Whiteladies HSBC to go?

A planning application has been logged to convert the HSBC Bank on Whiteladies Road (on the junction with Westfield Park) to a bar / restaurant. The application number is 10/00231/F and you can see all the details on the Council website.

I can know this will be a very unpopular news with HSBC customers - the nearest branch is, I think, the one on College Green. It sounds like "The World's Local Bank" is getting a little less local for people in Cotham, Redland and Clifton!

I don't think the plans will go down particularly well with the people living in Grosvenor Court above the bank, either. They will have had letters notifying them sent in the last week or so.

Comments on planning applications should be sent, before 11th March, to development.management@bristol.gov.uk, preferably quoting the application number.

Climate Change & Energy Security Framework

Last night, the Council Cabinet signed off the new Climate Change & Energy Security Framework. This lays out, in outline, the approach that the Council will be taking over the ten years with regard to reducing carbon emissions and responding to the peak oil agenda. It includes 20 strategic approaches that we will be pursuing, linked to 40 actions that will be taking place during the 2010/11 year.

Council officers need a big pat on the back for getting something so impressive and wide-ranging together so quickly (two months basically) - however, now the real work begins in actually making it all happen. There are lots of big challenges to overcome, especially in a time of financial uncertainty and strong constraints.

The Framework can be found as part of the Cabinet papers - click on the link to item 8 on the agenda. The most interesting bit - from my perspective - is Appendix 2.

Minor victory on A boards

Following separate complaints from two local residents, I asked the Council's enforcement officer to visit Whiteladies Road and look at whether the A boards were causing an obstruction. He has now done so and four shops have been told that they are not permitted to place A boards on the pavement as they are stopping pedestrians (and especially parents with buggies, wheelchair users and partially-sighted people) from getting around. I won't name-and-shame, but the specific ones that I had complaints about were among those removed. Good news!

Community website - Lansdown Road

A quick link through to a new website set up by a resident of Lansdown Road, with loads of useful information about the local area, contact numbers, events and so on. It not just for the one street, but covers the whole Chandos Road 'ladder' of side streets. It's great stuff and lovely to see residents taking the lead like this!

Biofuel plant rejected

Very happy to briefly report that the Development Control (North) Committee turned down the W4B application for a tropical biofuel plant in Avonmouth. The voting went 6 against, 2 for and one abstention.

The debate finally centered around whether the term 'natural environment' in the Bristol Local Plan should be understood to apply just to Bristol's boundaries or the wider world. I had argued for the latter interpretation and the majority of the Committee agreed. To my reading, the Plan is pretty unambiguous. Page 18 provides the following :

"For example, the choice of materials used in constructing and fitting out a building can have implications for tropical rainforests (in the case of hardwood materials) and the ozone (in the case of insulation or air conditioning units)."

If anyone can convincingly explain to me how these examples are different in principle from a tropical biofuel plant, I will be very pleased to listen. Last time I looked, Bristol was not over-supplied with tropical rainforests and it did not have a monopoly on ozone. So, the Local Plan must be concerned with environmental impacts beyond its borders.

Couple this with another section on Page 18 that reads :

"The implication of certain actions for the environment are not always immediately clear, or easy to determine. A precautionary approach is, therefore, desirable."

Based on these two quotes, I think it is entirely reasonable for the Committee to judge that a tropical biofuel plant could well have an impact on the natural environment and that it is better to be safe than sorry. And this is what they did.

P.S. I am voting former Cotham councillor Fabian Breckels as my "Labour Councillor of the Month" for his contribution to the meeting. He's helped to restore the karmic balance after Paul Smith and Sam Townend's brazen and craven media-chasing!

Political opportunism at its worst

I've just been down to see the anti-biofuel protestors outside the Council House, but it seems to have been hijacked by a load of political hacks (like me, I hear you say), so I didn't hang around.

