Bristol

  • Bristol Post exclusive: Weston-super-Mare beach now motorway

    Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

    The Bristol Post is not immune to the odd error every five minutes or so and today is no exception, as is amply demonstrated by the screenshot below of an item from today’s online edition.

    picture of motorway but caption says a day on the beach at weston super mare

    Even the image tag’s alt attributes include the wording “A day on the beach at Weston-super-Mare”.

    If Weston beach has been covered in tarmac and is now reserved for use by motor vehicles, I do hope the highway engineers built it well above the high water mark for spring tides, which have a range sometimes in excess of 13 metres.

    On the other hand, the Bristol Post does have form when it comes to writing the wrong captions for images on its website (posts passim).

  • Response to open standards FoI request

    Steve WoodsBristol, Open Source, Open Standards, Politics, Tech

    A response has been received today to my FoI request to Bristol City Council on open standards (posts passim).

    The reply was received in a record 10 working days and reads as follows:

    Bristol City Council has been a long-term supporter of open standards wherever possible. We have frequently voluntarily adopted national government policy on open standards and open source, recognising the benefits of this approach.

    We adopted StarOffice in 2005 and moved to the Open Document Format as our standard for office productivity files at the point it was incorporated in the StarOffice / OpenOffice.org products. We had to move to Microsoft Office in 2010 due to the lack of standards support in the local government applications market, partly due to the fact that national government policy was not mandated at local level and therefore did not have the desired effects on the document standards context. However we retained the ability to create, open and collaborate on ODF by implementing LibreOffice alongside Microsoft Office on all council PCs. Therefore we are already capable of using ODF to collaborate on government documents.

    In terms of publishing government documents to citizens, we have historically used PDF, but are now attempting to replace all information, advice and guidance, and application forms with fully digital services. Over time this will replace old PDF documents with HTML. If there are documents that meet a user need to download and read offline, we can produce PDF/A format from the open source PDF Creator software that is also available on every council PC.

    I’m very pleased to note that BCC has LibreOffice installed on every council machine. They kept that quiet! Perhaps they’ll use it to send me replies to my FoI requests in future instead of the propensity to use MS Office formats. But just to make sure, I’ll include a plea for a reply in an open format in all my future requests. 🙂

    Read the original FoI request and response on WhatDoTheyKnow.

  • Special opening offer

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

    Thanks to skimping on proof-reading, La Despensa Del Gourmet, a new Spanish delicatessen that’s recently opened in Prince Street, Bristol has a rather unusual offer at present, which sounds a bargain at £3.50!

    poster reads daily offer spanish sandwich with cock/water
    Picture courtesy of Bristol Bites

    Speculation has it that the proprietors are actually trying to offer a carbonated soft drink originally from America… However, that could be phallusy! 😉

    Hat tip: Bristol Bites.

  • Is this yours, George?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

    Spotted on the pavement opposite House of Fraser, Cabot Circus, Bristol – one red bra.

    shot of red bra on footway

    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.

  • TidyBS5 petition goes live

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    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.

    Jane Street fly-tipping
    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.

    Templates for collecting signatures on paper have also been sent to local councillors Afzal Shah, Marg Hickman and Hibaq Jama, as well as Up Our Street.

    Sign the petition.

  • TidyBS5: callers on foot can use Day’s Road tip

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    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).

    Day's Road tip
    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.

    In order to find out, the Freedom of Information request below was duly sent to the city council.

    Dear Bristol City Council,

    This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

    I have been informed that callers on foot are not allowed to use the facilities at Day’s Road due to “health and safety“.

    I would be grateful if you could provide a copy of the relevant risk assessment.

    Yours faithfully,

    Steve Woods

    That’s right, if “health and safety” was the reason, show us the risk assessment.

    The relevant risk assessment has now been received in answer to the FoI request.

    Curiously enough, non-motorised callers are allowed, as the following extract shows.

    Non-motorised customers should be advised to approach from east (SOFA project side) avoiding both queue & need to cross traffic stream.

    Choose a quieter time (weekdays, mid-morning) by arrangement with site staff.

    ACCESS MUST BE PRE-ARRANGED WITH SITE STAFF.

    Site users should be advised to make themselves visible, i.e. visibility clothing or markers, & lights in poor conditions.

    The assessment also contains the following advice to pedestrians:

    Customers should avoid unnecessarily crossing the traffic stream & exercise extreme caution when leaving site.

    I shall therefore be digging out my Dayglo clothing and wheelbarrow and getting on the phone! 😉

    Download the city council’s response in proprietary MS Office format (isn’t it disappointing that the city council thinks everyone uses MS Office? Ed.).

  • Bristol City Council asked about open standards

    Steve WoodsBristol, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

    BCC logoWhenever I make a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to Bristol City Council, the response invariably comes back in a proprietary Microsoft Office format (e.g. .docx, .xlsx, etc.), a practice I find less than satisfactory – not to say galling – as an advocate of free and open source software and open standards.

    That being so, the following FoI request has been made today to the council:

    Dear Bristol City Council,

    This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

    In July 2014, the Cabinet Office announced the adoption of open standards for document viewing and collaboration in central government. See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/open-document-formats-selected-to-meet-user-needs for details.

    The standards adopted are:

    – PDF/A or HTML for viewing government documents;
    – Open Document Format (ODF) for sharing or collaborating on government documents.

    What plans does Bristol City Council have to emulate central government’s move and when will similar open standards be adopted by the council for communicating and collaborating with citizens.

    Yours faithfully,

    Steve Woods

    Hopefully an answer will be forthcoming by Document Freedom Day 2015 (posts passim).

  • Homes to let. Resident rats unaffected

    Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Politics

    Yesterday’s Bristol Post reports on the dire state of rented properties in Morton Street, Barton Hill, just down the road from the Little Russell (posts passim).

    One of the problems faced by the tenants in question is that they’re having to share their homes with sitting tenants – resident brown rats. This is hardly a conducive environment to live in, let alone one in which to bring up one’s children.

    brown rat
    Landlord or sitting tenant? Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    It’s said that no-one is ever more than a few yards away from a rat and these rodents do have any easy life in today’s cities. Their life is made even easier by the proliferation of fast food outlets in recent years combined with the untidy habits of their patrons.

    The report really highlights the fact that Bristol is a divided city. While they city’s great and good are indulging in a year of junketing, mutual backslapping and filling each others’ bank accounts with public money courtesy of Bristol Green Capital, its poor are enduring infestations of vermin, plus the seemingly insurmountable inner-city blights of litter and fly-tipping.

    Well done to ward councillors Marg Hickman and Hibaq Jama for highlighting this problem and taking up the tenants’ plight.

  • We’re European Green Capital, let’s fell some trees

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    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.

    earthworks at Easton Way Bristol

    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?

    Answers, if any, below please!

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