Selby District Council’s website is not one of your correspondent’s regular online haunts. However, last week’s news section of the site carries a report with exclusive spectacular news: a Mr Steve Wadsworth has won a competition to name the new Selby Leisure Centre, which is due to open in 2015, by naming it, erm, Selby Leisure Centre!
There was even someone armed with a camera to record this historic event, whose like has probably not been equalled in that part of Yorkshire since the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. 😉
Whilst the present government’s record may be regarded by some as controversial, to say the least, there’s one area where some real progress has been made; and that’s the adoption of open standards by central government.
Yesterday, the Open Standards Board announced that RFC 5545 (iCalendar) and RFC 6350 (vCard) have now been adopted as open standards for government for exchanging calendar events and contact details respectively.
This means both vCard and iCalendar are now in the implementation phase and Sir Humphrey and his colleagues are encouraged to report problems with adopted standards on the Standards Hub.
The vCard and iCalendar formats have both been in widespread use for more than 10 years. The versions selected by the Board are specified and maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force who ratify a number of commonly used extensions. The versions are largely backwards compatible with previous versions produced and consumed by a very wide range of applications.
What could George have been doing in Easton to have fled minus his trousers? Answers in the comments below.
Of course, as a politician George sometimes risks more than the loss of his trousers; he’s wagering the shirt off his back on 2 potentially huge white elephant projects in Bristol both being funded by municipal borrowing – the Bristol Arena and Metrobus/BRT, whose costs keep escalating out of control.
A couple of years ago, after a less than ideal consultation by Bristol City Council (my own street was omitted from the process! Ed.), communal bins – called skip bins by some – were imposed on residents.
They are not popular with locals since they attract abuse – fly-tipping by traders, dumping of recyclable materials by the uncaring and so on – and are unappealing to have outside one’s front door. They may be a good idea for block of flats if adequately screened, used properly and regularly emptied, but not for residential areas or shopping streets. Even in my own road where the communal bins never suffer the levels of abuse or levels of filling that they do in on busier streets, they are not popular with residents.
A local Stapleton Road resident has now produced a short video to draw attention to the problems they engender and her evident frustration with the council’s attitude to Easton.
As regards abuse of the communal bins, recent analysis of 2 bins on Stapleton Road by the city council revealed that their contents were roughly:
one-third waste for landfill;
one-third recyclable materials; and
one-third illegally dumped trade waste.
That analysis shows there is clearly a lot that needs to be done both as regards educating residents on what materials can be recycled, as well as enforcement, cracking down on traders who are not complying with their obligations in respect of proper disposal of the waste from their businesses.
When it comes to trade waste, the council has 2 options when it comes to enforcement action. It can impose a fixed penalty of £300 or taking offenders to court, where a maximum fine of £50,000 and/or up to five years imprisonment.
As regards the siting of communal bins, the idiocy evident in the video is not an isolated instance. Walton Street in Easton, which is some 300 metres in length, has one communal bin, whilst adjoining Northcote Street – a third of the length of Walton Street – has three!
If having to put out the rubbish on a cold, rainy night, I’d prefer to live in Northcote Street. Wouldn’t you?
Furthermore, it’s not just the major thoroughfares that have problems with fly-tipping, trade waste and the like, as this blog has previously highlighted with Jane Street (posts passim) on the borders of Redfield and Lawrence Hill districts.
Next month a residents’ rubbish summit will be held at Felix Road Adventure Playground as part of the #tidyBS5 initiative. Details will be posted here when they are finalised.
Hamburg’s Green want to wean the city council off its Microsoft dependency and are pointing to Munich city council’s use of Linux and free and open source software, German IT news website heise reports today.
The 2014 Open IT Summit, whose emphasis is on open source and data security, is taking place today (Tuesday) as an alternative event to the IT summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel taking place in Hamburg. The range of topics extends from the Heartbleed bug via cloud computing up to a Microsoft exit strategy for Hamburg. a podium discussion will sound out whether a migration to free software is realistic for Hamburg.
THE news of 15-year-old girl Yusra Hussien leaving Bristol to become a supporter of IS, allegedly, is a worrying outcome and I echo what Stephen Williams said, that such an objective is not only foolish but profoundly unwise.
In some ways, what Al Qaeda started in 2001 has produced many problems of his kind.
Yes, you did read that correctly: “problems of his kind“, i.e. problems like him, if you prefer to paraphrase.
