs fixing, you can report it to Bristol City Council here, otherwise central government’s GOV.UK site has a handy page to find your local authority in England, Scotland and Wales and notify it of such problems.
A chilly morning in Barton Hill

04/01/2026 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

Yesterday the regular Barton Hill community litter pick took place on its usual day – the first Saturday of the month.

It was a cold but fine morning with a ferocious wind chill factor, so wrapping up warm was essential.

In addition, we had our best turn-out for a while with six hardy volunteers showing up outside the Wellspring Settlement.

Some of the litter pickers and their haul.

Overall, we picked for an hour and a quarter, with the areas covered including Ducie Road, Morley Street, Cobden Street, the Urban Park, Strawbridge Road and Tichbourne Road.

A good haul of both recyclable materials and landfill were removed, 4 and 5 bags respectively, in addition to which we collected a few bulky items – suitcase, printer/scanner and broken furniture – for removal by Bristol Waste.

Whilst working around the area, we also identified other matters that needed further attention (e.g. scruffy public open space) by either the council or Bristol Waste (e.g. properties that needed help with waste management and/or recycling).

After finishing most of us returned to the Settlement to tea and biscuits, with 2 cuppas proving to be the minimum dose for unfreezing fingers.

February’s pick will be on Saturday 7th February. Note it in your diaries!

In the meantime, if you see fly-tipping, any other environmental crime or something that needs fixing, you can report it to Bristol City Council here, otherwise central government’s GOV.UK site has a handy page to find your local authority in England, Scotland and Wales and notify it of such problems.
Festive fly-tipping attracts street art

30/12/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Bristol has what could be described as a bit of form when it comes to street art, with the city being the original canvas of the artist known as Banksy.

Indeed Bristol 247 today has a piece by John Nation, described as the city’s godfather of graffiti outlining why the city continues to be defined by the art form.

Another form of art for which the city is less recognised is fly-tipping. A couple of days ago, Bristol Live highlighted that almost 200 fly-tipping incidents are reported to the city council every day. Last year the council recorded 10,268 fly-tipping incidents, an increase from 8,556 or over 20% during the previous year.

The back streets of BS5 have once again provided ample evidence of the combination of street art and fly-tipping over the festive period, with festive fly-tipping attracting the spray can school of art. Look at what your ‘umble scribe found up St Mark’s Grove this morning.

This is not the first time that fly-tipped materials have attracted the spray can crew in that particular street (posts passim).

In the meantime, if you see fly-tipping, any other environmental crime or something that needs fixing, you can report it to Bristol City Council here, otherwise central government’s GOV.UK site has a handy page to find your local authority in England, Scotland and Wales and report fly-tipping.
A tidier Barton Hill

06/04/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

The monthly Barton Hill community litter pick took place yesterday. Eric, Alex and your ‘umble scribe spent just over an hour methodically removing litter from around Ducie, Strawbridge and Avonvale Roads, along with sections of the Urban Park.

After picking we all retired to the Wellspring Settlement for a brew and biscuits, as well as to discuss what we were going to do about the group’s award of the Lord Mayor’s Medal. According to the council, the medal “recognises outstanding and innovative unpaid service and support provided to others, especially selfless service to a voluntary body or to our community, or which brings distinction and quality to Bristol life.”

We were nominated for the award by local ward councillor Yassin Mohamud (we’ll see you at the Mansion House, Yassin!) and are deeply honoured, but at the same time vaguely ambivalent about it as an hour or so a month* is not a great deal of time to give up for our fellow citizens, although we have been turning out to tidy the area every month for either 7 or 8 years.

* = As organisers, Eric and myself have a bit more work to do, but it’s not really onerous to send out monthly reminders and then contact Bristol Waste’s community engagement team to arrange collection of our full bags, order fresh supplies of rubbish sacks and the like.

Advance notice: May’s pick will take place on Saturday 3rd May.
Bart Nil gets a gong

27/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

According to the city council’s website: “The Lord Mayor’s Medals are awarded to highlight the local, unpaid community work and achievement that’s helped to improve the lives of Bristol’s citizens.”

