Random Stuff!

[TheLocalYokel]

One tiny crumb of comfort for the Bristol region, where the city itself has been removed from rail electrification plans, is that the newly-built depot on the edge of the city near Bristol Parkway Station (actually in the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire) for servicing/maintenance of the bimodal trains has begun the recruiting process of 150 staff.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/new-ra...s-to-bristol/story-30114319-detail/story.html

 

[Aviador]

This is not about Bath's UNESCO World Heritage status but it's all about the government trying to save a few bob

It's besides the point really when electrification is the only serious way of upgrading the rail network. The government can come up with any number of excuses to avoid spending money outside of London. I seem to recall London Crossrail costing in the region of £14bn.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

New M49 junction to open up Europe's largest brownfield site for employment land

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/new-m4...loyment-land/story-30123634-detail/story.html

Highways England have announced a new motorway spur from the M49 onto Severnside which it is anticipated will lead to thousands of jobs. Work should start later this year.

Severnside/Avonmouth is an Enterprise Area along a several mile stretch beside the estuary that is partly in Bristol and partly in the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire. Already there are numerous warehouses and distribution centres including Central Park. The M4/M5 interchange is close by.

http://www.centralparkbristol.co.uk/local-occupiers-demographics/

The thriving Bristol Port that encompasses Avonmouth Docks and Royal Portbury Docks is also nearby and both docks have motorway access (pity the same cannot be said for BRS). The new motorway spur should open open up this area even more.

A global real estate specialist said, "The implications of the new M49 junction for Bristol and the South West are far-reaching. This significant infrastructure improvement will provide improved access and unlock the huge economic potential of the Avonmouth/Severnside Enterprise Area, and this will in turn boost the economy of the wider Bristol area."

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Gender neutral terms

A senior female cricket administrator in Australia wants to ban gender specific terms in cricket such as batsman, third man, twelfth man and replace them with such names as batter, third and twelfth. I'm surprised she doesn't want to get rid of short leg, square leg and silly mid-on altogether as this could be considered (by some) to be demeaning to women cricketers.

This is the latest foray into so-called political correctness. Firemen are now firefighters; policemen are now police officers.

There is frequent controversy about the word chairman with some organisation having a chair to oversee meetings. The thought of a wooden piece of furniture holding sway in this way is amusing although some chairs probably have more sense than some chairmen or chairwomen.

It always seems to me that calls for such gender neutralising only occur when a masculine expression is thought (by some) to be inappropriate. In the medical profession we have female specific terms such as matron and sister yet no-one seems anxious to have those titles replaced with something more gender neutral. You can be certain that if nursing had been a predominantly male profession and the supervisor was known as a brother the name would have been replaced years ago.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Is Bristol The New London?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-hall/is-bristol-the-new-london_b_14036310.html

An editor of the Rough Guide has published a blog asking whether Bristol is the new London. It can never be that but she makes a good case for it as a miniaturised version when she says:

London is an obvious destination for tourists to flock to when they visit the UK. It’s got everything: Museums, Gastronomy, History, Culture, Class, Theatre and oh, those Victorian and Georgian buildings! Well, Bristol pretty much offers the same, on a smaller scale.

She makes the point that Bristol is obviously not as well known as London throughout the world nor as well-known as, say, Manchester or Liverpool. It used to be. In the late 1700s only two English cities had populations of more than 50,000 - London and Bristol - and Bristol was England's second city for hundreds of years (Norwich and York might put up a spirited argument pushing their cases). It was only with the Industrial Revolution that Bristol slipped back in the pecking order as the great Northern and Midland cities took root and grew and grew.

These days having a Premier League football club also increases a city's identity around the world.

I think she captures the essence of the city with this comment:

So is Bristol the new London? Well, residents who are finding London ever more expensive to live in are flocking to the city in droves. But as a visitor, in short, Bristol is a place in the countryside; a city vibe with cozy countryside appeal. You really shouldn’t miss it when you visit the UK.

