Seeing Red

There are some things in life that make your blood boil.

If you're interested in the healthy development of Old Market, the Love Easton exhibition upstairs at the Architecture Centre during November 2009 may well be one of those things.

The catalogue makes a fair stab at it with its presentation of the first of the project's 'Big Visions', Old Market Road (sic).

The double-page spread shows two photo-montages: one large, one small.

The larger one, presumably the bigger vision, depicts a bleak red-light district with a few shady characters left and right, one at a French style pissoir. The neon sign above his head promises Live Rude Girls on Stage Open 24 Hours. Red lights illuminate the windows of the Palace, while the business next door offers Girls, Girls, Girls, Live Exotic Show, Peep Show and Striptease. Further along we see Fun City and 64 Selections Video Peeps. All this is presented under the arc of a rainbow.

A quarter of the size, the other vision, entitled Injecting life, portrays the streets of Old Market thronging with people in a manifestation of 'let's all go to the same place at the same time' not seen since the anti-Iraq-war protests of February 2003. There seem to be markets stalls there, too, though it's not clear exactly what they are.

So whose visions are these?

The cryptic catalogue gives no clue. The exhibition seems to be keeping that to itself, too.

Seeds, Flowers, Freeholds & Grass Roots Campaigning

The big news, of course, is that the lap dancing club's licence application for 22 hour-a-day opening has not been granted. Due to the objections raised, it will now go to a hearing of the Licensing Sub-Committee on the 15th October.

The planning application for another lap dancing club next door at the former Ghana Goods shop is still available for objections. The consultation period has been extended until the 14th October, due to BCC's late sending of the notification letters. The Old Market Community Association is urging everyone to 'Object NOW!'

On a brighter note, Old Market Street now has a Florist! Funki Flora has opened, fittingly perhaps, at the former Green Party campaign shop next door to the Stag & Hounds. Apart from employing an apparently dyslexic sign-writer, business is blooming and the shop will be expanding into the realms of fruit and veg in the near future.

The Bristol Genuine Seed Bank has gone up in the world and down the street, moving to very much larger premises at the former Thorne Security shop. In these credit crunch times, it suggests that more people must be turning to growing their own.

Interestingly, Old Market has traditionally had a seed shop. Back in the 1930s, it was at 29 Midland Road, where the entrance to John's Cafe Bar used to be (best wishes to his family).

John's, incidentally, it currently being offered on £19,000 a year leasehold.

Details of this vacant shop, the rest of the building above and behind Funki Flora, and others in Old Market can now be found, collected neatly into one place, on the brand new - not yet officially launched - Old Market Retail website.

This is an initiative by the Old Market Community Association designed to make it easier for anyone seeking to rent a shop to the area, to find one. It's a free service, with agents' and owners' contact details and links back to their websites or ads. Agents and owners can add the details themselves by filling in the 'Add a Property' form on the website.

OMCA, who are strongly focussed on facilitating the regeneration of Old Market, has been contacting owners and agents of empty shops to get the details of the properties. At the same time, it has been encouraging them to display the weekly or monthly rent in the shop windows, in an attempt to let people know how low the rents in Old Market really are.

Regeneration or degeneration?

The lap dancing flesh-peddlars have applied for a new licence to lure like-minded misogynists into the area twenty-four hours a day, while the unlicensed, hence illegal, adult shop in Old Market Street is now flashing its open sign.

With its AGM looming in just over a month, the Old Market Community Association needs to turn its attention to what will be on the agenda.

Regeneration is an obvious candidate.

The ball has started rolling, following the successful OMCA meeting with council Regeneration and Transport officials. Then there's the Love Easton Urban Design Task Group, with its One Vision for Old Market, drop-in consultation day.

So, what does Old Market want for itself?

What do the people of the Old Market Conservation Area really want for their neighbourhood?

Right now, it's an unsustainable and uncomfortable juxtaposition of vacant and specialist shops, charities, gay clubs and bars, porn and massage parlours, friendly and unfriendly pubs, a laundrette and a smattering of food places all side-by-side with around 750 up- and down-market homes containing about 1500 residents.