Good news was received this morning that the Barton Hill Litter Group I help organise has been awarded a Lord Mayor’s Medal after being nominated by Lawrence Hill ward councillor Yassin Mohamud. Thanks, Yassin! 😀

Alex, Steve and Ronit with the fruits of the March 2025 litter pick. Image courtesy of Eric Green

We’ve been sent a letter to confirm the award and attend the award ceremony next month at the Lord Mayor’s official residence, the Mansion House.

The letter from the Lord Mayor’s office is quoted in full below.

Dear Barton Hill Litter Group,

Re: The Lord Mayor of Bristol’s Medal
As you may be aware, the Lord Mayor of Bristol’s medal is awarded to Bristol’s unsung heroes who serve the people of Bristol through voluntary and community work or charitable acts of work.

I am writing to inform you that Barton Hill Litter Group have been selected as a recipient.

The medal will be presented in a very special ceremony on:

Tuesday 15 April at 3.00pm and will be held at
The Mansion House, Clifton Down.

The Lord Mayor would be delighted if you and a guest could join him and other recipients. I will also be writing to the person who nominated you to attend the ceremony.

I would be grateful if you could confirm your attendance via lordmayor [at] bristol.gov.uk by Wednesday 9 April. If you are unable to attend, please let me know if there is anyone who can represent you on the day?

Bristol City Council will issue a press release and the press may wish to contact you in advance of the ceremony. Please can you confirm if you are happy to be contacted by the press and for information on your nomination to be released publicly (including social media).

Yours, etc.

Congratulations to all our regular and occasional pickers. You’ve done yourselves, us and the district proud. Give yourselves a hearty pat on the back!
A tidier BS5

25/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

It’s been a good day for a tidier and hopefully more pleasant and liveable BS5.

For the second week in a row, Bristol City Council had arranged for skips to be dropped at four sites in Lawrence Hill ward for residents to fill with the rubbish that couldn’t be collected by normal waste rounds. The sites are shown on the following map.

Before providing the skips in Easton last week and this week, St Paul’s residents had previously benefited from their presence on the streets.

Yesterday morning your ‘umble scribe received an email from a council contact: could I possibly help out at one of the sites?

I duly did, turning out at 9.00 am for skip delivery. It didn’t actually turn up until nearly 10 am. By 10.45 it was full and your correspondent regretfully had to turn people away or direct them to the other skip sites.

I was very pleased to be relieved by a proper council officer at 11 am.

While babysitting the skip, I also had one Bristol Waste‘s community engagement officers stop for a chat. She had organised a community litter pick on Stapleton Road for later that morning. I saw them on my way for a late breakfast; they were hard at work and doing a good job near the junction with Easton Way.

Anyway, well done to Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste for arranging some extra resources for tidying BS5 and the community litter picking team. Your efforts are appreciated. One repeated remark which was made about the skips was can we please have them again, possibly regularly?
March litter pick

02/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Yesterday saw the regular monthly community litter pick in Bristol’s Barton Hill, which takes place on the first Saturday of each month.

On a sunny but initially cool morning four of us turned up and spent an hour and a quarter clearing up Ducie Road and its council-owned car park, a regular dumping ground for fly-tippers, as well as a convenient repository for spent catering size nitrous oxide canisters.

The team dismantled one fly tip and bagged it up for collection by Bristol Waste along with our ‘swag‘, which will be collected – hopefully speedily – by Bristol Waste.

Alex, Steve and Ronit with the fruits of our litter pick.
Image courtesy of Eric Green

Afterwards we retired to the Wellspring Settlement for light refreshments.

Thanks to my fellow pickers for tidying BS5.

See you next month on the 5th!
Councillor-sized bins in BS5

29/10/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Yesterday your ‘umble scribe was invited to take part in a site visit to Stapleton Road for councillors on the city council’s Environment & Sustainability Committee. Also in attendance were senior council officers, including the head of the Neighbourhood Enforcement Team, representatives of Bristol Waste Company (BWC) and Easton ward councillor Jenny Bartle. Unfortunately, only two of the members of the committee showed up, although one of those was its chair. 🙁

We took the best part of an hour to wander up and down a half kilometre section of Stapleton Road, during which some all-too familiar and depressing sights were seen, such as house clearances (right) and piles of trade waste outside closed down shops.

