The Ashton Vale village green area marked, top, and Bristol City FC's Ashton gate stadium

The deputy leader of Bristol City Council has called for an “honourable compromise” over the Ashton Vale Town Green battle.

Councillor Simon Cook, who has worked closely with Bristol City FC in their attempts to build a new stadium at Ashton Vale, released a statement this morning saying “loud and clear” that the council wanted the new stadium to go ahead.

The Cabinet Member for Culture, Sport and Capital Projects called on the anonymous individual who has brought the legal case to the courts to sit down with the council and work out a compromise that would allow for the new stadium as well as safeguarding local residents.

The statement comes after a High Court judge agreed earlier this month for a judicial review to go ahead into a council compromise over the Ashton Vale town green bid, voting in favour of accepting a recommendation to split the site – with only the southern area kept as a town green.

The decision would have allowed the football club to build their new stadium in the northern area of the site.

But campaigners applied for a judicial review in August, after it emerged that the council had not  registered the correct piece of land that was supposedly agreed upon.

Cllr Cook said the council was bound by law to act impartially when it came to deciding on planning and town/village green applications, but had a duty to promote the local economy.

“On matters like this, everyone expects the Council to take an active lead by saying clearly what outcome we want, and working hard to make it happen,” he said.

“When it comes to the stadium, we have taken these competing duties seriously.  Now that the first set of considerations has been dealt with properly - even though some are still being challenged through the courts – in relation to the local economy, as a Council we are now stating our position loudly and clearly.

“We want a stadium at Ashton Vale.  It will be good for the city, and bring with it much needed jobs.”

The council has written to the solicitors of the individual who has brought the legal challenge to the town green compromise deal, asking for a meeting to thrash out a new compromise.

Meanwhile, Long Ashton parish councillors agreed to make up to £20,000 of council funds available towards the legal costs of the judicial review.

Mediation talks broke down in March last year with both sides unable to reach a deal, but the High Court judge urged a compromise to be found.

Cllr Cook added: “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.

“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.

“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 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 honourable compromise.”

The vision for a new Old Market

Plans to redesign Old Market and repair decades of planning “mistakes and errors” are to be presented to Bristol City Council’s Cabinet this evening.

A leading road and traffic designer from the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment has created a vision for the area which aims to improve traffic flow, reduce the number of injuries suffered since a new bus route system was introduced and reclaim the area which has become little more than a traffic route.

The plans follow a recent community workshop with the Foundation organised with the Old Market Community Association (OCMA).

In a statement, the OCMA is calling for council funding to revamp the area which suffers from a large number of empty shops and is “failing to provide basic sustainable amenities for its community”.

“Our greatest concern is the traffic system. The report [from the Foundation] has confirmed what the community has been saying for many years and we want to address the problem.

“The first crucial element is to reconfigure the central island bus stops in Old Market Street. The design and counterintuitive flow of the traffic through these islands has already caused many serious pedestrian injuries and we need to prevent more casualties or even fatalities. It completely fails as an asset for the community and has given priority to the buses and vehicles that use Old Market as a thoroughfare.

“Our solution is simple and practical; we build on what is already there. We are looking for funding to carry out these works and would greatly appreciate any support from the cabinet members.”

Old Market, once a vibrant, successful area that formed an extension to Bristol’s traditional shopping district in Castle Street and Wine Street, suffered from a number of post-war planning decisions saw the relocation of Bristol’s main shopping area to Broadmead, and the building of the final section of the Inner Circuit Road.

Tony Dyer, from campaign group Living Streets and has been helping OMCA in its work with Destination Bristol, added that “Old Market street became less a street for living, shopping and working in and instead became a conveniently wide traffic thoroughfare, somewhere to rush through on the way to somewhere else”.

Mr Dyer had submitted a supporting statement for tonight’s Cabinet meeting, in which he recounts his family’s links with the area over four generations and calls on the council to support the regeneration plans.

“In recent years, Old Market has seen the tiniest spark of the beginnings of an urban revival. The residential population has doubled in the last decade from under 2,000 in 2001, to almost 4,000 last year,” he said.

