Hand in glove

Hallelujah! The long-awaited consultation on the sale/lease of public land to property developers Squarepeg has finally begun. And when some poor PhD student decides to write the history of dishonest and sham 'community consultation' excercises, I am sure it will be top of their list of case studies.

A casual reader of the consultation website might think that this excercise was being carried out by Bristol City Council themselves. After all, we are talking about the fate of the Bristol-Bath Railway Path, which the website claims is 'an outstanding urban escape route' (whatever that may be). OK, so they did try to turn it into a bus lane not so long ago, but we're a Cycling City now, doncha know? So you'd be forgiven for thinking that listening to local views would be something they'd want to do themselves, having cocked it up so spectacularly less than a year ago.

Er...no. The eagle-eyed, prepared to click through to a PDF file and scan the small print, will notice that the consultation is in fact being run by PPS. Sounds pretty innocous? The investigative blogger's friend reveals that they are in fact, drumroll, 'the UK's... foremost supplier of lobbying, communications and consultation advice to the property industry'. Oh.

Satisfied clients include Barratt Homes, George Wimpey, and Persimmon Homes. And no wonder. As PPS's website astutely notes:

Pre-application consultation on major schemes is fast becoming a fact of life for all involved in development...[We] have enormous experience of how to make the provisions of the 2004 Planning Act work for you. Get it right and you can bring the community with you. Get it wrong and you will face heightened local concerns.

So, you may ask, how exactly can legislation be 'made to work' for multi-million pound developers? What exactly does 'getting a consultation right' involve? The Bristol-Bath Railway Path consultation isn't a bad place for a masterclass.

1. Create the appearance of democratic legitimacy by giving the impression that the consultation is being run by a public body.

2. Prejudge the issue by praising the development as 'much needed' and listing its many virtues.

3. Include pictures of the derelict factory site rather than the historic hedgerow that the development will destroy.

4. Base the consultation around spurious, quasi-rhetorical questions such as:

• Do you believe the area should remain as it is, or receive further investment?
• Is regeneration important for Easton?
• Do you believe development can co-exist alongside green spaces?
• What would you like to see happen to the two plots of land?

It is important that you ignore the fact that it is perfectly possible to answer yes to the first three and still be against the development in its present form. The object of the exercise is to blackmail residents of a deprived area into giving up scarce green space for private profit.

5. Pretend that green space in Frome Vale is relevant to residents of Easton and Lawrence Hill.

6. Ensure that the consultation period falls over Christmas and New Year, effectively giving interested parties only three weeks to respond.

This consultation is biased beyond belief in favour of the developers. Pinch yourself and remember that it's being run on behalf of the council. And we're paying for it.

Ain't nothing going on but the rent

[Shuffles back in, looking embarrassed.]

Luckily for the state of the nation, some bloggers have actually got the hang of this regular posting lark. Chris Hutt on the Green Bristol Blog in particular has turned up some very interesting information on the Squarepeg plans for the Elizabeth Shaw Factory, including the fact that what planners designated a wildlife reserve in 2000 is now likely to be built on without so much as even an Environmental Impact Assessment.

But hark! Here's local MP Kerry McCarthy, to defend the plans: apparently Squarepeg are the thinking woman's solution to the housing crisis:

"how else would you suggest we find space for homes for the 19,000 people on the council waiting list? Obviously brownfield sites must be the priority, but it's not the entire solution. I'm also concerned about the number of houses being turned into flats, with associated problems re parking, and often anti-social behaviour from the people who rent them. We need family homes - but they've got to be built somewhere."

Kerry, Kerry, Kerry. Where to start? Have you discussed your plans to fill the development with council tenants with George Ferguson? And why the assumption that the development is going to provide 'family homes'? (An assumption which I suspect is shared by many of the development's supporters in Greenbank.) For all the prominence of the 'cycle homes' in Squarepeg's charm offensive, of the 252 planned dwellings, only 52 will have three or more bedrooms - as against 122 one-bed and 78 two-bed flats.

Let's be absolutely clear - almost 80% of the housing in this development will be nasty investment properties of the kind that have "created a buy-to-let desert and a huge waiting list for family housing in the city" (the Bristol Blogger on the same thread).

More rib-tickling creativity with the truth is to be found in the planning application's Transportation Assessment, of which more anon.

Hostile Takeovers

Hold on to your hats East Bristol.

As if rising flood waters, looming recession and the norovirus weren't enough, it seems that 2008 will feature yet more attempts to wrest public spaces out of public control.

This week alone:

1. Let's hand the Bristol-Bath cyclepath over to First Bus!

So that they can transport people to the airport!
Pushing cyclists and pedestrians out of the way!
Removing one of the only green spaces accessible to people in Easton!
But let's not put any plans in the public domain, because then people might be able to make up their own minds!

(There is more sense in the readers' comments on this story than there is in the last 10 years of transport planning in Bristol. There is also a public meeting in the Cornubia at 7.30 on February 5. More details below.)

2. Let's hand two local schools over to Ray Priest and his pals at the City Academy!

To play at "all through schools"! Even though they are totally unproven, have been rejected twice in Bristol, and nobody in the leafy suburbs of West Bristol would dream of sending their child to one!

Even though the City Academy is only able to get 22% of its own pupils to the required standards of English and Maths at GCSE!

But let's not put any plans in the public domain, because then people might be able to make up their own minds!

3. Let's sell off large swathes of the city's green space!

Oops, we already consulted on this one, so let's change the plans at the last minute! So that nobody really has a clue what and when their local park might disappear!

Happy New Year!

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Save the cyclepath!
The Bristol to Bath cyclepath is under threat. The West of England Partnership, composed of local councillors, are submitting plans to Whitehall for funding to use it for a rapid transit bus route from Emersons Green to Ashton Vale, one of three in the scheme. The Bath end of the path is under similar threat.

This is the most popular cycleroute in the UK with 2.4 million journeys per year. The timing of the bus route plan is particularly ironic at a time when Sustrans have just won £50 million for cycling improvements nationwide!

It is a busy commuter route for cyclists and at weekends is popular with families and less confident cyclists.
Although a narrow corridor for cyclists is planned, installation of the bus route will require using most of the path width for an ugly concrete track and consequent removal of all vegetation, destroying the path as a pleasant, green, quiet and ‘fume free’ multiuse facility….diesel buses will destroy that.

The path, sometimes called a ‘linear park’ is also used extensively by local people for journeys on foot to school, to walk the dog, to allotments and other local amenities. People with disability vehicles use it. It will not be possible to maintain this diversity of use on a narrow, fenced in path beside a bus track.

We believe that this plan would significantly reduce the quality of life for many residents of East Bristol, in addition to those from further afield who enjoy this path. We don’t oppose bus rapid transit schemes in principle but it should use roadspace, not space allocated to the most vulnerable and least powerful groups - pedestrians, cyclists and children.

We need to stop this proposal now. To wait until West of England Partnership declare that public consultation may begin, would leave little time to mount a campaign.

Come to the meeting at the Cornubia Pub, Temple St BS1
Tuesday 5^th February 2008 at 7.30 – upstairs meeting room.
Directions: http://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pubmap/308/
In the meantime, to register your interest, contact savethecyclepath@bristolcyclingcampaign.org.uk