During the daylight hours there's little vibrancy: little to tempt you into the 'high street' for a stroll.

Attempts to lure a mainstream supermarket chain (and with it some retail confidence in the area) into the gap left by Thorne Security have, so far, failed - blame being laid partly on the local loop-the-loop traffic system.

Attempts to fire-up the area with pavement cafes have been doused by Bristol City Council Licensing officials whose blanket (carpet bombing?) pavement policies seem to be more about their own bureaucratic convenience than the needs of Old Market.

There is no doubt that Old Market has great potential. The question is how to acheive it.

Some envision pavement cafes, trees, benches and pedestrians. They see more specialist shops shoulder to shoulder with butcher, baker and greengrocer.

What would you like to see?

Lies, Damn Lies and The Bristol Evening Post!

If you daren't use a good headline, pick one that won't fight back!
That seems to be the bullying strategy of some Bristol Evening Post journalism.
Its article on Saturday, 9 August Bristol's Old Market on Toxic Danger List is a case in point.
The story is utterly misleading about Old Market and leaves readers believing something that is patently untrue.
Whether this is deliberate scaremongering, just bad journalism, or both is difficult to say.

Either way, it wantonly damages Old Market's recent attempts at regeneration after years of having to live with another, ill-deserved reputation.
People who live or work in Old Market are no more at risk than those who live or work in Cabot Circus.
The statement that "The busy street, which provides one of the gateways into the city centre, is on a list of 15 'danger areas' [...]" is simply misleading.
It is not the Old Market Street gateway that has been monitored for toxic pollution.
The pollution measuring station just happens to be called "Old Market" because it is sited near the junction of Bond Street and Old Market Street.
In fact, it is located under the pedestrian footbridge, behind the old escalator building.
Obviously, it measures primarily the toxicity of the fumes from the traffic going through the Temple Way underpass, a busy dual carriageway.
This is the traffic that passes Cabot Circus and far exceeds that travelling through Old Market.
If the sensor station had been sited on the other side of the road, it might have been called "Castle Park". Then the headline might have been the absurd, "Castle Park on toxic danger list".
It is also true that there are only two functioning monitoring stations of this type in Bristol, so inevitably the data will refer to the area in which they are sited. In reality, it may or may not be any different from other parts of Bristol.
No doubt the story is newsworthy. People should be alerted to the dangerous levels of traffic pollution in Bristol.

However, the choice to malign Old Market when the news refers just as easily to Cabot Circus is despicable.
It clearly has not mattered to the Post’s journalist or editor that this sort of scaremongering unfairly damages Old Market's already unjust reputation and is therefore utterly irresponsible.

Moving Swiftly On...

A quorum of the Old Market Community Association committee met on Thursday with guest appearances from two local beat officers. Of particular note in the discussions were two items:

1. a meeting with Bristol City Council Redevelopment and Traffic officers; and
2. arrangements for an AGM combined with a general get-together for local people.

The former is in the pipeline and will be aimed at finding a way to make Old Market more attractive to daytime retailers and improve the lot of those already there.

The latter is proposed for the end of September and initial suggestions are for the meeting to be preceded - or pehaps followed - by a family-friendly affair with food.

Follow or join in the discussions via the Old Market Community Association facebook group.

A Week of Small Changes

Sometimes it's the little things that confirm that things are changing.

Anonymous wooden boards went up over the windows of the would-be massage parlour in West Street that has been prevented from opened by enforcement action.

The recently re-opened lap dancing club was warned by the Council that the “substantial nude lady” on its facade is unacceptable and will be required to be taken down.

After insisting that the hanging baskets in Old Market Street be removed because they were interfering with the proper functioning of the lights, Bristol City Council Lighting Services agreed that they could stay if they were fixed lower down.

Old Market is standing up for itself and is getting more respect!

Join the dots...

Image via Wikipedia

Saturday 28th June: lap dancing club re-opens.

Friday night 3rd July: a woman is attacked as she waits for a taxi at 4am. Police are looking for witnesses. More here.

