Fares reduced on 8 and 9 service

I've just received an e-mail this morning from First Bus saying that they have temporarily cut fares on the 8 and 9 bus routes that serve the Cotham area. I don't know the detail, so I've just copy-and-pasted the message in below:

"I am writing to let you know about a very positive development we have introduced on Services 8 and 9 in Bristol from today (Monday 16 November).

We are reducing all our adult return fares on these services in a promotion that will continue until 27 March 2010. This means that customers will be able to travel from as little as 75p per journey when they buy a return ticket. There will also be no difference between peak and off peak prices. Child fares and singles will not be changing.

I hope you will welcome this promotion, which is a real investment on our part into making buses an attractive travel option. These fare reductions are aimed at stimulating trade as the difficult economic circumstances continue. We will of course be monitoring our customer numbers closely, and let you know how successful this proves to be.

This promotion marks the introduction of 12 brand new buses on services 8 and 9 representing an investment of £120,000 for each bus. The current buses will be moved onto Services 24 and 25 shortly making these easy access low floor routes, which in turn will make travelling easier for people with wheelchairs and pushchairs."

This sounds like good news, but don't shoot the messenger if it isn't as good as it sounds!

Tory councils shoot Integrated Transport Authority

Tory councillors from South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and BANES yesterday effectively ended any immediate prospect of Bristol and the surrounding area getting an Integrated Transport Authority in the near future.

Integrated Transport Authorities (formerly Passenger Transport Executives) are democratic structures that sit above individual councils to focus regional efforts to improve transport provision. The government gives them extra powers and funding to improve the infrastructure, open new services and generally co-ordinate things in ways that single councils acting alone cannot do, especially given the arbitrary political boundaries. They have been instrumental in improving public transport in places like South Yorkshire and Tyneside.

Progressing an Integrated Transport Authority for the wider Bristol area was one of the key recommendations of the Sustainable Travel Select Committee that I chaired last year and it also had cross-party support within in Bristol through a motion to Full Council. It is also one of the primary aims of the Transport for Greater Bristol Alliance pressure group - I supported their manifesto when I was elected in 2007.

Yesterday, a proposal (from Bristol Lib Dem Jon Rogers) to investigate an Integrated Transport Authority was defeated 3-1 by the Tory transport leads on the three surrounding councils. Very disappointing news and a symbol that they just want business-as-usual and not some new thinking about transport - remember, it was only an investigation that they vetoed. (For the sake of completeness and honesty, I should mention that my Lib Dem colleagues in South Gloucestershire are also opposed, though I remain baffled as to why.) It looks like the elections in 2011 will be the first opportunity to potentially move this forwards - Bristol needs at least one local 'friend' to be able to set up an Integrated Transport Authority.

This isn't a fatal blow to Bristol's aspirations for a better transport system, but it is certainly a setback. Councils working together are far more powerful, especially when we know that many of the city's transport problems span the city boundary. An Integrated Transport Authority would have given us collectively far more control over the bus services in and around the city, as well as a greater role in suburban rail. It was the Tories who privatised both these industries with disastrous consequences, leaving councils very little power to work in the best interests of residents, commuters and local businesses.

Tories call for traveller site chaos

I missed a fun bit from my Full Council synopsis! Tory Avonmouth councillor Siobhan Kennedy-Hall used the debate on the Core Strategy (see previous posting) to air her 'interesting' views on the Council's provision of transit sites for gypsies and travellers.

Her view, in a nutshell and wrapped up in some right-wing and not-very-progressive rhetoric, is that the Council should not spend taxpayers' money providing a transit site which just gets trashed by the ungrateful users. Leaving aside the fact that this was, I believe, the first time the Tories had mentioned this during the three year process of developing the Core Strategy, when there is a cross-party panel (which I chair) to discuss issues of contension, this was a singularly stupid and/or ill-informed line of argument.

