Random Stuff!

[TheLocalYokel]

Filton Arena would have 'significant adverse impact' on motorways

Highways England object to 17,000-seat arena near M4, M5 and M32

www.bristolpost.co.uk

Highways England are formally objecting to the proposed Bristol Arena in the Brabazon Hangar at Filton based on the perceived traffic congestion that would occur on nearby motorways. That's topical because the West of England Joint Local Transport Plan is highlighting the severe congestion on the local motorways increased in part by the removal of the Severn Crossing tolls.

Those who advocate an out-of-town arena say traffic will be able to dissipate after events much more readily than the original Temple Island arena site next to Temple Meads Station.

Students march through Bristol in latest protest - traffic updates

Hundreds of students are currently taking part

www.bristolpost.co.uk

They're still at it. Not content with stopping Bristol Airport expansion - for the present - the mob is out again today on the city streets blighting the everday lives of citizens and visitors.

This time it's students although pictures of some of the marchers suggest that if they are all students then some are distinctly on the geriatric side. Do a couple of weeks ever pass these days without these self-appointed zealots taking to Bristol's already congested streets to further block the traffic?

What a waste too of scarce police resources that would be much better employed carrying out their primary tasks instead of ensuring these arrogant people (arrogant in the sense that I will do as I please without bothering about the effects on others) can exercise their human rights whilst the rest of us have to forgo our human rights to go about out lawful business without let ot hindrance.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

New gas buses have hit the roads of east Bristol

77 will be rolled out in the next few months

www.bristolpost.co.uk

I missed this Bristol Post report the other day but without knowing of the introduction beforehand I used one of the new buses from Old Market to Cadbury Heath today on route 43. Most, although not all, of the buses today on the East Bristol routes in question (42 43 44 45) were the new Biogas buses (69 registrations).

The livery, as can be seen from the picture in the linked press report, is quite impressive, at least to my eyes. The group of routes is labelled 'citylines east' in prominent lettering on the side of the buses. Not all routes to the east are yet so equipped. The 6 and 7 that run eastwards via secondary routes were today still using the older double-deckers with the green-fronted route identification livery.

A few months ago some of the routes to the south of the city began to see buses with a red front labelled 'Serving South Bristol'. They are not brand new vehicles but 66 registrations.

I don't know whether this indicates a gradual change to a new system of route indentification liveries. A lot of routes have been operating for several years with buses painted with different coloured fronts relating to the routes shown on their liveries. Can be confusing at times though when a bus is temporarily switched to another route because of vehicle shortages. A few weeks ago I was was waiting for a yellow-fronted service 2 when I saw a dark blue-fronted bus approaching. I nearly let it go until I realised that although it was a liveried 3 and 4 route vehicle it was actually operating as a 2 that day. Late last year I saw a liveried Bristol Airport Flyer double decker operating along the Gloucester Road as a 75 or 76 (I forget which).

Providing liveries for groups of routes as in 'citylines east' and Serving South Bristol' might be a better way to go and be less confusing to passengers than painting individual route liveries a different colour.

At Kingswood a woman in a First uniform who I took to be an off-duty driver got on with her two children. One of them remarked how new-smelling and clean and tidy the bus was. The mother replied, 'Not for long though once the public begin using it". Very sad but true.

 

[superking]

I have noticed a few different colors operating from Weston Super MARE. The express bus from Weston to Bristol is a putrid orange.
The mendip flyer is a pale blue. The coast rider is a very dark red and cream. They have repainted various buses to run round on the town routes and are the old badger line colors with the badgerline logo.I don't remember the airport flyer color but I want to say blue.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I have noticed a few different colors operating from Weston Super MARE. The express bus from Weston to Bristol is a putrid orange.
The mendip flyer is a pale blue. The coast rider is a very dark red and cream. They have repainted various buses to run round on the town routes and are the old badger line colors with the badgerline logo.I don't remember the airport flyer color but I want to say blue.

Bus and coach services

Plan your bus journey to and from Bristol Airport quickly and easily. View the Bus and Coach services available. You can even book online!

www.bristolairport.co.uk

This link shows pictures (scroll down to the bottom of the page) of the vehicles used on all the bus/coach routes serving BRS (bar one) - A1, A3, A4, A5, South West Falcon, and Route 216 to South Wales (Edwards Coaches/National Express). The one missing is A2 Air Connect to the city centre which is a double-decker service in a different livery to the A1. A5 no longer serves Congresbury or Yatton.

The 'putrid orange' on the X1 (Bristol-Weston) is part of First West of England's Excel brand for their services between Bristol and North Somerset and is used for all the routes:

X1 and X2 to Weston; X3 and X4 to Portishead; X6 and X7 to Clevedon; X8 and X9 to Nailsea. X5 is the route from Weston to Cribbs Causeway via Clevedon and Portishead that Stagecoach took over from First a few months ago.

First West of England also does a liveried theme (not the same orange livery as Excel) with their services between Bristol and South Gloucestershire (Yate, Chipping Sodbury and Thornbury) that they market as Lynx.

