I'm grateful to the Bristol Evening Post for its reporting of Bristol's littered, graffiti-covered, vandalised 'grot spots'. This includes the coverage of my campaign about the derelict petrol station on Wells Rd, Knowle ('Clear up your petrol station, developers told', Bristol Evening Post, March 5). Its important that we get such areas cleaned up and even better change the law so that councils have much greater powers to ensure that owners of land and property can't abandon areas to rot for months and years unused.
I have to publicly correct just one small error in the subtitle of this story however. It reads 'Councillor angry at litter and graffiti at derelict site'. For the record, whilst I am certainly not happy about the litter and graffiti, I'm not yet a councillor! People in Knowle should of course feel free to make me their councillor, if they feel I deserve their vote, when I stand as the Green Party candidate for Knowle in the forthcoming May local elections.
I have been active on a number of issues affecting Knowle and Bristol for a very long time now (over 20 years), including recently: campaigning to keep Jubilee Pool open; highlighting the risk to childhood health of the air pollution around the heavily congested Wells Rd; and trying to get councillors and government to put waste reduction and re-use before recycling, to name just three, so this is not the first time people have assumed that I'm already elected.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
I'm not a Councillor - yet !
Labels:
air pollution,
Bristol City Council,
grot spots,
health,
Knowle,
local pool,
recycling
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Nice to see you in the Evening Pest talking about the former Texaco petrol station eyesore on the Wells Road. But may I correct you? The article reports you as saying that it closed down 18 months ago. In fact the petrol station shut down at the beginning of June 2004, so in a couple of months time it will actually be THREE YEARS since the site was last used.
ReplyDeleteApologies if this is a tad pedantic, but I feel it's better to be accurate, because it gives more clout.
Good luck with your election campaign for May, but please remember to make your presence felt well in advance by putting electoral communication through people's letterboxes. As a resident - and floating voter - of these parts, I regularly pay attention to what comes through the door. But I've noticed in recent years that the LibDems are streets ahead in this respect. In other words, they give the impression that they care, because they're willing to keep people abreast of what they're doing. I appreciate this, even if I may not choose to vote for them. Conservative and Labour leaflets are generally not worth bothering with - you're lucky if get anything - and Greens are slightly better than this poor showing, but - I have to say - not by much. Leafleting is an easy way of increasing your profile, and I guarantee you it's good for votes, but you must be prepared to wear out shoe leather to do it.
Thanks for the correction, though what I said to the Post was 'at least 18 months possibly longer' (see original blog entry) and its not quite come out like that in their story!
ReplyDeleteYou've doubtless seen that the petrol station just been demolished. Hurrah!
ReplyDelete