Most shameless (as usual) were Labour candidates Paul Smith and Sam Townend, trying to push their way into a photo shoot. As far as I can see (and I stand to be corrected if I have missed it), neither of them submitted an objection to the planning application (out of the 800+ people who did) and neither have put in a statement to the planning meeting. They have simply turned up to try to get on telly. What's worse is that it is their Labour Government's subsidy system that make biofuels viable in the first place and who are forcing these plants to be built in a mad scramble to try to meet EU renewable energy targets.

Tory hopeful Charlotte Leslie was there too, but, credit where credit's due, she has done some work around this issue and has both submitted an objection and a statement. That's not to say that I trust the Tories on the environment one bit, but at least she has some right to the media coverage unlike the Labour opportunisists!

Biofuel plant comes to planning meeting

UPDATE : the full list of statements to the planning committee (including mine) is now available. Also, the application was discussed on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 - it's 1h20m into the recording.

Here's the press release that I've put out this morning about tomorrow's planning meeting to decide on the Avonmouth biofuel plant. I believe that there is a strong planning case that can be put to the Development Control Committee and I will (hopefully - depend on whether I am called) be making a formal statement there.


BRISTOL Lib Dems are calling for the city council's planning committee to decisively reject the application for a mega tropical biofuel power plant at Avonmouth tomorrow (24th).

Council leader Barbara Janke has put in a formal objection to the W4B scheme and has already written to Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, urging the government to stop subsidising such projects and to allow councils to use their own local planning policies when considering planning applications for biofuel plants.

Councillor Janke said: “I am very concerned about the impact that the production of the likely fuels such as palm oil and jatropha oil would have on the countries where they are grown. Without government subsidies, such plants would not be viable.”

Fellow Lib Dem councillor Neil Harrison (assistant executive member for sustainability) said: “There are plenty of reasons to be very worried about tropical biofuels like palm oil. Most compelling for me is that there is not strong scientific evidence that it is any better for the environment than fossil fuels. Yet the government’s subsidy scheme gives operators more of a financial boost than they do for wind farms!"

“There is a debate to be had at the planning meeting as to whether there are sufficient grounds in Bristol’s planning rules to reject the application. Decisions by the committee can only be made in accordance with the planning rules. I strongly believe that there are good grounds for a refusal and I have submitted a statement to the committee laying this out in detail."

“The Council’s chief planning document says that renewable energy projects should only be approved where there is no unacceptable impact on the natural environment, but it also says that it will adopt a precautionary approach where impacts are uncertain."

“In effect, if the committee members are persuaded that there is even a danger of damage to the natural environment in the UK or abroad, then they are able to vote against the application with full confidence.”

Yellow lines around Hampton Park

Plans are afoot to put double yellow lines at various points on Hampton Road, Hampton Park and the surrounding roads - see the map to the right and click on it to make larger.

I have been pushing for the Chandos Road junction to be done for a couple of years for safety and traffic flow improvements, so I'm happy to see this coming forwards.

The plan is also to limit parking at the junction of Ashgrove Road as there have been problems there with people blocking access, especially for emergency vehicles. The junction with Melville Road will also be done as there is a problem here with corner parking blocking lines of sight.

The main reason this is happening now is that the petrol station is having problems with parked cars blocking access for their tankers. Our very sensible and helpful local traffic engineer has added on the other improvements at the same time as a job-lot.

The formal consultation leaflet will be going out to local residents in the next couple of weeks, so people will have a chance to comment before anything happens.

Half a million more for energy and carbon innovation

Below is a press release that I put out on Thursday about the extra money I've been negotiating in the Council's budget. I had hoped to have this public before now, but it's taken a lot of work to get the details agreed between the various different parts of the Council - it's always difficult to get agreement when lots of people are involved, but we need sustainability to involve everyone.

This is tied into the new Climate Change and Energy Security Framework (and the attached action plan), which is due for approval at the Cabinet meeting on 25th February. This sets out our response to both the carbon reduction and peak oil agendas.

Remember, Labour short-sightedly and unambitiously want to bung all this money into insulation, while the Tories want to axe it altogether for a tiny Council Tax cut!

Here it is:

The Liberal Democrat administration at Bristol City Council is putting an extra £500,000 this year into work to cut the city’s carbon footprint and develop secure and sustainable local energy supplies.