I read this morning that all 67 of First West of England's new biogas double-deckers will be used on the services to east Bristol under the 'citylines east' banner. 27 started this qweek and the remaining 40 will be delivered in the coming weeks. In addition ten other new biogas double-deckers are being deployed on Metrobus route M3 that also serves east Bristol.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

BBC is 'set to open new HQ' for Natural History Unit in Bristol

BBC Studios' Bristol output includes Countryfile and David Attenborough's nature documentaries

www.bristolpost.co.uk

The Bristol Post reckons that the BBC will relocate much of its Whiteladies Road output to the Temple Meads area in the enterprise zone.

There have been rumours for a number of about the BBC vacating its current location. Broadcasting House at Whiteladies Road was opened in 1934 and over the years has spread into the grand houses in the entire block.

It seems the plan would be to move the world-famous BBC Natural History Unit to the Temple Meads area along with other factual programme making.

According to this report the Whiteladies Road/Tyndalls Park Road site would remain the home of regional television and local radio. No official announcement is expected imminently.

 

[superking]

Not knowing where to put this,i will post here. With the coronavirus more or less shut down Italy I wonder how this will affect BRS on flights. This will not stop at Italy it will affect many countries in Europe and rest of the world. It makes you wonder how long this virus problem will go on for.This will cause many problems for airlines and even make airlines to go bankrupt. The main thing is thoughts with the families that has problems and the airline structures second.

 

[Jerry]

I wonder how this will affect BRS on flights.

Hopefully make them cheaper! Especially Rome in October!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Reports today of a hotel in Tenerife 'locked down' after a person was thought to have the virus.

 

[Jerry]

Greta Thurnberg will be speaking on College green at 11am tomorrow. People especially kids will be travelling from all over the country to see her speak.

Greta Thunberg: Coach company bringing 1,000 kids to Bristol

There's going to be a huge turnout

www.bristolpost.co.uk

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Greta Thurnberg will be speaking on College green at 11am tomorrow. People especially kids will be travelling from all over the country to see her speak.

Greta Thunberg: Coach company bringing 1,000 kids to Bristol

There's going to be a huge turnout

www.bristolpost.co.uk

Yes, for some reason Bristol seems to be picked on for this sort of thing more than many UK cities. The city seems to come to a halt almost monthly whilst these people are indulged, although I believe that this is the first time that young Thunberg, the icon and idol of the climate change masses, has turned up in Bristol.

As with race relations, climate change protests have now become an industry with people making money out if it. Thunberg and her manipulators are having books published for example; regular reports appear in newspapers that activists have been paid to take part in climate change demonstrations.

I hope the forecast heavy rain for tomorrow morning is accurate. That will test the resolve of many of these people. They bang on, tacitly supported by the police and other authorities, about their human rights to protest whilst the human rights of the rest of us to go about our daily lawful business prevented by these ourbursts are ignored.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

25 central area roads will be closed tomorrow from 9am until 4.30pm to facilitate these people exercising their human rights to protest.

The fact that numerous businesses, transport, hospital visits and people generally going about their business will suffer is apparently of no account. I hope none of the demonstrators is taken seriously ill in the middle of the protest because ambulances won't be able to get anywhere near in a hurry. The same applies to the fire brigade if something like a major fire broke out in one of the hotels in the affected area.

I hear some people saying what's different here compared with huge processions celebrating football success (not that we ever see any of that in Bristol) or carnival processions? The difference is that stweards and participants in those type of events will co-operate with the authorities. This lot won't. Last year a week-long series of climate change protests occurred in Bristol with the organisers ignoring previously-agreed arrangements. For example, they blocked the M32 motorway into the centre of Bristol for several hours causing absolute gridlock for hours on end despite pleas from the police to desist. There was one well-documented account of one man stuck in the chaos failing to get to a local hospital in time to see his dying father. All we heard later from the protestors were weasel words about that occurrence.

You can see why this young Swedish woman and her backers are keen to demonstrate in a country like the UK that bends over backwards to accommodate them. She wouldn't try the same trick in somewhere like China for all the climate change kudos in the world.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Well, the climate change march and demonstration featuring the young woman from Sweden who was apparently received with film star-like adulation by her disciples took place in pouring rain. Police assessments put the crowd figure at 20,000. Perhaps we might see a remake of the film Life of Brian retitled Life of Greta.

Because of the rain the large greensward outside the Council House (or City Hall as the previous elected mayor decided to rename it, probaby after watching an episode of the 1960s tv series Batman based at Gotham City) and Bristol Cathedral has been reduced to a representation of a newly-ploughed field thanks to the multitude standing on it to listen to their messiah.

Estimates put the cost of restoration at £20,000 which I suppose is relatively small beer when added to the costs of business disruption today after the central areas became one huge parade ground for nearly eight hours. Also factor in the many dozens of police officers dragged away from other areas of the city and beyond to ensure these people were able to exercise their human right to make the life of the city a miserable one today, and it becomes obvious that indulging the planet savers came at a very high cost to local tax payers and businesses.