Bristol also fell victim to a champagne socialist city council in the 1980s and 1990s who believed that pushing the city's claims as a major tourist centre was elitist and they would spend no money, or next to nothing, on promoting the place. Despite that Bristol consistently appeared and still appears at number 7 or 8 (it often swaps with Oxford) in the Office of National Statistics (ONS) league table of annual overseas visitors to UK cities.

Its official population is now around 450,000 (up slightly from the figure quoted in the blog) but in reality it's bigger than that because there is another 'city' physically attached to its northern and eastern edge (you can't see the join) called the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire which takes the unbroken urban area population above 650,000.

Nevertheless, at times the place does feel like a very large village around the river and harbourside draped further over the many hills that pop up all around the city. The commercial docks are hidden discreetly on the edge of the city along the banks of the Severn estuary. In some ways its toy town airport is entirely in keeping with Bristol itself.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

GWR electrification

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has slated Network Rail and the Government over the GWR electrification fiasco which is years behind schedule with the cost rising threefold to over £5 billion. It is now supposed to be complete by the end of 2018.

Because of the delays the Department of Transport has wasted over £300 million on keeping the 40-year old HSTs running longer than was planned and converting more of the new electric trains to run on diesel as well as electricity. This will enable them to operate when they are rolled out later this year on sections where the overhead wires are not in place and on those sections that will no longer be electrified. £130 million was spent to upgrade the track on sections that will no longer be electrified.

MPs concluded that the upgrade plan was ill-thought out, not joined-up nor accountable enough and was haphazard with taxpayers' money.

Meg Hillier MP, chair of the committee, said the "mismanagement" of the Great Western programme had "hit taxpayers hard and left many people angry and frustrated".

She went on to say, "This is a stark example of how not to run a major project, from flawed planning at the earliest stage to weak accountability and what remain serious questions about the reasons for embarking on the work in the first place. The sums of public money wasted are appalling – not least the £330 million additional costs the Department for Transport will have to pay to keep the trains running because of delays to electrification. Network Rail admits there are still very significant risks in the Great Western scheme and it is vital these are fully identified and carefully managed."

Network Rail came out with the usual guff when major c*ck-ups by organisations are highlighted: lessons have been learned.

Why has no-one in a senior position been held to account over this? Heads should have rolled but it's only public money so they won't.

Goodness knows how much HS2 will cost in the end. £56 billion is only a back of a cigarette packet figure based on this disgraceful episode.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/new-br...-service-yet/story-30175910-detail/story.html

 

[TheLocalYokel]

'Cool, classy and supremely creative' - Bristol named as best place to live in Britain

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/cool-c...e-in-britain/story-30213049-detail/story.html

Bristol has again been named by the Sunday Times as the best place to live in Britain, having gained a similar accolade from the newspaper in 2014. I'm not sure if it dipped in quality in the ensuing years or whether it was someone else's turn.

I'm always a bit sceptical when it comes to these sorts of awards but Bristol has been a given a few of them in recent years. In the past 10-20 years it has come on in leaps and bounds as a tourist centre and has twice appeared in lists of 'must see' cities in world guides in recent years. In the 1980s the then Labour council decided that tourism was elitist and refused to do much to promote the city. That has certainly changed since then with even Labour administrations subsequently singing from a different hymn sheet.

Bristol has long been a bit sniffy about being regarded as a tourist destination. In the 1950s John Betjeman, whose favourite English city was Bristol, described the city as somewhere that kept itself to itself. Whether he'd like the present day Bristol with visitors wandering all over the place is something we shall never know.

Whether being a liveable city will attract yet more tourists remains to be seen. I did a recent post about Bristol being the new London. New London or not there is no doubt that people from the South East are flocking to live in Bristol because, even though house prices are generally higher than in most areas of the country, they are still considerably less than those in the London area. The downside is that many local residents, especially younger people, find it increasingly difficult to buy or even rent a home.