Councillor Neil Harrison, Assistant Executive Member for Sustainability, says, “Late last year we pledged to cut Bristol’s carbon footprint by 40% by 2020 and to act to ensure that we have a reliable supply of sustainable energy once fossil fuels begin to decline. We’re now putting the money in to start this process – this should add up to at least £5m over the next ten years.”

The money will initially be allocated to :

• £100,000 extra for domestic energy efficiency measures for local householders, such as insulation and solar panels
• £90,000 for a Community Green Challenge Fund, enabling local community groups to access money for local projects, such as sustainable food production
• £75,000 to accelerate the programme of large-scale energy efficiency and energy production projects across the city, such as biomass boilers in schools, district heating systems and a local energy supply company
• £100,000 into planning for a more sustainable future, including supporting a first year emphasis on a showpiece eco-housing project and a significant increase in car club facilities
• £90,000 into extending the Green Capital initiative working with businesses and the wider community, promoting a sustainable and successful economy
• £45,000 towards live energy data displays in public buildings and homes to encourage sustainable behaviours and working practices.

Councillor Harrison continues, “We have gone for a range of short-term winners like home insulation and longer-term projects that we need to start now if they are to bear fruit five years down the line. They all fit in with our recently-published action plan on climate change and energy security.”

“Our objective is to rethink the way in which the city works. The groundbreaking Peak Oil report that the Council published before Christmas made it clear that we have to plan for a future where fossil fuels are running low and energy prices rise sharply. This will doubtlessly happen in my lifetime and probably sooner rather than later. It is vital that we act now to develop Bristol’s own energy production to protect us – it makes good financial sense, as well as environmental sense.”

“This agenda goes hand-in-hand with our commitment to cut carbon. Bristol already has one of the lowest carbon footprints of any city in the UK, but we still need to do more to do our bit to combat climate change. The Council is showing the leadership the city needs on this issue and we hope that residents, businesses and community organisations will join us.”

New approach to lost trees

Pretty much in a direct response to the debacle of the lost trees at Cotham School and the fuss that residents and I made about it, and subsequent cases where developers have wanted to fell trees as part of building or rebuilding works (like at Colston's Girls School), Council officers have been working on a clarification of the policy around replacement trees. I met with them yesterday to discuss progress.

It's all looking really good. The problem is that the planning policy is 13 years old and rather vague. It can be read to mean that when you chop down a tree you simply have to replace it with another one - so one a 15m tree gets replaced by a 3m sapling, with all the resultant loss of canopy and visual amenity.

The Council in the process of replacing its planning policy, something which I am heavily involved in. One of the new targets which we have set is to increase tree canopy coverage from 13% at present, probably to 30% - this hasn't been set yet, but the principle of increase has, provided that the Secretary of State signs it off.

The new approach would make clear exactly how many trees would need to be replanted to replace any lost ones. This would be pragmatically based on the size of the existing trees, so one-for-one for little ones, but maybe five or more for large ones. The net effect would be to grow the tree canopy in the city over time. All good news! Of course, this doesn't give developers free range to chop down trees at will - it means that they would think twice about incurring the additional cost of replanting, hopefully pushing them to retain mature trees where at all possible.

The new guidance will be going out now for consultation with developers and with folks like the Tree Forum, with a view to implementation in the summer. The outcome should be fewer mature trees chopped down and more new ones planted - a good result!

Tories and Labour seek green cuts

The amendments for the Council budget have just been made public and both the Tories and Labour are looking to cut investment for green initiatives.

The Tories are looking to axe £500,000 for a "feasibility into reduction of carbon footprint" (I'm not even sure what this is - I simply don't think it exists!) primarily in order to fund a tiny Council Tax reduction, road repairs and little bungs for pet projects in their marginal wards. Their green sop is to increase the number of plastic recycling sites - they don't seem to realise that (a) nearly all useable sites have now been used, and (b) we are moving towards kerbside collection, with a pilot starting soon. So much for Cameron's green credentials!! Also, they don't seem to have grasped that more plastic recycling would actually have practically no impact on Bristol's carbon footprint, due to the way it is calculated.

