That's the call from Bristol City Council on the day a member of the Long Ashton Parish Council says they're always willing to talk about a compromise for the new Bristol City ground. Those against the plans for the Ashton Vale site are challenging how Bristol City Council reached its decision to allow the 42 acre stretch of land to be split between the development and a designated Town and Village Green. The judicial review was requested by a local resident and is being supported by the Long Ashton Parish Council. However, the Judge who granted it suggested that because of the site's size he'd like to see all parties come together and try and reach a compromise. Today, Councillor Simon Cook, Cabinet Member for Culture, Sport and Capital Projects has again backed this idea. He said: "We want a stadium at Ashton Vale. It will be good for the city, and bring with it much needed jobs. "We accept that local residents have natural concerns, such as the noise and disruption that will follow from having a stadium built nearby, and we want to do what we can to address those concerns. A whole range of solid, physical measures is possible. "The Council has written this week to the solicitors acting for the one local resident who is taking us to Court to dispute the decision we took that would allow a stadium to be built on the northern part of the Ashton Vale site [i.e. that part that has not been registered as a Town and Village Green]. The judge who first considered that single resident's application to the court, urged all parties to compromise. We are showing leadership by publicly taking that first step towards a compromise, so that a stadium can be built, but whilst local residents' concerns can still be addressed. "If this one local person who is taking us to court or the Parish Council spending their taxpayers' money on legal fees - wants to stop a process costing huge amounts of tax payers' money and instead discuss a compromise that might allow for a stadium, but also for additional safeguards for local residents, we are ready to look at whatever he/she wants to come back and ask for, or to sit down and talk it through. The choice is theirs. "We want all parties involved - whether this one local resident, or their neighbours or the local Parish Council - or the football club and the landowner - to all equally accept that a lengthy and costly legal process is divisive to the community and bad for the city. "We have tried independent mediation previously - we paid for those different parties to sit down with professional arbitrators to see if they could reach a compromise, but they failed. "Now the judge has urged compromise, and the council has joined this call, we urge all parties to find a way forward through compromise. "The ball is squarely in the court of the one anonymous local resident named on the court papers by three randomly chosen initials, and also the Parish Council funding legal action. We hope that they will follow our lead and accept the invitation to end this battle with an honorable compromise." However, Councillor Charles Cave from Long Ashton Parish Council says they are always willing to talk; they've even been speaking to the football club directly. "In fact I had a meeting with Guy Price this morning," said Councillor Cave, "We're discussing number of issues where the football club can help youths in the village for example. We're communicating which I think is what ones got to do." He added that they'd be happy to hold further talks with Bristol City Council as long as they had some offer of compromise in mind: "Absolutely no harm in talking and I think discussing things can always help. "Immediately, there's not something which springs to mind that I would think as a compromise, but let's talk about it." * From Jack FM website (home of the lovely Alice Crocker)
In the real world (or maybe just mine!) the stadium is good for the area, the city in general, the club of course, and for employment in creating it, so why would anyone with any common sense let all this other **** get in the way. The residents wont be disadvantaged, local trade wont dry up, and Ferguson and the Tobacco Factory will still be there. I hope a compromise is reached obviously but I hope that every ****ing nimby dog walker that's objected to this and wasted valuable time and money has to legally prove that they are using the village ****ting green for them or their mongrels.
The judge referred to is I read, the one who agreed to a “Judicial Review” but then it appears he/she asked everyone to try to reach agreement. Well the judge is living in cloud cuckoo land because it is obvious that the opponents of the “Stadium Project” will never agree to anything that allows it to be built. I am fully in favour of democracy and that the rights of all citizens should be considered and protected, but the time to oppose was during the planning applications. Having watched the recent Inside Out programme on BBC West, it is obvious that individuals / small groups are using a very flawed law to disrupt properly agreed planning applications just because they don’t like them. The sensible way forward with this bad law is to include the Town / Village Green consideration as part and parcel of any planning application and not as an afterthought. Another point I fail to understand is why a council outside of the City boundary has the right to interfere in the way that Long Ashton Parish Council has done in something which is NOT within their parish boundary. I made the point in a post on the Evening Post website several weeks ago. And also commented that residents in Long Ashton have long enjoyed lower council taxes than within Bristol yet they live closer to the City Centre than many Bristol residents. It showed how stoked up they are when one idiot replied that they pay more council tax than a Bedminster resident. Of course they do! How many terraced houses or former council houses are there in Long Ashton? Compare Long Ashton with Westbury or Sneyd Park (farther from City Centre than Long Ashton) and they pay only a pittance compared with them. One can only hope that the Judge(s) for the Judicial Review rule against what is a very annoying delaying tactic. Otherwise we can kiss goodbye to the new stadium in the same way that Bristol failed to produce a good tram system or an indoor arena after many millions were spent cleaning the Bath Road site for it. I love my home City but the politicians of all parties for as long as I can remember, have totally failed to keep up with any developments in many other major cities / towns of the UK.