“A considerable portion of the credit for this nascent “green shoots” of regeneration must lie in the efforts made by the local community in working with the council and the business community to encourage suitable development – however the problem of traffic levels remain as a blight on their aspirations and will have a major impact as to whether this regeneration will be sustained.

“There is a tremendous opportunity to repair previous mistakes and errors, which, however well-intentioned, have nevertheless failed to provide this historic part of Bristol with the quality of environment it needs if it is to ever reclaim the levels of vibrancy and attractiveness that it enjoyed in times past.”

The Cabinet meeting takes place at 6pm today and you can watch it live here on Bristol24-7 below…

Cllr Gary Hopkins, second from left, with (from left) May Gurney's Dan Thomas, Jon Sharkey, and Ian Threader

Bristol residents will be receiving new recycling boxes, allowing them to recycle plastic and Tetra-Pak, this week as the new kerbside services begin.

Green boxes are being delivered by waste services provider May Gurney this week, with smaller black wheelie bins being rolled out from next week.

The 180-litre bins will replace the current 240-litre bins, as the council aims to further reduce the amount of rubbish being sent to landfill.

Some 20,000 green boxes, which include netting to prevent items blowing away, are being delivered in this first phase. A further 13,000 will be delivered from February 6.

Cabinet member for strategic waste, Cllr Gary Hopkins, said the services were being provided because of public demand and the need to save cash from squeezed council budgets.

He added that recycling rates had increased again, so that the city was now recycling more than half its waste for the first time.

“When we set out to deliver this contract, we knew the number one thing residents wanted was for their plastics and Tetra Paks to be collected at the kerbside and we’ve worked hard to be able to deliver this, while at the same time managing to save around £2.5 million a year of tax payers’ money with a much more efficient and cost effective service,” he said.

“We’re very pleased that May Gurney are now ready to roll out the new services to residents. This should make it easier for people to recycle even more at home and reduce the amount they throw away.

“This comes just as we’ve received our latest recycling figures, which show that for December 2011, Bristol recycled 53% of its waste - our highest ever level and a huge milestone for the city. National targets were set for us to achieve this goal by 2020, so we are way ahead of our targets. This makes us one of the top performing cities in the country and I would like to thank Bristol residents for all efforts at recycling and reducing their waste.”

The new £14million waste contract with May Gurney was signed in July and is part of the city council’s bid to reach a target of sending no waste to landfill within three years.

Figures for December 2011 show that Bristol’s rate for recycling, composting and reuse was 53% – an increase of 17% from36% in December 2010. The amount of waste sent to landfill has dropped to 19.42%, down from 63.34% in December 2010 (and 88% before Bristol’s weekly food & organic kerbside recycling were introduced in 2006).

Jon Sharkey, from May Gurney, said: “Residents have been great in adapting to the changes we have already introduced to collection days and of course the day changes over Christmas as a result of bank holidays. Now comes the best part for residents – better services on their doorstep.

“In order for us to roll it out as efficiently as possible, it will take us a few months before the whole city has the new recycling services, but by the end of June everyone should be recycling their mixed plastics and Tetra Paks.”

Residents wanting to find out more about the new waste and recycling services can visit www.bristol.gov.uk/recycling or telephone the council’s customer services centre on 0117 922 2100.

Oil in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deep Water Horizon disaster in 2010

Bristol University scientists have developed a magnetic soap which could be used to clean up oil spills from coastlines more effectively.

The team at Bristol, led by Professor Julian Eastoe, produced their magnetic soap by dissolving iron in water, allowing it to respond to a magnetic field.

Scientists have long been searching for a way to control soaps (or surfactants as they are known in industry) once they are in solution to increase their ability to dissolve oils in water and then remove them from a system.

While soaps are used to clean up marine environments after oil spills, they can damage the surrounding environment as well. The magnetic soap would be much easier for teams working on spills to remove the clumps of oil produced when mixed with soap after cleaning, therefore reducing the environmental impact.

“From a commercial point of view, though these exact liquids aren’t yet ready to appear in any household product, by proving that magnetic soaps can be developed, future work can reproduce the same phenomenon in more commercially viable liquids for a range of applications from water treatment to industrial cleaning products,” said Prof Eastoe.