Aside from the moral position, the Council has a duty to provide transit sites. If it fails to make adequate provision, there are no legal powers to remove travellers from other land, leading to very expensive legal action and costing the taxpayer a small king's ransom. I think the current legal framework was actually brought in by the last Conservative government, but I might be wrong. In any case, it would be truly bizarre for Bristol not to make provision, in common with other local authorities, and it would lead to absolute chaos. Yes, there is a cost, but it is dwarfed by the risky alternative. Labour's John Bees did an excellent job of slapping Siobhan Kennedy-Hall down, reinforced by Lib Dem Jon Rogers.

What I wasn't clear about was whether this was an official Bristol Tory position. Leader Richard Eddy and a couple of others were busy nodding along, while the eminently sensible Barbara Lewis had a look of quiet despair on her face. Either way, it's pretty clear that the Nasty Party is live and kicking in Bristol.

On a similar track, at the last Full Council meeting, Frome Vale Tory councillor James Stevenson heckled and shook his head throughout a speech supporting Alphonse Daudet Touna's application to remain in the UK. For those that don't know, Alphonse is a musician who does a lot of work for Bristol schools and is regarded as a real community asset - he's recently been given permission to stay after a lengthy appeal process, which is great news for the cultural life of the city!

Council gets serious, then silly and then serious again

Yesterday's Full Council meeting weighed in at a mighty five and a half hours. I guess that some people might be under the misapprehension that we councillors crave and enjoy this, but I can assure you that I always emerge with a tender headache and a sense of time that could have been better spent. That's not to say that these meeting are not important (see below), but you can't help feeling that there would be another way to conduct the business. Answers on a postcard, please...

The highlights from my perspective from last night's meeting were :

• The approval of the Bristol Development Framework Core Strategy. Big mouthful, but the potted highlights are (a) no scheduled loss of Green Belt for at least 10 years - Labour had earmarked around 100 acres to go, (b) Merton Rule Mark 2 approved to compel energy efficient new buildings and onsite renewable energy production, (c) protection of the Bristol-Bath Railway Path as part of the city's 'green infrastructure', (d) new rules to improve the amount and distribution of affordable housing, focusing on more affluent areas, and (e) new definition of 'community facilities' to include things like post offices and pubs, making it harder for them to be converted into other things.
• The approval to move forwards with the Gloucester Road Cumulative Impact Area. This mirrors what already happens on Whiteladies Road and is a piece of policy that limits the number of new licensed premises (esp. alcohol and take away food) that can be in a specific area. The proposed new one will include Gloucester Road from roughly The Arches to Ashley Down Road (with some extra bits), part of which is in Cotham Ward. The Whiteladies Road CIA works very well to limit nuisance to residents, although there are problems with it which I am trying to address at the moment, largely due to the rather rubbish piece of national legislation (Licensing Act 2003) that created the concept.
• A brief silly interlude about voting systems, with Labour and the Tories trying to switch from the current system to having 'all-up' elections every four years. I don't have a strong personal view on this, but there is certainly no compelling evidence that any frequency is better than the other. The fundamental problem is with not having proportional representation - there is no point in tinkering when the whole foundation is deeply flawed. Anyway, the bit I enjoyed was when Tory Peter Abraham pointed out that Labour buried a previous opportunity to switch systems when they were in power and so only now want to change the system after they lost! Bizarrely, I also noted that the Green Party councillor voted against our amendment calling for proportional representation.
  
• Cross-party backing for my motion on Get Serious on CO2. This commits the Council to working towards a 40% reduction in carbon emissions for Bristol as a whole by 2020 and it is part of a wider campaign by Friends of the Earth. Despite Labour trying to renege on a deal to allow time for this to be discussed, it was passed through without opposition. We were also treated to a rather surreal exposition of how Labour are leading the way globally on climate change, despite carbon emissions rising in the 12 years that they've been in power.

That is fundamentally the problem with Full Council meetings - lots of really important business to transact, but also lots of posturing, point-scoring and political grandstanding. It's all part of the democratic process, but the danger is that the important stuff for real people is lost in all the background noise.

