No, just loads of a-holes with their heads in the sand The comparison between Bristol and Cardiff is justified. They have all they need, we have nothing.
No political will in Bristol to do anything. The only major new roads in the last eighty years are the Portway and the dual carriageway outside St Mary Redcliffe both in the 1930's. St Philips Causeway (Lawrence Hill to Arno's Vale), Airport Road and the Cumberland Basin to Ashton Gate since the war. (M32 was national motorway system and nothing to do with Bristol City Council; A4174 outer ring is in South Gloucestershire. Thus the road system is the most congested of any British city or large town. Sheffield, Nottingham, Newcastle, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Birmingham all have Metro systems. Arenas aplenty except in Bristol. Lack of school places especially in the inner city. Expensive bus service and lack of metro means car usage is the only option.�� And poor sports facilities at professional and amateur levels. An airport that is miles from anywhere and very susceptible to fog, while Filton airstrip close to rail and motorway access will become another very large housing estate. Bristol was the second city of England until approx 1800 but for me it now rates so far behind others that we are only known for the Clifton Suspension bridge and a place that one travels past on the way to Devon and Cornwall for summer holidays. Bristol needs a rocket strategically placed to get it moving again!
Agree with all you say Cidered, apart from this technical point. The most congested road system in Europe is the connecting roads between Bradford and Leeds. Probably because of all the hills, there is little room for road expansion and the traffic is utter chaos at rush hour times But Bristol has always been a bit backwards in respect of development (in modern times that is). That is what makes it frustrating to live there Its also what makes it quite a nice place to live (well, most of it anyway)
Being a Bemmy boy living over in Walesland its quite outstanding to see the development of Cardiff in comparison to Bristol. I still visit friends and family in Bristol and find myself saying to the Mrs or kids "wow that hasn't changed" or "that was like that when I was a kid" yet every time I go to Cardiff ( not too often as it happens!) I get lost on the new road layouts or see a new building sprouting up. Bristol realy is getting left behind.....
I've said over on our site in response to the same article that when I was a lad in the 60s the Centre would be packed out of an evening with coachloads of Welsh over here to go to the Hippodrome or Colston Hall. Complete turnaround since then!
Cider you couldn't be more wrong...... ..... I have spent around half my life driving around the uk, and western Europe.. since 2000 I have put in 910,786 miles, ( 3.25m miles since 1966) got through 5 vehicles, since 2000, most miles on one was a fiat doblo ( under 5years on road) still going strong with 420, 000 on clock but needed £700 spent on it......£250 for scrap was good!..... and Bristol is a doddle, like most cities an hour in the morning and evening is busy. London after the the charge was introduced was pure heaven, from Paddington to Southwark was 30 mins not an hour and a half.... now same journey is back to an hour or more and getting worse..............
Housing up on housing upon housing upon housing keeps getting built. Sh!te housing at that! Houses that are built to last 20 years before they are torn down. Housing tagged onto other areas already overloaded with public capacity. This all goes through though on the back of the argument "we need affordable housing" when lets face it, even the cheap crap they knock up isn't affordable! It's genuine case of you have to "pay to play" though, and I don't think SL has played ball with the right people to get built what the City needs. If Edward Ware homes can build 96 dwellings on the smallest bit of land completely destroying the environmental prosperity, historic area, peoples views of a beautiful countryside valley, the value of other surrounding houses in a village registered as 47% over capacity already due to affordable housing being built on the side of said village in the 90's, it makes you wonder how on earth we can't get a stadium built out on the edge of nowhere! I guess I do know the answer, and it comes in a very thick brown envelope. People seem to love Mr Ferguson, but don't see him for what he really is, which is a shyster doing his best to paddle along and look like he cares.
Not only my experience gained driving Bristol buses in the 60's, thirty years travelling the whole of GB and NI (plus most of northern Europe) for work, but also a recent report printed in national and local press that Bristol is the most traffic congested city in the UK. Shall we agree to differ on this one?
