Plucky community brings down the big boys
The typically Bristolian working class community of Ashton Vale is celebrating tonight after halting the city's richest man and tax exile in his tracks.
Bristol City Football Club Chairman Steve Lansdown's efforts to build a £96m stadium, partly funded by us, on our greenbelt were wrecked today when the proposed site of the stadium was declared a Town Green by an independent planning inspector.

This means - according to the law - that no development should take place on the land.

This has caused something of a frenzy of stupidity among our pro-supermarket, pro-tax exile local councillors.

Labour's Southville Councillor Sean Beynon and Bedminster Councillor Mark Bradshaw were out and about on Twitter proclaiming that the decision "seems to belong to the era of 'Heartbeat' not an aspiring 2018 World Cup host city."

Not quite. The Town Green legislation used by Ashton Vale residents was updated by Bradshaw and Beynon's Labour Government in the Commons Act 2006. Town Greens are not some accidental hangover from the 1950s that are in need of urgent reform. This is state-of-the-art legislation to protect and support local communities from rapacious developers. Obviously something local Labour councillors are not bothered about and see as old-fashioned.

Meanwhile Lib Dem Neil Harrison has stopped all comments on his blog related to the Town Green decision after it became obvious that the officers he employed have spent the last three weeks lying through their teeth to him.

Harrison was told that the council received the planning inspector's report on 8 September. No they didn't. Council officers received it on the 27 August and have been planning their PR response since then.

Then he was told early today that the report would be published at noon tomorrow while Chief Exec Ormondroyd was virtually holding a private press conference to tell friendly reporters what was going on.

Obviously the press are far more important to council officers than our elected representatives.

And finally to Lib Dem Deputy leader, Simo Cook, Steve Lansdown's big fan and supporter at the council.

He told us today: "“.... The law behind this application is a complete nonsense, but I am utterly determined to find a way through it.”

Really? Does he not realise that "finding a way through" a legal decision to get a stadium built for his wealthy tax exile partner might - itself - not be legal?

This one will run and run.

Links:

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Environment-Plann...us.en
http://www.bcfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10327~2155764,....html
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Ashton-Vale-wins-to....html
http://twitter.com/mark_bradshaw/status/24687595411
http://cotham.blogspot.com/2010/08/stadium-flak-looms.html