Drugs policy crisis rumbles on

Three more independent advisers have quit following governmental interference in the running of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the sacking of its chair, Professor David Nutt. This is now a total of five that have gone, basically because Alan Johnson as Home Secretary couldn't stomach scientists disagreeing with his predetermined and evidence-blind policy on drugs. I wonder if a more plyable set of experts will step up to the plate or whether we'll see a U-turn?

P.S. It's well worth checking out Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog (and now book) on the issue of how the media and politicians misuse science around drugs policy. I'm just finishing the book at the moment and it's a very witty expose of exactly how poorly served we are by newspapers and television on science issues.

Bigging up Bristol in Brussels

I've just finished a hectic round of meetings last night and this morning with European Commission officials in Brussels. I was passing through on my way to the Netherlands and I so it seemed like a good opportunity to stop off and talk about some of the ideas that we are playing with in Bristol at the moment around energy, peak oil, waste disposal and climate change.

Specifically, I was able to discuss funding opportunities around combined heat and power, district heating systems, climate adaptation, energy security and a possible hydrogen economy. The last topic is one that I have become very interested and involved in the last few months and I was lobbying the person who controls a £1bn EU fund for hydrogen-based research and development projects about whether they would allow applications for bids around water-based public transport. Encouragingly, the signs are good. I am a member of the BETS Hydrogen Strategy Board and I am looking forward to being able to report back on the opportunities.

It was great to be able to go into these meetings and be proud of Bristol's record. Our Green Capital status makes us a player on the European stage, even though there is much more to do. In a European context, the UK lags some way behind and there are hundreds of great ideas out there that we could and should be building on (i.e. stealing).

I'm off to Amsterdam on Sunday, including a trip to see their new hydrogen-powered ferry (plus some sightseeing), but in Dordrecht for the next few days at the European Quiz Championships.

Stadium and sustainability

I have just submitted my public statement for tomorrow's Development Control Committee (aka planning committee) about the proposed new Bristol City stadium at Ashton Vale.

I have focused entirely on the sustainability aspects of the application, which are really quite poor. I know that other people will be commenting on the higher profile aspects like transport and the use of Green Belt, so I wanted to focus my limited time on an area which would otherwise probably get little attention in the media hubbub.

In essence, the proposed stadium has very little in the way of sustainability features. It does have rainwater capture, which is good, but no commitment to a building standard (e.g. BREEAM), no onsite renewable energy and no specific energy efficiency features that I can see. This would clearly be a blow for our efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of the city - a larger stadium, with more extra features, plus the redevelopment of the older site, will inevitably mean more carbon emissions.

From an interesting alternative angle, the FA (Football Association, for those not in the know) is making sustainability a key component of England's bid for the World Cup, along with diversity. As a result they have high expectations of what the host cities and their stadiums will be able to offer. Ironically then, the building of an unsustainable stadium could undermine the city's aspirations to host the World Cup, which as a football fan, I support.

The members of the planning committee will come up with their own decisions about the merits of the stadium application, but I hope that my statement will bring sustainability into their minds. It's the sort of thing that can be dealt with by imposing planning conditions, even if they are minded to accept the application.

Worry when scientists' heads start rolling

The controversy continues to build about Alan Johnson's disastrous handling of his scientific advisers on drugs. As predicted, other government advisers are now jumping ship after he sacked Professor David Nutt for talking good scientific sense on drugs. The latest appears to be that the whole of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs are threatening to stand down.

To my mind, there is a failure of political process when a dogmatic position flies in the face of established evidence. Labour's approach to drug policy now appears to more like religion than science - let's decide a priori what the truth is and then try to find miracles to 'prove' it.

I was getting hopeful that this Labour government was starting to take a more grown up and informed approach to drugs, but it seems like the knee has well and truly jerked back. Maybe it's because there is a General Election in the air. It's also quite a constrast with the treatment of scientists who get the 'right' answer, like on gung-ho nuclear power.