Labour are looking to move £500,000 for "investing in a low carbon future" into insulation for low income homes. The irony is that they don't seem have realised that a hefty chunk of the £500k is for insulation already! I do have more sympathy with this amendment than with the ill-informed Tory one, but it would put all our green eggs into one basket. It would effectively axe lots of long-term projects (e.g. district heating schemes) which would provide much greater carbon reductions, as well as taking away other schemes to stimulate other types of environmentally-useful activity, like fitting solar panels. I'm not even sure that there is scope for as much insulation as they seem to want to provide - the criteria for the national scheme that they want to tap into are quite restrictive and most properties that want it have already been done.

Arguably, Labour's amendment isn't a cut in green funding. But the expert's assessment is quite clear that it is cut in green ambition and green outcomes, describing the impact as:

"Loss of ability to meet unanimous Full Council target to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2020 and to help the Council and partners, including business, adapt and innovate in response to the widely-respected Peak Oil report."

I couldn't agree more - the Tories and Labour publicly sign up for a cut in carbon emissions in November 2009 and then try to axe the extra money to achieve it in February 2010.

Residents Parking - consultation result

The results of the residents' parking consultation were released yesterday. The short summary from the Cotham perspective is that the area north of Cotham Road voted against joining the Kingsdown scheme (54% to 40%), but there continues to be majority support in the Kingsdown areas south of Cotham Road, albeit very close (46.1% to 45.5%!). This includes a tiny sliver of Cotham Ward, so I continue to have an interest.

From my perspective, this means that the area north of Cotham Road definitely won't be in the initial pilot, although I am taking steps to ensure that they have the option to opt-in later if they wish. This area will benefit, however, from work to help to ameliorate any knock-on problems, which might include extra yellow lines on corners and extra attention from wardens to avoid dangerous parking.

The next steps concerning the Kingsdown zone are being considered at the moment and I will post them up when I know more.

BBC Palm Oil programme

Quick update from a previous post. The BBC West piece about the proposed tropical biofuel power plant at Avonmouth will now air on Monday 15th February at 7.30pm on BBC1. I don't know what line it is going to take, but it's likely to be interesting either way.

The planning application will almost certainly be discussed at the Development Control (North) Committee at 2pm on Wednesday 24th February in the Council House. I will put up a link here to the papers when they are available. It appears that the meeting will be webcase too.

Meanwhile, no reply yet from Ed Miliband in response to Barbara Janke's letter about subsidies for tropical biofuels and inadequate planning frameworks.

Walking Strategy Review launch

I have recently confirmed with Council officers the process for reviewing and extending Bristol's Walking Strategy. (I know that some people reading this will now be thinking "Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot...").

The overall aim is to make it easier for people to get around the city and offer an alternative to other forms of transport. For this to happen, people need to see walking as safe, pleasant, healthy and preferably enjoyable. Broadly what we are hoping to achieve is :

• to tie together the existing work that the Council does to support pedestrians (e.g. maintenance, enforcements etc etc) to make it work more effectively.
  
• to set various principles that are important (e.g. a minimum width for pavements) for supporting walking.
  
• to identify priorities for improvements (e.g. new benches or lights) within existing resources - or more importantly, how we identify priorities.
  
• to look at big long-term projects that will make easier for people to get around (e.g. new bridges), which we might be able to progress if we can find additional money.

What we will be looking for over the next six months are ideas to go into the strategy document that will, in turn, influence things like planning decisions, maintenance schedules and short- and long-term resources. We are hoping to get input from a range of organisations and individuals with an interest in walking.

To kick this process off, we are holding a launch meeting on Monday 22nd February from 1:30pm to 3:30pm in Meeting Room 1 of the Colston Hall. All are effectively welcome, but you will need to let me or the transport officers know. The meeting will be an idea-gathering session - a little bit of context and some rough ideas to start and then a chance to throw more ideas in and talk about priorities. Obviously, the focus will be on citywide principles, rather than on specific local issues.