Mind you, I can think of a number of areas of Bristol that would be the last places that could be realistically described as 'classy'.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Following on from the Sunday Times accolade (see previous post) Vogue magazine is the latest to trumpet the delights of Bristol.

http://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/things-do-to-in-bristol

Unsurprisingly perhaps (as Bristol can be an odd sort of city in many ways), there are many in Bristol, including some elected councillors, who don't care one bit for this sort of publicity.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Tall buildings in Bristol being dwarfed by other major cities

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/business/tall-buildings-bristol-being-dwarfed-18432

Interesting article for those interested in cityscapes about how Bristol eschews high buildings. Compared with other major UK cities it is very low rise. It's been a deliberate policy and is obviously based on the city's history in that it has a far greater ancient heritage than many large UK cities, and its hilly topography makes very high buildings difficult to accommodate successfully.

This didn't stop Bristol becoming one of the first provincial cities to embrace the concept of high rise council housing blocks, the first of which appeared in the city in the mid 1950s and of which there are now many scattered around the inner city and further out in the distant suburbs. However, compared with what is considered a high building these days the council blocks are relatively modest in height.

Bristol's elected mayor now wants to change things and believes that the city's skyline should grow. It will be controversial - anything like this always is in Bristol which has a conservative, some say provincial, attitude to anything that smacks of modernity when it comes to proposals for new or altered buildings.

The article includes charts of the highest buildings in other UK cities as well as future proposals for high buildings in these cities, with Bristol's situation shown as a comparison.

 

[superking]

Has the train company changed their minds about running the trains on electric to Bristol now.They shut bath spa last weekend to work on electric work,also extending platform to take the new trains. I can understand platform work,but the electrical side I'm baffled.Easter weekend bath spa shut for all the weekend for the same work.Like I said can understand platform work as the new trains suppose to run on diesel power,but the electric work seems a waste unless they changed their minds.Either way the new trains are longer,hence platform work.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It's not the train company's decision, it's the government's. The government decision last November to halt electrification between Thingley Junction (west of Chippenham) via Bath to Bristol Temple Meads still stands, as does the axing of electrification between Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway. All this to save less than £200 million when HS2 will cost £56 billion - a hell of a lot more when it's finished as all these things go well over budget.

Electrification will still go ahead between Paddington and South Wales via the Sodbury Tunnel and Bristol Parkway. When it's considered how many tens of millions have already been spent to lower track through Bath and through Keynsham and through the Box Tunnel for electrification it's an absolute scandal that all this public money has so far been wasted.

To compound the waste by the current work at Bath Spa Station is little more than incredulous. The rationale is that they are widening the platforms so that when electrification does reach Bath (probably not in my lifetime) the stanchions can be built without fouling the grade 2 listed station canopies. There is also something about the bi-mode trains that will operate the electric services (but under the polluting diesel power in Bristol and Bath) needing straighter platforms than Bath Spa currently possesses.

Grayling, the transport secretary, said the money saved on cutting back on the electrification in the Bristol and Bath areas could be better spent on local rail improvements. There is little sign of this with the much needed and long promised Portishead line now being scaled back, if it happens at all. The promised Henbury loop has been reduced to a spur and I will be amazed if the Ashley Hill/Filton bank is returned to four tracks even though the government says that it will. Without four tracks the promised West of England Metro would not be able to function properly as the long-distance trains would take priority.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

GWR Electrification

Hammond the Chancellor of the Exchequer has now weighed in on this. See below link with a video of an interview with him.

I have no party political leanings although I have little love for politicians of any persuasion. Hammond's attitude to this is arrogant, patronising, flippant, smug, condescending. He seemed to be smirking - a disgraceful attitude towards one of the few cities that provides the government with a dividend from its business taxes. Most cities get back more than they put into the government's pot. Bristol gets less than it puts in so is subsidising other areas that have facilities that Bristol lacks. The latest is electrification of the railways.