Alarm bells always start to ring when a government starts ignoring its scientific advisers - and it isn't just Labour who are guilty. Perhaps most famously, Tory minister John Gummer (shown here apparently enjoying a nice burger with his young daughter) was busy promoting British beef as safe in 1990, even when government scientists had proved a link to BSE (aka Mad Cow Disease). People died then (and still are) and people will continue to die if the government doesn't get its drug policy sorted out.

I used to have a lot of political respect for Alan Johnson, but it's pretty much all gone after this fiasco of his own making and subsequent handling of it in the press.

UPDATE : now the government's Chief Scientific Adviser has come out to support Prof Nutt's view. Thank goodness for people of scientific integrity.

Railing on - a work of frustration

I've been pondering for a while whether to make this posting as, in some ways, it plays into the hands of those who have a different view of the world.

I am off on a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands next week - partly for pleasure and partly as a lobbying and fact-finding mission for the Council. I will be talking to people in Brussels about EU funding opportunities for climate change projects in Bristol and having a look at the hydrogen-powered ferry in Amsterdam - something that we are looking into for Bristol.

For a number of reasons including the carbon one, I resolved to do the trip by rail. This is the first time I've travelled internationally by train, though I do it routinely for long-distance trips in the UK. Anyway, my Belgium/Netherlands trip works out at about the same price as flying once you factor everything in and takes only about an hour longer, without all the unproductive messing around that flying entails. All surprisingly good.

Then you try to actually book it! People complain about the British train service, but it gets even more tricky when you cross the 21 miles of water. Because there are four legs to my journey (Bristol - London - Brussels - Amsterdam, with a stop off in Dordrecht), it means booking separately for each. In fact, the Bristol-London bit was about the easiest and, thanks to the Euro exchange rate, about the cheapest mile-for-mile. The Belgian/Dutch train website charges a hefty booking fee for each transaction and won't let you book multiple tickets at once. It also tells you that you have to prebook international tickets, so you don't have any choice but to stump up extra money to use a credit card. And it's a mess from a usability perspective.

This is something that the EU needs to get hold of if it is going to persuade people to fly less and find alternatives. It'll be no shock that I am keen Europhile and it is exactly this sort of issue where the EU makes sense - helping people to travel freely around the continent. There needs to be a single website for international journeys that brokers with all the individual rail companies to make it easier for the customer. Thankfully, I only have to cross a couple of borders - who knows how tricky it would have been if I'd added in another country or two.

This experience hasn't put me off, but next time I will be older and wiser!

Proposed biofuel plant at Avonmouth

I have been getting quite a bit of mail about the planning application that is in for a palm oil power plant at Avonmouth, so I thought it would be helpful to repeat what I know here too.

I know and accept all the arguments about unsustainable biofuel. It is crazy on lots of levels to cut down rainforest (usually) and replace it with plantations. There is damage to biodiversity, a loss of potential food generation for local people and it's not even very carbon friendly when you factor in the carbon sink loss. However...

Legally, planning decisions cannot take into account whether people are generally "against this sort of thing" or concerns about impact elsewhere - if it's a legal operation, then it is only the local impacts that can be used in the assessment. Being opposed to biofuel isn't going to win the argument here. The planning decision will be made on the basis of things like traffic, air pollution, flooding, biodiversity, safety or visual amenity. Objections that go in that talk about these sorts of things will be far more effective than ones that talk about orang utans.

I know that some people think that this is wrong and I probably agree with them, at least to an extent. However, it is only reasons based in planning law that can be used to inform a decision. Failure to do so would simply lead to an appeal to an inspector that would be accepted, taking all control away from the Council. As I understand it, there are strong planning concerns about the application and these could well lead to its rejection.

Sadly, the last two governments have eroded the powers that local councils have, including in planning decisions - and there are plans to take even more away. I guess what I am trying to stress here is that whatever decision is taken cannot be seen as a reflection on Bristol or the Council - the same standards are applied nationally and we are just unlucky that it's landed here. I'd love to have the power to arbitrarily veto planning applications, but sadly I don't!