Both your ‘umble scribe and officers present pointed out that the area was afflicted by many interrelated problems, e.g. pavement parking by selfish motorists combined with fly-tipping makes using the footways impossible in places, particularly for those such as parent with prams and buggies, or the disabled.

However, BWC’s community engagement team used the opportunity to plan future visits and actions to help residents present their waste and recycling properly. We were also informed how fly-tips were ranked by priority for removal, as well as the special bag collection arrangements along Stapleton Road.

We also noted changes to the local street furniture, including the installation of councillor-sized bins to cope with the litter!

The new bins have appeared at junctions close to where takeaway food shops are concentrated on this section of Stapleton Road and it appears to be part of wider efforts to replace/upgrade litter bin provision across Bristol’s Easton and Lawrence Hill wards.
Council seizes fly-tipper’s van

27/09/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Politics

There was a rare item on the Bristol Live website today. Bristol City Council decided to publicise an element of its enforcement activities against fly-tippers and other environmental criminals.

Normally a shy and retiring organisation where its enforcement activities are concerned, the council is very publicity-shy about the number of people it deals with for environmental crimes, preferring quietly to issue fixed penalty notices (FPNs) of up to £1,000 a time. However, the council has this time taken firmer than normal action against an alleged fly-tipper by seizing the alleged offender’s vehicle in the city’s Hartcliffe are and towing it away, as well as the more unusual step of publicising its operation.

Image courtesy of Bristol City Council Neighbourhood Enforcement

The council was acting under section 34b of the 1990 Environmental Protection Act – the right to search or seize vehicles if a fly-tipping offence has been committed, the vehicle was used in the commission of the offence and proceedings for that offence have not yet been brought, or if the vehicle is about to be used or is being used in a fly-tipping offence.

Having repeatedly pleaded with the council to publicise its actions – if only for their deterrent effect – your ‘umble scribe is very pleased to see this welcome change and only has a further five words of advice to those in waste management and enforcement down the Counts Louse*: keep up the good work!

* = The traditional spelling for and pronunciation of the local authority’s headquarters within the city.
Total failure for Bristol City Council campaign

09/03/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics
Rather than waste sending any officers out from their cosy bolt-holes in the Counts Louse, Bristol City Council – along with their colleagues in the Avon and Somerset Constabulary – favours a policy of legal enforcement by public notice.

This has been applied in recent years to the authority’s duties under the Environmental Protection Act covering littering, fly-tipping (posts passim) and the like.

In recent months, the fly-tipping hotspots of Easton and Lawrence Hill wards have been subjected to not one, but two rounds of public notices being added to the already cluttered and confusing street scene: the first consisting of the well-known red NO FLYTIPPING [sic] signs which long been known to be totally ineffective; and the second consisting of the newer so-called lamp post wraps as shown in the photograph below which was taken in Ducie Road in Barton Hill this morning.

Do two enforcement notices work better than one?
Note also the large volume of litter between both signs.

The lamp post wrap informs anyone who cares to read it that someone has recently been penalised fort dumping rubbish here. Between it and the traditional red sign, are a black waste sack and a catering size white plastic tub in the corner of the city council’s public car park in Ducie Road.

A couple of conclusions may be drawn from the above picture, as follows:
- Enforcement by signage is not effective against fly-tipping; and
- The city’s fly-tippers are either illiterate or don’t bother reading materials meant to dissuade them; or
- They consider their chances of being penalised by a local authority constantly pleading poverty and cutting staff numbers are so close to zero that they can be discounted.
Just around the corner from Ducie Road, there’s another lamp post wrap on the bridge carrying the A420 over the railway line at Lawrence Hill. It too has been remarkably ineffective at preventing fly-tipping by the 1600 litre general waste bin that shares the railway bridge’s footway.

As a footnote, your ‘umble scribe did take the time and effort to report the incident mentioned above.

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