According to him electrification is not the important bit - it's the improved services. Ergo, why electrify at all? He conveniently overlooked the polluting diesel that will be pumped out in Bristol and Bath from the bi-mode trains at a time when the government is looking at ways of penalising diesel car drivers. All to save less than £200 million when that sort of money has already been spent on infrastructure to accommodate electric trains that now won't run.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/chancellor-exchequer-tells-bristol-not-21450

 

[Jerry]

If it's about the service then why bother electrifying any of it! Even into South Wales! Why not just look at new clean and efficient diesel trains? I don't know about train engines but I do know with lorry technology diesel technology is extremely clean. The Euro 5 engine in my lorry is much more eco friendly that lots of car engines. Surely there is or can be developed train versions?

 

[tpm]

There are many benefits of electrification, some short-term, some long-term. Electric trains can accelerate faster and are lighter (no fuel to carry) thus reducing wear on tracks. Electric trains are considerably cheaper to maintain. Electricity is cheaper and can be produced with less pollution, etc. As you say, if there weren't clear benefits, why bother at all, anywhere. The problem is one of short-term budgeting and long-term benefits. It seems like it is increasingly harder for the country, or at least the Treasury, to play for the long term, despite historically low interest rates. Mind boggling. Having said that, it *appears* there is still a chance electrification will simply be postponed into CP6.

Hammond's comments in the interview were rather inconsistent, at times implying electrification to Bristol Temple Meads is basically axed completely and at times talking about it being delayed.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I spent an extremely agreeable couple of sunny hours this afternoon watching a local cricket match on the southern edge of Bristol almost under the flight path to runway 270 at BRS.

During the time I was there a near constant stream of inbounds passed overhead. I counted about 15, plus some bizjets.

Sitting in the sun in pleasant company watching the cricket with regular aerial distractions was thoroughly enjoyable.

 

[superking]

The brs and cwl threads are so quiet with no postings,wonder where every one has gone.I just wonder with the airports starting the summer season that every one has gone on vacation.

 

[kraktoa]

The brs and cwl threads are so quiet with no postings,wonder where every one has gone.I just wonder with the airports starting the summer season that every one has gone on vacation.

Ok here is a titbit for you to muse over.

Whilst BRS have increased their egates to 10 with great success, Cardiff are decommissioning their 3 egates this winter.

Is that progress?

 

[Jerry]

Ok here is a titbit for you to muse over.

Whilst BRS have increased their egates to 10 with great success, Cardiff are decommissioning their 3 egates this winter.

Is that progress?

But could that be to expand the arrivals area? I remember Roger Lewis saying in an interview that they were looking at expanding and revamping the arrivals area.

 

[kraktoa]

But could that be to expand the arrivals area? I remember Roger Lewis saying in an interview that they were looking at expanding and revamping the arrivals area.

The reason quoted is that Border Force policy stipulates that e gates will only be supported in airports with 2 million international passengers and above. Even if the airport pays for installation costs the govt will not support the service for such small airports. Cardiff has the older generation of egates whch are being phased out.

They will have to fight this at the governmental level. Wonder if Qatar knew this before signing the deal.

 

[Jerry]

I can't

The reason quoted is that Border Force policy stipulates that e gates will only be supported in airports with 2 million international passengers and above. Even if the airport pays for installation costs the govt will not support the service for such small airports. Cardiff has the older generation of egates whch are being phased out.

They will have to fight this at the governmental level. Wonder if Qatar knew this before signing the deal.

I can't really see it bothering Qat

The reason quoted is that Border Force policy stipulates that e gates will only be supported in airports with 2 million international passengers and above. Even if the airport pays for installation costs the govt will not support the service for such small airports. Cardiff has the older generation of egates whch are being phased out.

They will have to fight this at the governmental level. Wonder if Qatar knew this before signing the deal.

Qatar as at CWL the e-gates are only used for UK EU passenger's. International go to a manned booth so a lot of Qatar's passengers won't be effected. Personally I can't see the big deal. Manned or electronic? They do the same thing.