Council's shaky evidence for green sell-off revealed | News

Copy of Bristol Green Party press release on green spaces issues. Well done to all Greens, Stockwood's Pete Goodwin and Southville's Cllr Tess Green [pictured] in particular, for their ongoing campaigning against green spaces flogging and exposing poor decision making on it.

Council's shaky evidence for green sell-off revealed News

Key Green Space documents have been released - months after consultation ended!

10 weeks after Bristol City Council closed its consultation on controversial plans to sell off so-called 'low-value' green spaces, documents showing how they were chosen have been revealed. The decision to sell was confirmed last week in the face of opposition from many individuals and groups and from Green, Labour and Conservative councillors.

The documents come in a delayed response to a Freedom of Information request from Stockwood resident Pete Goodwin, and have been placed on line on the "What Do They Know?" website .

Southville's Green Party councillor Tess Green commented:
"A quick look at some of the sites shows just how weak some of the recommendations were; there are too many assumptions made, evidence is disregarded, and public opinion seems to be something to be overcome, not to be weighed up as part of the decision."

"What we're left with is an over-hasty decision bulldozed through on the flimsiest of evidence, that will lose much valued green space without any great benefit to the remaining parks. If only the other parties had listened to the Greens before they agreed this disastrous strategy to pay for park improvements. People who value these spaces will now have to defend them using the planning process, or other legal moves."

Her fellow Green Mr Goodwin, who had put up a case against selling the Stockwood sites, added
"With no way of knowing why particular sites were judged as low value, it was very difficult to challenge the plans. That's why I lodged the Freedom of Information request. The information should have been made public much earlier, certainly in time for the decisions in council. The legal deadline was November 19, and the documents themselves date from summer of 2009, but it's only been released now. There can't be any excuse for that delay"

"It appears that a few Parks officers were set impossible targets, then had to cope with the massive public reaction to their proposals while still following a political mandate. The whole exercise has been a travesty."

ENDS

Contact:
Pete Goodwin, 01275 543280
Cllr Tess Green, 0117 377 2070

Trains and transport hub not bendy buses

I've been to a lot of meetings about bus rapid transit. The more I went to and the more questions I asked the more I realised just how poor the plans are - and that's as a person very strongly in favour of more, better and cheaper public transport. No surprise then that I agree very strongly with this latest press release from Bristol South Green Party and admire the work of Cllr Tess Green, green activist Pete Goodwin and others:

Bendybus is just a vanity project, say Greens

Threats to government funding for Bristol's first bus rapid transit route hasn't yet stopped the council spending on it. At the council meeting earlier this month, only one member voted against.

That member was Southville's Cllr Tess Green. She believes that even if it does win government cash, the new concrete guided bus route into the city from Long Ashton will be a white elephant. She says money would be better spent on schemes that could really make a difference - like light rail from Portishead into the city centre, or a first-class transport hub for all of Bristol at Temple Meads. Now she's lobbying the Department for Transport to explain her concerns.

Bristol South Green Party, meanwhile, has joined Tess and other local organisations in asking the government to refuse an order allowing it to go ahead.

"We've been studying the case made for this first bendy-bus route" said spokesman Pete Goodwin, "and find it doesn't do what it says on the tin. Traffic and congestion in the next twenty years get much worse with or without the bendy- bus. All this project does is encourage more commuting by road from North Somerset. They've conveniently forgotten about climate change, peak oil, and the awful congestion that we already suffer."

"This is a reckless waste of public money at a time when much more vital services are being cut, and community assets are being sold off. So far as we can see, it's just another part of the council's bid to turn the Green Belt around Ashton Vale into a big sports and entertainment venue, it serves no other major purpose. That makes it more a vanity project, at the cost of real public services."

ENDS
Note: The formal objections from Cllr Green and from the Bristol South party to the Bus Rapid Transit project can be read here .

Temple Meads transport hub vital for rail-use increase | Bristol24-7

Temple Meads transport hub vital for rail-use increase Bristol24-7

Pete Goodwin, the Greens candidate for Stockwood, is doing great work on this vital Bristol transport issue. I've commented on this Bristol 24-7 story, giving the wider picture on Green investment plans, beginning...Given the transport problems of the city and the country (congestion, stress, delays, ill-health, both local and global pollution, additional costs…) we need to do what is best to establish an integrated, sustainable transport system – and a hub next to Temple Meads is a vital part of this. People can see it makes good sense and is a great investment with benefits – economic, social and environmental – stretching out to the long term....

See also: http://stockwoodpete.blogspot.com/

More praise for Pete Goodwin, Stockwood's excellent Green Campaigner

I believe people of all political colours who really got to know Pete would agree with this posting made by the Bristol Blogger. Stockwood’s Pete Goodwin is indeed an excellent campaigner by any standard.

He has been asking questions of excellent quality on a wide range of extremely important topics for some time now and I have learned a lot from working with him. He deserves to be elected to the council where he would be in an even better position to keep this rotten, hypocritical council under pressure to do a better job.

He stood in Stockwood in 2007 and substantially raised the green vote to 20.49%, gaining second place ahead of the Lab and Lib candidates. This is a remarkable achievement given that before 2006 the Stockwood green vote was just 2.6%!!