Peter Dowding, an industrial chemist not involved in the research, said: “Any systems which act only when responding to an outside stimulus that has no effect on its composition is a major breakthrough as you can create products which only work when they are needed to.

“Also the ability to remove the surfactant after it has been added widens the potential applications to environmentally sensitive areas like oil spill clean ups where in the past concerns have been raised.”

A European Badger (Picture: BadgerHero/Wikipedia)

A Bristol MP has defended her right to campaign against a proposed badger cull in the West, which she describes as a “killing spree”.

Kerry McCarthy, the Bristol East MP, said people living in cities were just as entitled to have a view on farming as the farmers themselves.

“Why should farming be just a rural issue?,” she wrote on her blog. “Farmers produce food, people in cities eat food. They’re as entitled to have a view on farming as the farmers themselves.

“That’s why I think it’s wrong that the Defra ministerial team in the Commons consists of two farmers and a former adviser to the NFU. And the Minister in the Lords is a horticulturalist.

“Defra shouldn’t just be about the producer interests. That’s why Labour changed it from the Ministry for Agriculture to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.”

Ms McCarthy was speaking after conflict in the countryside was predicted when the Government announced the two areas which have been selected to pilot the controversial cull of badgers, as part of the effort to combat TB in cattle.

The Ashton Vale village green area marked, top, and Bristol City FC's Ashton gate stadium

Campaigners fighting to register the full site where Bristol City Football Club plan to build a new stadium as a village green are confident of victory, after a judge agreed to a judicial review.

In June 2011, councillors agreed on a compromise over the Ashton Vale town green bid, voting in favour of accepting a recommendation to split the site – with only the southern area kept as a town green.

The decision would have allowed the football club to build their new stadium in the northern area of the site.

But campaigners applied for a judicial review in August, after it emerged that the council had not  registered the correct piece of land that was supposedly agreed upon.

Now, High Court judge Mr Justice Collins has agreed for a judicial review to go ahead, once again delaying the club’s plans to build the new stadium, which was given planning permission in 2009.

Read the High Court document here…

Adrienne Copithorne, solicitor with Richard Buxton Environmental & Public Law, who are supporting the village green campaigners said this morning: “Our client and the supporters of the village green at Ashton Vale are obviously very pleased that the Court has recognised the merit in our application for judicial review.

“We look forward to a success at the full hearing, when the failure on the part of the Council to register the village green in a lawful manner will be rectified.”

Bristol City FC are due to release a statement later today, but last August said they were “confident” any review would be rejected as, “it is felt the city council’s decision is a robust one and has taken into account all the evidence provided to it by both sides”.

Artist's impression of the redevelopment of the County Ground

Bosses at Gloucestershire County Cricket Club say they are considering leaving the County Ground for a new home in Gloucester, after plans to redevelop the stadium were rejected.

They added that the decision by councillors on Wednesday meant it was “almost impossible” for the club to stay in the city.

“We are bitterly disappointed by this decision,” said the Club’s Chief Executive, Tom Richardson. “This decision means that the international cricket programme in Bristol now stops and will be lost forever.

“Furthermore, our overall future in Bristol is also in doubt.  It is no secret that Gloucester would be very keen to have us.  The funding from the development will be lost and the City risks losing what could be its only sports stadium. We need to consider our options, but time is running out.”

Councillors on the Development Control (North) Committee voted six to four against the plans to expand the stadium and build a range of flats at the site - despite approval by city council planners in November.

The plans were thrown out not because of the expansion of the ground – up to a maximum capacity of 17,500 seats – but rather the tower block of 147 flats that would help pay for it. Opponents said that at seven stories it was too big, lacked sufficient parking and would be harmful to a conservation area.

Supporters of the club yesterday bemoaned the prospect of the club leaving its home of 122 years, but opponents said that while they wanted the club to stay in the city, it could not remain “at any cost”.

Gloucester City Council leader Paul James confirmed to the Evening Post that his authority’s chief executive, Julian Wain, had called the cricket club yesterday morning to offer help.

Mr James said: “What he was saying was that if the cricket club were to look for somewhere else to be based, we would be prepared to have a discussion about it.