 

[superking]

The bbc I think interviewed a organiser,and he said the rally was to be held in London. But due to something else going on in London they could not accomadate this rally.Bristol was chosen with it being fairly close to London.Looking at the ground I think Glastonbury took longer to get in the state it was left in.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The bbc I think interviewed a organiser,and he said the rally was to be held in London. But due to something else going on in London they could not accomadate this rally.Bristol was chosen with it being fairly close to London.Looking at the ground I think Glastonbury took longer to get in the state it was left in.

My wife said she heard on the news that the local police ferried Greta Thunberg from Temple Meads station to the rally in one of their two electric cars. According to a report in the Bristol Post she insisted on being taken in an electric car.

As a local tax payer I think this is a gross misuse of public money not to mention the extremely questionable use of a police officer as a taxi driver, even if she or the rally organisers contributed to the cost although there is nothing to suggest they did. We could do with seeing a police officer in our area doing proper police work which we rarely do, not working as a part-time cabbie.

I think I'll write to the chief constable asking for a police car to take me to the airport the next time we fly off.

It seems to me that a lot of people have become mesmerised by a girl who began her climate change campaign by truanting from school. I have nothing against her as a person but I don't want to see her back in the region for a long time if her presence causes the mayhem it did yesterday.

 

[superking]

It does make you wonder when she does her schooling as she seems to be off some where all the time. Not long back she took a sail/row boat over the Atlantic to some climate meeting,but no mention how she got back.I live in North Somerset but like you it pays a certain amount to the same police force.Like yr self TLY not happy knowing police car and officer being used as a taxi.

 

[Jerry]

It does make you wonder when she does her schooling as she seems to be off some where all the time. Not long back she took a sail/row boat over the Atlantic to some climate meeting,but no mention how she got back.I live in North Somerset but like you it pays a certain amount to the same police force.Like yr self TLY not happy knowing police car and officer being used as a taxi.

She'll be basically home schooled. A lot of the classes will be done over the internet and essentially her parents will be her teacher's.

 

[Jerry]

The abuse and threats made to Greta Thunberg by people from Bristol

By grown men, many who appear to have children of their own

www.bristolpost.co.uk

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The abuse and threats made to Greta Thunberg by people from Bristol

By grown men, many who appear to have children of their own

www.bristolpost.co.uk

The thousands of negative comments were on familiar themes - questioning the validity of climate science, questioning the rights of children to go ‘on strike’ from school, questioning young people’s use of technology, transport and general carbon footprint and complaining about the disruption of the city centre’s roads being closed.

I think all those comments are valid and acceptable. They are people's opinions to which they are entitled. Others will not share them and they too are entitled to their views.

Clearly what is not acceptable is the use of threatening words and encouragement to violence.

This young woman has put herself forward as a champion of the masses and is a legitimate target when it comes to criticism of her views and her methods by those who challenge them. Just because she is a teenage girl of 17 doesn't mean she should be given an easier passage than, say, a man of 50 in a similar position, but in this I'm talking about civilised argument and debate, not abuse or threats which have no place whoever is their target.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Bristol Bears RFC

A video (below link) of the progress of the new training facility being built just outside Bristol in North Somerset. When finished it is said it will rival similar establishments at Premier League football clubs and be the best rugby training facility in the UK, perhaps in Europe.

I think that Bristol Bears currently train at the ground of English National League 2 South, Clifton RFC, at Cribbs Causeway. Ironically Clifton's ground was waterlogged yesterday and they had to move their home match to the new Shaftesbury Park ground of fellow National League 2 club Dings Crusaders situated at Frenchay next to the M32 motorway (Bristol Bears Women's team play their home matches there too).

Bristol Bears 1st XV had an impressive win in the mud at Bath today, their fourth Prem win in a row, and are now third in the table. They are on their way to becoming English rugby's version of Manchester City with the massive financial backing of local billionaire Steve Lansdown through his Bristol Sport group. They will have to ensure they perpetuate Manchester City on the pitch in the coming years. Coach Pat Lam's target is to win the European Champions Cup within five years and they are in their second year along the route to that goal.

Bristol City FC, also owned by Steve Lansdown through Bristol Sport, is in the process of building a mightily impressive new training facility of their own not far from the Bears' new traning ground.

The other major sports team in the Bristol Sport stable is Bristol Flyers who compete in the British Basketball League. They currently play their home matches at the WISE Arena at Stoke Gifford near Bristol Parkway railway station. However, plans are well advanced to commence building a new 4,000-capacity arena next to Ashton Gate football ground for the Flyers that will involve a hotel, commercial office accommodation and domestic housing.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The latest update. I really can't see how this could work.

Plans for 'super region' linking Bristol and Cardiff move forward

The proposed region is home to 4.4 million people

www.bristolpost.co.uk