The Post has exclusively revealed that Bristol West MP Stephen Williams is a problem that has been caused by Al Qaeda, an organisation never before known for its links to the UK’s Liberal Democratic Party, let alone elected members thereof.
Perhaps Mr Williams would care to comment on his links to Al Qaeda below; or alternatively perhaps the Post could employ a little more care when publishing reader’s letters where a lost or missing consonant can give a phrase a whole new meaning.
A community market event took place earlier today on the section of Stapleton Road between Easton Way and Lower Ashley Road.
Image courtesy of Bristol News
Although interspersed with showers, the event was well attended and had such attractions as food, music, bouncy castles, face painting and – at one point – a samba band adding yet more sound and vibrancy to our main local street in this part of town.
The event was organised by the local community for the local community and has evidently gone down well with the people at Bristol News, who commented:
The amazing people on Stapleton Road are having fantastic fun today and doing it for far less money than Make Sunday Special has ever done. And more importantly the community is doing it for itself. This is the “real spirit of Bristol” not the water slides, skiing clowns and ambling bands.
It also shows a different side of a place that’s frequently just regarded, particularly by the rest of Bristol, as a source of inner city problems.
The struggle to clear the inner city of fly-tipping and litter continues (posts passim).
Earlier this week it was revealed that ward councillor Marg Hickman had taken Assistant Mayor Mark Bradshaw on a walk along Stapleton Road. Cllr. Bradshaw professed himself to be shocked and angered by what he saw. Let’s hope his involvement manages to stir council officers to take the area’s problems rather more seriously than they have to date.
Jane Street – a regular fly-tipping hotspot in BS5. Picture courtesy of @HelmoreAndHunt
My latest 2 FoI requests have now been submitted. Both seek to see how the BS5 area compares with the rest of the city as regards enforcement action as there is a distinct impression locally that the area is regarded as less worth bothering about than the city’s more affluent parts. The first concerns fly-tipping in the BS5 area and is reproduced below.
Dear Bristol City Council,
This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.
1. As regards Stapleton Road (the section between its junctions with Trinity Road and Fishponds Road) in particular:
a) How many fixed penalty notices have been issued for fly-tipping on this road in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
b) How many people have been prosecuted for fly-tipping on this road in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
2. As regards the BS5 area in general:
a) How many fixed penalty notices have been issued for fly-tipping in this area in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
b) How many people have been prosecuted for fly-tipping in this area in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
Yours, etc.
The second concerns the associated problem litter.
Dear Bristol City Council,
This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act.
1. As regards Bristol in general:
a) How many fixed penalty notices have been issued for dropping litter throughout the city in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
b) How many people have been prosecuted for dropping litter throughout the city in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
2. As regards the BS5 area in general:
a) How many fixed penalty notices have been issued for dropping litter in this area in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
b) How many people have been prosecuted for dropping litter in this area in the last last 4 calendar years and to date in the current calendar year?
If you’re having difficulty in understanding what’s happening with the militants of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria at the moment without going any further back than Bush War II (the overthrow of Saddam Hussein – and the roots of the conflicts and tensions in the region do go back to at least the end of World War 1 and the Treaty of Versailles! Ed.) then Aubrey Bailey of Fleet in Hampshire has provided a concise and not too confusing potted guide.
Fixmydocuments.eu is a campaign aimed at helping European public sector organisations make better use of open document formats, such as ODF.
A number of public sector organisations throughout Europe have decided to support open document formats when communicating with the public and FixMyDocuments.eu is a campaign to help them implement their decision effectively. One of the largest of these is the UK government, which recently opted for open standards for communicating and working with anyone outside Whitehall (posts passim).
Inspired by the FixMyStreet project, FixMyDocuments.eu aims to help European public sector organisations that have decided to support ODF to implement their decision by documenting, tracking and reporting their compliance online. Anybody can report public web pages which are not compliant with the decision, which are then checked and added to a central listing which is updated weekly.
One of the first supporters of FixMyDocuments.eu was European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes. In her statement of support (no. 6 on the list. Ed.) Neelie Kroes says:
When open alternatives are available, no citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to use a particular company’s technology to access government information. No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one, through a government having made that choice first. I know a smart business decision when I see one – choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed.
Hamburg’s Green want to wean the city council off its Microsoft dependency and are pointing to Munich city council’s use of Linux and free and open source software, German IT news website 
On the occasion of the impending 
The Post has exclusively revealed that 
Fixmydocuments.eu is a campaign aimed at helping European public sector organisations make better use of open document formats, such as