RPS and parking on kerbs letter

Dear Sir

 

As one of the ward councillors for Southville, I was interested to see your article suggesting residents parking may be causing bad parking in Bristol. I have to say, I could make an equal case for a lack of RPZ having just such an effect.

 

We have had RPZ implemented in Southville recently. The streets are much clearer during the day, although just as full, possibly even fuller, in the evenings.

 

I used to regularly see cars parked in Southville which went close corners, or even blocked dropped kerbs. I am aware of one highly respected member of the local community who had to push a family member in a wheelchair down the road because the path was blocked. I have been told of people in wheelchairs who reached a blocked dropped-kerb, and simply had to turn around and go home because they were just stuck.

 

While that problem has predominately gone in Southville, it has become a much bigger issue in the other end of the Southville ward. Ashton – which was excluded from the RPZ rollout – now gets all of the commuter parking that Southville used to get. I have been surveying the area recently to investigate the impact on Ashton, and have both been told – and seen for myself – blocked kerbs, blocked drives and corners which have cars on them. They have the problem that Southville used to have.

 

Indeed I have spoken to parents living in Ashton who are now worried about the safety of their children. It makes it much harder to teach road sense when you struggle to actually get to the road.

 

Should RPS be extended to Ashton survey

As Southville ward councillors, we have been contacted by a number of people highlighting the fact that RPS in Southville has pushed parking problems over into Ashton. (The ward includes the area of Ashton between North St, Smyth Road and Ashton Road).


Some have said RPS needs to be extended to cover a wider area.


We want to get an idea of what people think more generally, what the problems are and if an extended RPS is part of the solution.


Please complete this 4 question survey and let us know what you think.


1 minute 4 question Ashton RPS survey


Many thanks in anticipation




Charlie Bolton and Steve Clarke
Southville ward councillors

Bus speech - why getting rid off bus lanes is a bad idea

So having read the Tory motion, and its reference to removal of bus lanes in Liverpool, I thought I’d contact the Green councillors there to see what they thought about how it is working. The good news for the Tories is the response from Green Cllr Tom Crone ended with the line:


‘BTW, compared to our Labour mayor, that motion makes your Tories look pretty moderate!’

Sadly, that’s where the good news ends. Contrary to the Tory assertion that the Liverpool scheme is a success, the assertion we have received suggests

‘I would question the success of the Liverpool scheme. Even in the narrow short-sighted terms that our mayor would consider it a success it hasn't really delivered. If it made journey times quicker for cars he would probably be happy, but if you look at the before and after you will see there was no clear pattern of reduced journey times.’

And I did look. I looked at what must be an enormously expensive 532 page report into the Liverpool, and it showed a mixture of results. Some - to be fair - showed a reduction in travel times for motorists. There was even the occasional reduction in travel time for buses. There was also a ruck of results showing no real change, and some not only increased journey times for buses, but saw significantly longer journeys for car drivers as well. Yes, removing the bus lane slowed down the cars.

The suggestion made being an increase in the number of vehicles on the road. Its obvious really. Remove the bus lane, you increase road capacity. Bigger road capacity means more cars. More cars means more pollution.
So then I contacted the Campaign for Better Transport - who pointed me to the website BUSPRIORITYWORKS.CO.UK.

This website, sponsored by campaigning organisations along with representatives of the business, gave examples of succesful interventions - Barking - a 20% rise in patronage; Chorlton a 23% rise; Leeds saw a 33% increase in numbers of cyclists; Mansfield £6.50 return for every pound spent; South East Hampshire - £6.94 for every pound spent.

At the end, it uses the phrase ‘a shining example’ to describe one particular scheme - the Greater Bristol Bus Network’.

I spoke to officers at Bristol City Council - who told me that 60% of the bus lanes in the city are already peak hour only. They also told me that they assess the lanes in terms of their impact, and have, on occasion, removed them.

It seems to me that there is an important piece of work this council could do to do with buses. An important piece of policy development would be to work out how to double the number of bus passengers, and then double it again. And within that, we should work out how we best design our bus infrastructure to achieve this. Work with the bus companies to come up with a bus plan.