The big idea that I want to progress is that of 'showcase walking routes' - key walkways which are heavily used by pedestrians and which could be improved by a little bit of extra attention that will make people want to use them even more. An obvious one from my own patch would be Whiteladies Road. For example, it has no benches anywhere on its length (important for older people), is cluttered with A boards and has cars habitually blocking the dropped kerbs (important for parents with kids, disabled people and older people). A bit of focus could easily increase the number of people walking and leaving their cars at home.

Renewables at the new stadium

I've just heard that the Development Control Committee has imposed a legal condition on the new Bristol City stadium that they have to provide at least 10% of their energy needs from on-site renewable sources.

This is something that I have been pushing for since the application was submitted, both because it is the right thing to do in climate terms and because it will actually enhance Bristol's chances of getting the World Cup. I submitted a detailed statement to both tonight's meeting and the one back in November.

It's a no-brainer really - a big building with lots of flat roof space! The irony is that they will make the capital cost back in about ten years with PV solar panels. Congratulations to my colleague Simon Rayner, councillor for Kingsweston, for taking the bull by the horns at the Committee and making this happen.

No zoo parking on the Downs

I have just objected to Bristol Zoo's application for five years of temporary parking on the Downs for the second time in a row. I very strongly believe that the Downs is there as a green asset for the whole city and not as an overflow car park for a commerical enterprise, albeit it a worthwhile and valued one.

Back in October 2008, they were given a year to sort out their parking provision, but it is appears that they have not done so. There are other options, like developing more on-site parking or encouraging people to come by means other than private cars.

Full details of the application are available on the Council website. There is an e-petition that people can sign, but it is more useful to send your comments to development.management@bristol.gov.uk. It is likely to be discussed at the Development Control Committee on 24th February.

Blocked pavements

It's funny how things sometimes come along in batches. I have had two phone calls in the last two days from two different partially-sighted residents in Cotham. They were both complaining about the flowering of advertising A boards on and around Whiteladies Road in recent weeks. They both find them really difficult to navigate and I've had previous complaints from wheelchair users.

They are right too! For example, the relatively new Somerfield store has a stonking four boards outside on the pavement, while a couple of shops further down have strategically arranged theirs so that pedestrians have to weave in and out of them. Further down still, there are some blocking the bus stops.

I am told (though I don't fully believe it), that there is limited legal scope for the Council to regulate A boards unless they are actually obstructing the pavement. I had the enforcement officer visit a couple of months back and remove a few, but he was happy with a number that I thought posed an obvious obstruction, especially where the pavement is narrow. To my view, you should be able to get a double buggy down a pavement as a good ready reckoner and I don't think this would hold on some bits of Whiteladies.

I have asked the enforcement person to come for another visit on the back of the current increase, but I will also be rolling this up into the work that I have just commissioned on reviewing and extending the walking strategy for the city. I will be seeing exactly what scope there is to prioritise pedestrians and especially those who have mobility and visual difficulties. A month on crutches reminded me that not everyone gets around that easily!

I understand and respect the need for businesses to advertise, especially in a recession and especially the small businesses that local people rightly prize very highly. However, we seem to be caught in a bit of an arms race at the moment, where one gets a sign, so the next place along gets a bigger one or two and so on. I don't very much like the commercialisation of public spaces, but where it becomes an impediment to people getting around, it really needs to be reined in.

Letter to Milliband about tropical biofuels

I thought people might be interested in seeing a letter sent last week from Lib Dem Council Leader Barbara Janke to Ed Milliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. It concerns the Labour Government's active support for tropical biofuels through the Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) system, whereby an energy company actually gets a greater subsidy for building a biofuel plant than for a wind farm! It also asks whether it is the Government's intention that councils should not be able to factor in globalised carbon production and local climate change effects into planning decisions.

To view the letter, click on the images to the right and you should get it full size. I will post up the reply when it comes in.

UPDATE : you can read the parliamentary question asked by Stephen Williams MP about biofuel ROCs and the answer from the Government.