Good Neighbours?

As part of the planning application for the redevelopment of the Memorial Stadium Bristol Rovers submitted a document called "Statement of Community Involvement". This document contained statements such as "[the club has] demonstrated its willingness to engage sensitively with all stakeholders affected by or with an interest in its plans" (page 7, para 4) and "The club will endeavour to be a good neighbour" (page 11).

Because the promised Stadium Monitoring Group has yet to be set up, HorfieldROSE and Councillor Rosalie Walker, arrange a meeting on the 13th of November 2007, to bring representatives from different political parties (including parliamentary candidates), council staff, councillors, residents and stadium management together for discussion of issues raised by the potential redevelopment of the stadium and the increases in it's capacity and use for non-sport activities.

It was therefore quite surprising that not only did Bristol Rovers fail to send a representative to the meeting, we did not receive any reply to the invitation whatsoever.

The Statement of Community Involvement also points to the "Resident's Liaison Group" as a sign of former good relations with local residents. Since no one within HorfieldROSE had been in this group nor known of anyone who was in it, we wrote to Roger Cooper of Bristol Rovers and requested specific information. This is the reply we received:

Further to my note on Sunday I have now been informed that the Football Club has spoken with three of the most prominent members of the Residents Liaison Group. One person – XXXXXXXX was happy for you to be given his telephone number and this is XXXX XXX XXXX. The two others took your contact details and will no doubt contact you in due course – I mentioned one of these on Sunday and she may already have got in touch.

There are three others, not two as I had previously thought. One of these has recently suffered a stroke so we have not tried to contact her. The two others are those we believe may have left the area. The Club has been unable to get a reply from one and the other’s phone gives an unobtainable signal. We will keep trying the number for the first of these two and I will let you know if we are able to make contact.

I trust you will contact XXXXXXXX and leave you to do so.

Regards,
Roger Cooper

We have since spoken to members of this group and have the following details from them:

It was set up with some sort of funding from a national stadia group (unsure of exactly which one) and ongoing funding possibly from both BCC and Rovers. It met about 4-5 times per season and was a group of residents. The group has not met for about two years.

Initially it was to monitor general complaints e.g. noise from the tannoy system, litter, parking, traffic congestion etc. Dave Harper (at that time police liaison officer) was involved and the directors sometimes came to the meetings including Dunsford once. Councillors were involved including ones representing Lockleaze and Ashley Down Wards.

The group ground to a halt due to financial issues, no long term funding, no one listened to residents concerns, and the resulting resident disillusionment with the process. The members of the liaison group also felt "battle weary" after years of meetings, delivering leaflets and trying to make a difference but seeing little change.


Communication does not seem to be the club's strong suit as even fans are also feeling a bit frustrated by the lack of news of progress. The article in Saturday's Evening Post "ROVERS' STADIUM - DEAL STILL IN LIMBO" points out that the Section 106 contract that makes the planning permission official which was supposed to be signed in July, then September, then October, then November, has still not been signed even though both Rovers and the Council continue to claim that the signing is imminent. One fan left the comment

How much longer is this going to go on for. I was under the impression everything was sorted, but yet again more delays. Perhaps the club could put something in tueday nights program to explain the situation we now find ourselves in concerning S106.
concerned fan, bristol

We also believed that the conditions and points for the S106 were essentially finalised when the Planning Development Committee gave consent to the plans in January. How could they give approval if these terms were still negotiable. Having seen the ongoing drafts of the S106, the terms have stayed technically the same but a large degree of discretion has been added where specifics are no longer included and phrases such as "the Stadium the Owner will submit to and obtain the approval in writing from the Council" for various things including the Travel Plan. At the planning meeting, one of the concessions that had been given was the assurance that events like pop concerts would not take place at the stadium, but now it is suggested, these would be possible simply by obtaining written consent from the council from time to time.

Thanks for Small Blessings

Saturday saw Bristol Rovers up against Swindon, but thankfully this was an away game and so the streets around the Memorial Ground were nice and peaceful. However according to the Swindon Advertriser, the same cannot be said for Swindon which saw 12 fotoball fans arrested prior to the match.

Dog units, mounted officers, riot police and other officers patrolled the town centre from early morning to ensure rival factions did not cause any trouble, and fans at the match were shadowed by riot vans parked at the County Ground - a sight not seen in years.

"We have not had vans in the vicinity of the ground for ages, we've not had the need to," said Insp Colbourne.

see article

That may be unusual for Swindon but mounted police, police in roit gear and police dogs are regularly seen in the streets around the Mem at Bristol Rovers Matches.

Fixtures Calendar Removed

We have been contacted by Football DataCo informing us that showing fixture dates on our web calendar as a public service to residents is a violation of their copyright and has asked us to remove this facility from the web site.

Click here to see their letter to us. More evidence that this is about big business and not about sport.

Misleading Statement in Newsletters

Recently two newsletters have been circulated to residents of North Bristol.
The first one is from Paul Harrod – Prospective MP for Bristol North West, and the second from the local Liberal Democrat group, this newsletter being known as ‘Focus’.

Both the above newsletters state that “the planning consent cannot now be revoked”.
This statement is misleading and should be discounted by residents for the following reasons:

• According to the minutes of the Development Control Meeting of the 17th January, the planning permission has been granted subject to the conditions and advices listed in the (officers) report and amendment sheet. At the present time negotiations and discussions are continuing (the S106 agreement for example), and as such the planning permission in not concluded, and is therefore not certain.
• The Ombudsman is continuing to investigate the Council with respect to how the planning application was handled, and how the planning decision was reached. Should the investigations confirm the planning application had not been administered correctly by the Council, the Ombudsman could recommend to the Council that action be taken to cancel the planning permission – which might require the Council seeking an order of the court.
• The HorfieldROSE committee is also considering other options to overturn the permission as part of stage 4 of the campaign against the stadium redevelopment.

Whilst one of the guiding principles of HorfieldROSE is to be non-political and be as even-handed as possible when communicating with Political Parties, in this instance we believe we have to inform members and other residents of the inaccuracy of the above planning consent statement.