But this motion does none of that. It is a crude piece of electioneering, and I urge council to consign it to the dustbin of history tonight.

Help Save Faithspace

 

 

 

Southville’s two Green councillors will today call on the mayor and the council to pledge support for a well-loved community venue in Southville.

 

Faithspace is a former Methodist church on Stackpool Road in Southville, which has been used for community activities for many years. The venue was closed down a year ago and is now boarded up and starting to deteriorate. The Methodists intend to sell the building while the local community are campaigning for it to be retained for local community use, rather than just sold to the highest bidder.

Southville’s Green councillor Stephen Clarke has submitted a question to the Full Council meeting on 15^th December to ask the mayor for support in the campaign to keep Faithspace as a community venue. He said:

“We are really short of community venues in Southville. We already have a high density of housing, and more houses are planned as the population in the ward continues to increase. That’s why we need to keep what community venues we have to ensure that Southville remains the vibrant and attractive community it currently is.”

Southville’s other Green councillor, Charlie Bolton has also submitted a statement to the council meeting, stressing the importance of Faithspace for the local community.

The meeting follows a ‘love-bombing’ event of Faithspace at the weekend – where nearly 100 local people came to express their support for the former church by attaching hearts to it, explaining why they think it is important.

Greens have been lobbying for the building to be retained for community use for many months. Councillor Bolton submitted statements of support last winter, and he and Councillor Clarke have lobbied the mayor, assistant mayor and officers to take all possible steps to support the community in their campaign to save this community space.

 

 

STATEMENT FROM December 2015: FaithSpace building (Southville Methodist Church)

Faithspace is a much loved part of the Southville community scene.

As local councillors for the ward of Southville, we would like to congratulate the significant numbers of people who turned up on a December Sunday afternoon to express their support for Faithspace. Local people of all ages expressed their support for the venue by leaving messages of support in the shape of hearts on the building. They have made it very apparent how important the building is to the local community.

Residents have made it clear that they want to see the building retained for community use. Local councillors also want the building retained for community use.

It has been a struggle to get the Methodist church to engage with the local community locally, and it seems clear that they intend to sell the building to the highest bidder. This is a real pity.

We therefore ask the mayor to take what steps he can to support the community of Southville, including talking to the recently formed campaign – and help us save Faithspace for community use.

 

 

STATEMENT FROM December 2014

 

 

Faithspace, Stackpool Road, Southville

As Labour and Green Party councillors for Southville, we jointly submit the following statement.

Faithspace is the former Methodist Church on Stackpool Road. It lies between the Southville Centre and Southville Primary School.

 

It has been a community venue for as long as people can remember. Users, however, have recently been stopped from using it, and the venue has recently been boarded up.

There has been a significant increase in the population of the Southville ward over recent years. This has resulted in an increase in the pressure on local resources and infrastructure. For example, there is a serious shortage in nursery provision in the area.

There is significant local concern over the closure of Faithspace. It has been registered as a 'Asset of Community Value'. There is a local petition in support of its retention as a community venue.

We have no knowledge of plans for its future. However, there has to be a possibility that it will lost as a community venue.  We believe we simply cannot afford to lose community venues in our local area. We urge the council and the mayor to take whatever actions it can to help ensure it remains as a venue for the benefit of the community of Southville as a whole. In particular, we ask that the council do all it can to protect its current planning use

 

Sean Beynon (Labour Party Councillor, Southville)

Charlie Bolton (Green Party Councillor, Southville)

Letter to the Post on TTIP

Dear Sir

 

I was puzzled to see the letter from Hadleigh Roberts – who as vice chair of Bristol Labour Party – wrote to support TTIP (Post, letters, 19^th November). He also pointed out the local Labour MEP’s support for it.

 

I say this because it seems to the complete opposite of the position of Labour councillor Sue Milestone who submitted a motion to Bristol City Council calling on the council to ‘publicise the council’s concerns about TTIP’ and ‘join with other local authorities which are opposed to TTIP’.

