Last week I decided it would be interesting to spend an evening at a local planning meeting, purely for research purposes you understand.
It was concerned with the former Gas Tower site on Glenfrome Road in St Werburghs, a fairly large amount of land, recently “decontaminated” after decades of use as a gas supply facility.
Decommissioned a few years ago the site was in use by the Morrison construction company, mostly for storage, until the tower itself was demolished.  The steel was taken away, the mess cleared up and the massive hole it left was filled in.
(I have a bunch of photos somewhere, I’ll edit this post when I find them.)

So, the meeting was in St Werburghs Community Centre and took place in the kitchen because of what looked like some confusion over room booking.
A good start I’m sure you’ll agree.
In attendance were several familiar faces, all well intentioned people.

Now, without going into all the details of the meeting and it’s procedure, (for there are many and they are dull) I’ll just say that best way of putting it is that it was “inconclusive”.
People exchanged various snippets of information, stated opinions and resolved to monitor the situation.

What little came from that evening is this:
The land is owned by Wales & West, a power supply company, who will be selling it at some stage. They are obliged to sell it for the highest figure they can get.
There are medium sized businesses in the area, most of which are failing and may not renew their leases. One of the business has expressed interest in buying the building they are in but no other information is available.
If those businesses end up eventually leaving, there then becomes available a much larger pocket of land in which it would be viable to build  shitloads of houses.
There is recent history of previously industrial land in this area being converted to housing use.

Most of that is true, some of it is conjecture, which makes things clumsy.

In the case of the Gas Tower site the overall best outcome would be for it to become a place for Actually Affordable housing. Not bullshit, underbuilt plasterboard hovels, Actual Homes.
In reality though that won’t happen. The best case scenario is that it becomes another Self Build like the one on The Other Side of The Tunnel. And that’s far from adequate.
St Werburghs is now an expensive place to live, for various reasons. More Self Build would push prices higher and force people further out of the central area.
Already shitloads of my friends have been forced to move out because of property prices, often ending up miles from town and their workplaces.

The state of Housing in this country is appalling. I’ll not regurgitate a bunch of words, it’s a fact.
People will die again this Winter, just as they did in the last one, because of poor housing. Also fact.

As long as housing is seen as an investment, rather than a place to live, then the situation will continue and become a whole lot worse.
The only way I can see to even attempt to reverse that is the mass occupation of empty property by people in housing need. It would take a concerted effort, it would be difficult, but possible.

St Werburghs used to be a place where many Travelers would rest up for a while before, generally, moving on to other things. Many people would be volunteers at Summer festivals, helping where they could and contributing to their success.
When construction started on the Self Build though, Bristol City Council forcibly  removed everyone living in trucks, Anti-Traveler bollards were installed and “The Crusties” were generally made to feel unwelcome.
There have been many cases of vandalism against live aboard vehicles.

Recently though there has been a quiet increase in people coming back to The Burg and living in trucks. There doesn’t appear to be the same disdain as there once was, which is obviously a Good Thing.

Elsewhere in The Burg there is unfolding a classic battle between Good and Evil in the form of the imminent sale of Lynmouth Road Allotments by a world wide liquidation company.
The basic situation is that there have been Allotments there since roughly round the time of World War 1, the company who last owned the land has gone bankrupt, which has placed the land in the hands of Liquidators. Later in September it will be auctioned to the highest bidder who will most likely be a property speculator. Bristol City Council have put in a bid of £20,000 for it but is unlikely to win.
There is a campaign running to try and save the Allotments, they’re doing well.
If they win through their methods of petitioning and waving Wurds-on-Sticks then fairplay, good job. It hasn’t worked much in the past but hey, maybe this time!

Back in the 90’s the road building programme was effectively brought to a halt by the very same people who later found themselves being removed by Bristol City Council from the streets of St Werburghs.
Post-Occupy Bristol a few of the actually homeless people who sought some kind of refuge on College Green were removed from a small patch of unused land in St Werburghs.  Land which is directly opposite Lynmouth Road Allotments.
It wasn’t cops that removed them though, it was representatives of “the local community”.  Once they were removed trees were planted where they once camped their tents, a direct attempt to discourage return.
Just like the Anti-traveler bollards.

My point, if there is one, is that when people are removed from communities, for whatever reason, their skills are also removed. To exclude people because of their lack of money is pathetic.

To bring this pile of words to a close, here is what I propose:
The former Gas Tower site become a “Winter Mooring” point for Bristol’s Traveler community until such time development begins.
An agreed “Mooring” time could be agreed beforehand, just like with liveaboard boats in Bristol Docks, a fair weather Port in the years harshest times.
When Spring arrives the trucks move on to where they need to be.
The site could be maintained by live-in Summer Caretakers and used as a short stay caravan site for visitors to the city in the warmer months.

This could happen with or without permission, it’s not important which.
It’s a viable, collaborative way for the site to be useful till the usual bastards get their hands on it.

 
October 2014 update:
When I first wrote this it got reblogged on a local forum generally concerned about community issues. The comments that followed focused on my capitalization and use of punctuation marks, not the actual points raised. Obviously annoyed by this, I made the post private and more or less stopped writing.
“What’s the fucking point” I thought.

Anyway, today I found out that the site of the former Gas tower has been occupied by a handful of people living in caravans etc. I haven’t visited the site yet, so I cannot comment on how things are.
However, I’ve been told that the owners of the land have attached some kind of notice on the gate referring to a “Common Law Eviction”. Most will remember these being used at Dale Farm some years ago and more locally at the Eco-Village site in Burgland. This process is very unpleasant, usually resulting in violence, destruction of personal property, arrest and a lot of mental suffering. All of this is inflicted by the Baliffs carrying out the “Common Law Eviction”.

With Winter approaching hard, yet again people will die purely because of poor housing.
This has got to  stop.
What I proposed last year with the “Winter Mooring” notion is now immediately possible. If a firm agreement could be brokered allowing the temporary use of the site during the colder months then all of the impacts listed above could be negated.

When I write, many of the opinions stated are not actually my own. They’re more like viewpoints that perhaps need to be discussed, or at least vocalised.  This is what I mean by “General Noise”.  I try to write fairly and consider things from as many angles available.  When perfectly valid information is ignored for the sake of my writing style it sends a very clear signal to me that the aforementioned commentors aren’t exactly rational people that I care to engage with.  So I didn’t.  I probably should have done though.

As I write now a bunch of people are sheltering from what has easily been the coldest day of the season so far, on a disused plot of land, with the imminent threat of violence hanging over them.
There is also a very concerted effort being made in the distract to “deal with” the “problem” of travellers on the streets. Vehicles and caravans are at risk and there’s a perfectly legal framework in place to remove them all from within the city limits. People may literally be thrown out of the city.
That’s really not on.
By taking the former Gas tower site I imagine the people there understand this and have tried to find a way to remain in Bristol. If, or when, the “Common Law Eviction” happens they will be put in a very turbulent situation, all of which is avoidable.

It’s really simple.
Empathise.