Joanna’s Newsletter

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I failed to send in my public statement for the Environment Committee on time and it wasn’t accepted 1hr and 21mins late. I’m posting it below. I have also emailed it to the chair of the committee, Cllr Fodor. I didn’t bother with the rest of the committee members. Bristol City Council is currently considering whether, and on what terms, to renew the core waste services contract delivered by its wholly council-owned company, Bristol Waste Company (BWC).

YTL’s Brabazon development at the former Filton Airfield has been named as one of twelve sites to be fast-tracked under the government’s new towns programme. The scheme is presented as a way to deliver thousands of new homes quickly, with the Brabazon site earmarked for more than 40,000 homes over time. But the plans rely heavily on upfront public spending.

In early 2024, three boys – Max, Mason and Darrian – lost their lives within the space of three weeks. A fourth young person suffered serious harm. Their deaths are the reason Bristol’s Thematic Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review into Serious Youth Violence was commissioned. The review exists because children died, and because others came close.

This week, the Children and Young People Policy Committee finally voted to hold an independent investigation into the SEND spying scandal — the monitoring of parent carers by Bristol City Council officers. On the surface, this should be a jubilant moment. Families and campaigners have fought since 2022 to have their concerns taken seriously.

Bristol247 recently reported on the City Council’s latest plans for a “liveable neighbourhood” in South Bristol. As with previous schemes, public opinion is divided. Some residents welcome the changes; others feel their voices haven’t been heard. One response on social media captured that frustration: “It’s not what ordinary working residents want. Pander to the few, at the expense of the many.

Bristol City Council has effectively transferred millions in public value to private hands after selling prime harbourside land to its own housing company — only for most of the promised social housing to vanish from the plans. Baltic Wharf, a former caravan park on the harbourside, could have sold for £8–15 million on the open market. Instead, in 2022 the council sold it to Goram Homes, its own arm’s-length housing company, for £1.3 million.

The election of 19-year-old Reform councillor George Finch to Council Leader has put Warwickshire in the national spotlight.

I sent the following three questions to the Audit Committee, which sits on May 29. On 25 March 2025, I asked the committee to detail the interactions between ex-mayor Marvin Rees, who declared he was being paid by a company he gave a billion pound contract too and by an organisation to which he gave land worth £1.35m for free, and those companies. You said “the council has had no involvement in the former directly elected mayor’s business interests since he left office”.

Democracy has weakened so substantially under the new committee system that I find it difficult to even articulate the ways in which this destruction has been conducted. We could look at the little ways in which access to information has been delayed and refused: Under the mayoral system, a member of the public could send a statement to a meeting “by no later than 12 noon on the working day before the meeting.” This has increased to two working days.