“Should they need a new home, we would welcome them to Gloucester, which is the capital of the county after all.”

The club has the option to appeal the decision, but chairman Rex Body said: ”No decision has yet been reached in regard to an appeal, but this is being considered by the Club and will be discussed at a forthcoming board meeting.”

The plans for the revamp of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club's stadium

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club bosses have described the decision to reject plans to redevelop the County Ground as a “massive disappointment”.

Councillors on the Development Control (North) Committee last night voted six to four against the plans to expand the stadium and build a range of flats at the site - despite approval by city council planners in November.

The decision means Bristol will not be able to host international cricket in the future.

The plans were thrown out not because of the expansion of the ground – up to a maximum capacity of 17,500 seats – but rather the tower block of 147 flats that would help pay for it. Opponents said that at seven stories it was too big, lacked sufficient parking and would be harmful to a conservation area.

The club is due to release a more detailed statement on the decision later today, but earlier this week captain Alex Gidman said a refusal would have a “major effect on our ability to develop successful Gloucestershire teams”.

Supporters at a packed meeting last night also said a refusal could lead to the club relocating away from Bristol.

Cllr Steve Comer told the meeting: ”I don’t want to be on the committee that forced Gloucestershire Cricket Club out of Bristol.”

But fellow Liberal Democrat Cllr Sylvia Doubell said: ”We want the cricket club to have international games, but not at any price.”

The club can now either appeal against the decision, put in a new set of plans or walk away.

Bristol’s Green Party councillors are calling on the city council to back plans for a national initiative to bring down the price of green energy.

Cllr Tess Green wants fellow councillors at next week’s full council meeting to launch a study into whether a ‘buyers’ co-operative’ for sustainable energy can be formed.

Based on a Dutch initiative, Met de Stroom Mee, the co-operative negotiates with energy companies which compete to provide energy for those who sign up to the group at the best price.

The Greens want to expand this plan so that energy is only provided from renewable sources.

“That way,” said Cllr Tess Green, “we could extend the Dutch system beyond reducing fuel poverty. It would give a boost to the market for renewables, restoring some of the business confidence that has been undermined by the government, and help toward tackling climate change, Peak Oil, and all the problems that come with nuclear energy.

“At first we were just thinking of a Bristol based scheme, but the regulator told us it couldn’t be done legally on a city basis. That opened the door to the much larger and exciting challenge of taking it nationwide.”

Cllr Gus Hoyt, her fellow Green on the city council, added: “If passed this motion could benefit individuals all over the country – it’s about time we took a bit of the power back. It means everyone can have clean and affordable energy that literally does not cost the earth.

“It also gives BCC excellent credentials nationally as a green capital interested in real carbon reduction and not just ticking boxes and meeting quotas.”

The Gloucesteshire County Cricket Club captain has urged councillors to back plans to redevelop the County Ground, in advance of the crucial meeting tonight.

Alex Gidman said a failure to approve the plans – involving increasing the capacity of the ground and new housing – would mean the club would not be able to develop successful teams in the future.

There has been heavy opposition to this part of the proposal by local residents, leading to the club downsizing the proposed development and changing plans to build student accommodation to, instead, incorporating a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartment, which will include underground parking.

Councillors on the Development Control (North) Committee will meet at 6pm today to decide on the plans, which were recommended for approval by city council planners in November.

Speaking in advance of the meeting, Gidman said: “Wednesday night’s meeting is of huge importance to the future of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, not only for the playing side, which is my prime concern as captain, but also the many community activities the club is involved in which benefit a wide range of people throughout the county.

“Should planning permission for our ground development not be given, this will have a major effect on our ability to develop successful Gloucestershire teams.

“If we do get the go-ahead to develop our ground, it will not only boost our chances of success on the field, but just as importantly, provide funds to support the large number of community programmes the Club currently runs in Bristol each year.

“We are also desperately keen, as a Club, to continue staging International cricket in Bristol and remain the only venue in the City and the South West to host major international sport.”

The County Ground currently holds only 3,668 permanent seats, but with temporary seats the capacity rises to 16,000 for one day international (ODI) matches.

You can watch the Development Control (North) Committee meeting via the video player above from 6pm this evening.