 

Greens have consistently opposed this damaging, secretive and undemocratic trade treaty. The TTIp treaty threatens to hand power to multinationals, wipe out our social and environmental standards in the name of ‘harmonisation,’ undermine local power to run our own services. So I was extremely pleased with Ms Milestones motion – which was very similar to a similar one from our own Councillor Anna McMullen.

 

Sadly, it seems the Labour Party may not be quite as ‘Corbyn’ as we’d hoped. Hey ho.

 

 

Objecting to possible merger/take-over of Fire Authority by Policy Authority

There is a government consultation on closer working between 'blue light' services

 

 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/enabling-closer-working-between-the-emergency-services

 

Contained within it is the possibility that the Police and Crime commissioner takes over the Avon Fire Service. 

This is the response from myself and Gus Hoyt..... 

This response comes from Councillors Charlie Bolton and Gus Hoyt, serving as Green Party members on the Avon Fire Authority, and also as councillors on Bristol City Council.

 

 

As Greens we are appalled at the cuts which have been and are still being implemented on the Fire service. The Fire service saves lives, is highly regarded and we believe has been under sustained, ideologically motivated attack. We believe that the government should commit now to halting cuts to this valued and vital service. We further believe that the Fire Service, along with Police needs to be properly funded.

 

As Green Party members of the Avon Fire Authority, we register our opposition to the possibility of a merger of the authority with the Police Authority.

 

We support many of the reasons given by the Avon Fire Authority in its submission also opposing the possibility of a merger, namely:

 

• Existing governance arrangements work well
• Boundaries between the authorities do not match
• There will be difficulties aligning council tax amounts
• There are differing electoral arrangements in place over the area
• There is already some effective collaborative working between authorities, however the proposal will make it harder to form other working partnerships
• Practical issues merging back office functions which are in different arrangements (ie outsourced or not) with different contractual arrangements
• Practical staffing issues re TUPE

 

In addition to these, we believe that combining the authorities would also require a significant beefing up of scrutiny functions to meet any new organisation (unless the intention is to dispense with such democratic oversite).

 

We further draw to the your attention to the fact that there are many examples of attempts to merge systems, computerised or other – which intend  to make economies of scale – end up either failing completely, or result in a more complex (and costly) solution. We further point out to those suggesting ‘private sector management methods’ that HBOS and RBS were private  businesses, using such techniques -   who failed in spectacular fashion.  In other words, there are big dangers as well as opportunities.

 

We point out that merging organisations can frequently lead to additional bureaucracy, and which in itself leads to inefficiencies. One of the benefits of the current organisation of the Fire Authority is its relatively simple structure which allows it to concentrate on its ‘core business’ of keeping people safe and putting out fires. A merger could jeopardise this.

 

Finally, we – as Greens – support decentralisation of power to the lowest level. A merger, and in particular, a merger of the power structure represents a centralisation of power which we oppose.

 

Letter to the editor 20mph, Association of British Drivers

Dear Sir

 

I’d like to thank Bob Bull of the Alliance of British Drivers. He writes to ask for ‘driver improvement classes’ (Post letters, 8/10/15). As such, he clearly believes that numbers of drivers in this city have habits which are clearly not up to scratch.

 

Actually, personally, I think that the vast majority of motorists try to drive in a way which is considerate to other road users. Indeed I have been told that in the area that I represent, something like 85% of motorists either stick to or close to the 20mph speed limit.

 

However, Mr Bull’s idea that 20mph should only be close to schools is quite wrong. First off, the vast majority of accidents to children take place away from  the area around a school.  Secondly, children – with their parents walk – or cycle – to school and back home.

 

If we wish to protect children, we must surely protect them everywhere. That means significant areas of slower, safer speeds in a wide area around schools, in residential areas and on walking routes. That’s just one of the reasons why a widespread 20mph area is so important. And of course, as Public Health England tell us ‘physical inactivity is  the 4th largest cause of disease in the UK’.

 

Finally, can I just urge your readers to sign the petition in support of 20mph (Link: http://epetitions.bristol.gov.uk/epetition_core/community/petition/3132)

 

Yours