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  • Skip Bins of Easton – the video

    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.

  • TidyBS5 takes to the streets

    After yesterday’s Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Forum meeting at Trinity Community Arts, local residents held a picket on a damp, drizzly Stapleton Road to draw attention to the litter and fly-tipping in east Bristol.

    photo of Stapleton Road picket

    The protesters were supported by local councillors Marg Hickman (Lawrence Hill ward) and Afzal Shah (Easton ward), whilst a photographer from the Bristol Post also arrived to take pictures.

    Other local residents also showed their support for the protesters by thumbs up signals, waves and the like, although we did get bemused looks from passengers on passing buses.

    The picket also features in today’s Bristol Post, where Stacy Yelland of Up Our Street is quoted as saying:

    We want to get the message out there that people are sick of this mess and there should be more respect for keeping the streets clean and tidy.

    “We realise that May Gurney and the city council are doing their best – this is more about urging residents to make sure they get rid of their rubbish properly.

    Picking up on Stacey’s point about disposing of rubbish properly, the city council website has full details of what can be recycled. Recyclable materials happen to include lots of what is fly-tipped, such as cardboard from traders, or dropped as litter, such as aluminium drinks cans.

    When it comes to bulky items like furniture, these can be taken to the tip in Folly Lane, off Days Road, St Philips, Bristol, BS2 0QS or the other one in Kings Weston Lane, Avonmouth, Bristol, BS11 0YS. Opening times are on the council website. Alternatively, these can be collected by the council, which will collect up to three bulky items for £15. All additional items are charged at the same rate. If you receive certain benefits, you are entitled to one free bulky waste collection of up to three items every six months. Full details on the council website.

    It feels as if something is finally starting to happen along the Stapleton Road corridor on the fly-tipping and litter front (as well as on other problems. Ed.). Bristol City Council has helped draw up an action plan which will see greater enforcement and education on these two matters.

    However, such encouraging developments should not detract from tackling the filth of illegal dumping and litter elsewhere in the BS5 area and Bristol’s inner city in general, which are equally deserving of attention.

  • Stapleton Road Community Market

    A community market event took place earlier today on the section of Stapleton Road between Easton Way and Lower Ashley Road.

    image of march starting Stapleton Road Community market
    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.

  • School English: see me after class

    I do worry when schools display lack of proficiency in the English language. After all, they are establishments whose tasks include imparting formal training in the vernacular.

    In particular, they seem to have problems with the use of the apostrophe (posts passim), whether that entails its use as a possessive or as an indication of omission.

    The latest example from the nursery slopes of Mount Academia was found almost on my doorstep at St. Nicholas of Tolentine RC Primary School in Pennywell Road, Bristol, which seems to think that childrens is the plural of child.

    showing misused apostrophe on school notice

    Should anyone from the school happen to be reading this, the correct punctuation is children’s. In the words of several of my old teachers: you could do better; see me after class. 🙂

  • Greengrocer returns to Post

    Thursday’s Bristol Post saw the welcome return to journalism of a local greengrocer, with a report featuring a superfluous apostrophe in the headline.

    Bristol Post headline featuring greengrocer's apostrophe

    The writer from the fruit and vegetable trade has been rather quiet on Temple Way recently. This blog has not featured his or her work for nearly a year now (posts passim).

    One question that should be asked of Localworld, owners of the Bristol Post, is whether it was it such a great idea to get rid of sub-editors?

  • Even carefully placed litter is still litter

    It’s not just fly-tipping that’s a problem in my part of Bristol (posts passim). Litter’s an associated problem that makes the place look scruffy and gives it that intimidating air.

    Collins Dictionary defines litter as “small refuse or waste materials carelessly dropped, esp. in public places“.

    However, some litter is not carelessly dropped, but is carefully placed – preferably off the ground – so that the perpetrator doesn’t feel so bad about being anti-social, as in the example below.

    discarded bottle placed on street sign

    Here’s a quick reminder for the hard of thinking: even carefully discarded waste materials are still litter if not placed in an appropriate container, like a bin. Not using a bin – or mistaking the street or public open space for a litter bin – may earn you an on-the-spot fine of £75 in Bristol.

    As for those who drop litter next to a litter bin, words fail me.

    Anyway, that particular bottle is plastic and can be recycled, so will be out with the rest of my recycling tomorrow, ready for collection.

    If you want to report litter in Bristol, the city council’s website has a handy form.

  • Nice one!

    News site www.thebusinesswomanmedia.com has got the emphasis just right here on its report on a wedding that’s causing the media to get excited and distract attention from all the nasty things going on in the world like Ebola in West Africa or the continuing madness in the Middle East (news passim).

    screenshot of headline stating internationally acclaimed barrister Amal Alamuddin marries an actor

    However, it could have added the word(s) ‘ageing’ and/or ‘greying’ in front of ‘actor’. 😉

  • Islamic State: potted history

    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.

    image of newspaper letter with the heading Clear as mud

    Hat tip: Marina S.

  • Happy Easton

    As a part of inner city Bristol, Easton tends to get into the papers for all the wrong reasons, such as fly-tipping (posts passim).

    However, it’s a vibrant area where I’ve lived for nearly 4 decades and so it can’t be all that bad, as is shown by the fact that community campaigners Happy Easton have produced their own video version of the record-breaking Pharrell Williams hit “Happy” to show a more positive side of Easton.

    The video was filmed at 18 sites around the area including Easton Community Centre, Trinity Community Arts, the soon to be shut Trinity Police Station and various local shops and takeaways.

    Are the dancing cops and PCSOs as embarrassing as your relatives at a wedding? Answers in the comments below! 🙂

  • Mobility scooter drink-driving case adjourned due to lack of interpreter

    image of gilded statue of Justice on top of Old BaileyYesterday’s Stoke Sentinel reports on the case of a Romanian man in court on a charge of being drunk in charge of a mobility scooter.

    On 7th August Staffordshire police stopped Romanian-born Silviu Croitoru on the A34 London Road in Newcastle-under-Lyme: 47 year-old Croitrou – now resident in Trent Vale, Stoke-on-Trent – was driving his mobility scooter at the time and gave reading of 95 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath; the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

    Magistrates at the North Staffordshire Justice Centre in Newcastle-under-Lyme adjourned the case to arrange for the attendance of an interpreter and to allow time for defence representations.

    One would have thought that if the defendant required an interpreter, this should have been noted and arranged for the initial hearing, but waste and incompetence seem to be endemic in the justice system nowadays.