In this regard, Bristol is a f**king shambles, and those in power should be ashamed. The plight of the arena and both football teams has done nothing but scale future investment from the city. Not only that, but the mayor and other politicians have absolutely no interest in supporting these causes. Even when the council supported the stadium bid for Ashton Vale, convinced that the matter was done and dusted, the numpties found a way to stop it, and I reckon Bristol Rovers will have similar issues. Revamping Ashton Gate is a poor second option, and I'm yet to be convinced that it will really improve anything. It's a ****load of work that should have been done years ago that will still not provide the city with a landmark stadium. It makes me think. If a candidate were to come forward for the next mayoral elections with the promise to build two new stadiums for the football clubs, along with a larger arena than what is planned, would they gain enough support to be noticed? I think they would.
Said it all before but we have no decent stadiums, no world class concert arenas, no truly international airport, appalling roads, ****e and expensive public transport, no good other sports facilities (such as speedway/athletics/ice hockey rink) and the roads and the amount of tinkering with new roundabouts/traffic lights are the worst joke imaginable. I can drive from Swindon or Gloucester to the bottom of the M32 (25-40 miles) quicker than I can drive from the bottom of the M32 to Whitchurch (4 miles), and frankly, that just ain't right !
What a poorly researched ****e. From my work place I see cranes and seemingly every road I travel there is something progress. Free enterprise , innovation its not hard to find. Bristol is a great place to be and bring up children. Bristol is a City that according to the CBI who know a tad about business was one of the best positioned in Britain to deal with the recession. So well positioned that one of its football clubs owners bases his part owned super successful business here.
No really there is a shortage of concrete blocks.! http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/16/uk-britain-housing-idUKBRE97F0FI20130816 Apparently its ROD spending all his time on here and chasing sheep..
Completely disagree. You seem to have either not read or not understood the article, Cliftonville. You're simply refuting its title: "Why does Bristol never build anything?". Of course Bristol builds stuff - offices, shops, houses and flats - but the article was specifically discussing grand projets, things like stadia, sports facilities, arenas and major venues etc. On that count, Bristol is woefully behind every other major city in the UK, and indeed in Western Europe. Bristol is a prosperous city and attractive city with a rich heritage and a bright economic future, but is has a very poor offer when it comes to sport, leisure and popular culture - there's no ice rink, our stadia are a shambles for an urban area of over 600,000, our biggest venue holds under 2,000, public transport is almost entirely bus based, unreliable, expensive and unattractive. In fact, we're one of the largest cities in western Europe without a mass transit system of some kind. The city suffers from its prosperity because it receives comparatively little Government money. Leeds' Cardiff's and Liverpool's arenas were all built with substantial Government and European funding. When Bristol got a couple of hundred million quid for our crap 'bus rapid transit system', Nottingham and Manchester got hundred's of millions to extend their tram systems. Bristol also suffers from hyper-nimbyism - professional Luddites like Daniela Radice who object to anything that the rest of us want, especially football stadiums. You may be happy with your little slice of Bristol, Cliftonville, and take solace in yet more offices and apartments being thrown up, but there are many other Bristolians who want the things mentioned in the article - decent stadia and an arena and all the tourists, visitors and investment that such things will attract.
Spot on! There are none so blind as those that won't listen! Cannot believe someone would argue with the basic and most obvious of things like the fact Bristol has fallen way way way down the ranks of a 'Big City' due to lack of facilities. Even Plymouth take the p!ss out of us, and thats more disheartening than anything to me!
Spot on both of you. Of course stuff gets built and certain people get rich But facilities to make the city a major attraction for rock/pop/classical artists and for our ailing sports teams get stonewalled whilst in Cardiff................
No skating rink, no arena, no decent stadia/conference centre. Speedway having to move away. even North Somerset have been threatening to build a Ski dome for years and nothing has happened. (I know dozens of people who have visited Snow domes around the country) A decent sized fun swimming pool with slides etc. all would be greatly used by parents desperate to entertain their kids in these times of 'not allowed out' anymore All these things would create jobs and enhance our leisure time, plus the added income is immeasurable. What will change things? Well firstly someone prepared to stand up and say "I will get this stuff built." We don't have a natural charismatic leader who springs to mind who we can elect for this (Suggestions welcome?) Secondly, the Bristol public to shake off its apathetic attitude to local politics and stop these minority groups getting too much say in these things, things that affect us directly and our childrens future, Apathy is the culprit here. And we're all guilty of it.!