Saturday night 4th July: a gay man is beaten up by a group of thugs after they leave the club.

Surprised? If you are, perhaps it's time to pull your head out of the sand!

The Night Club that never was...

It turns out that Thorne's night club planning application (see A Bad Week for Old Market) was a phantom!

The most offending phrase, "& sui generis in relation to a night club", should never have been included in the description. It's now been removed. Apparently, they had tried that one in a previous planning application and it was refused. So the current application is only to extend the use to include restaurants, cafes and drinking establishments.

Nevertheless, Old Market's shopping space is still at risk.

A bad week for Old Market

The sudden passing of John Wright, owner and chef of John's Cafe Bar on Midland Road, last Wednesday, will be a great loss not only for his family, friends and customers, but also for Old Market itself. John's business has been a great asset to the area. Its good reputation has drawn people from far and wide to its Sunday lunches and Thai food. Exactly the kind of business that Old Market really needs.

On the same day, Old Market received another blow, albeit of a very different kind. This one came in the form of a planning application. For its former shop at 5-11 West Street, Thorne Holdings Ltd. has applied for permission to "extend [the] ground floor from Use Classes A1, A2 & B2 to include A3, A4 & sui generis in relation to a night club."

In other words, Old Market is at risk of losing yet more retail frontage.

Does Old Market really need another club? Or would somewhere to do the shopping serve it better?

Thorne was granted planning permission in July 2007 ( 07/01107/F ) for the "construction of commercial unit on ground floor; construction of 24 no. self-contained flats with associated landscaping" in the space extending back from its shop and yard in West Street to its yard in Braggs Lane. An overview of the plan can be seen here.

It is likely that the new planning application will be discussed at the Easton Planning Task Group meeting at 6pm on Tuesday 7th July. The meetings are public and are held at Easton Community Centre, Kilburn Street, Easton. If you wish to comment on the application for change of use, please come along.
Alternatively, you can make your comment online here: 09/02402/X or in writing to Bristol City Council Planning Department.
The closing date for standard consultations is 20th July.

p.s. Thorne Holdings is landlord to a series of properties on the north side of West Street, including the last remaining massage parlour.

Use Classes:
A1 Shops - Shops, retail warehouses, hairdressers, undertakers, travel and ticket agencies, post offices, pet shops, sandwich bars, showrooms, domestic hire shops, dry cleaners and funeral directors.
A2 Financial and professional services - Banks, building societies, estate and employment agencies, professional and financial services and betting offices.
A3 Restaurants and cafés - For the sale of food and drink for consumption on the premises - restaurants, snack bars and cafes.
A4 Drinking establishments - Public houses, wine bars or other drinking establishments (but not a night clubs).
B2 General industrial
Sui Generis - Theatres, houses in multiple paying occupation, hostels providing no significant element of care, scrap yards. Petrol filling stations and shops selling and/or displaying motor vehicles. Retail warehouse clubs, nightclubs, launderettes, taxi businesses, amusement centres. Casinos.

Men who really like women don't go to lap dancing clubs

Image via Wikipedia

The word on the street is that West Street's lap dancing club will be opening this weekend, after a lengthy period of refurbishment.

What a peculiar world we live in, where men will pay for fake foreplay with women they must not touch and who may well despise them. One wonders if they realise that the women are acting. That it's just a job. Or are they hypnotised by their hormones? Do they succumb to the fantasy that the woman entertaining them might actually want to mate with them?

Would it make a difference if they knew:

• that many women who go into the sex industry do so because they have been sexually abused and think that this is all they are worth;
• that the women have to pay to work in the club and are exploited financially by the club owners;
• that in places where clubs have opened, the incidence of rape in the vicinity of the club has gone up by as much as 50%;
• that lap dancers have reported a 100% sexual assault rate;
• that lap dancing clubs perpetuate an unhealthy image of women as mere sex objects; and
• that the women they are paying to see are someone's sister, someone's daughter, someone's wife?

Lucy, 19, works in a lap dancing club. She is a single mother, with a three year old daughter. The only way she can look after her daughter and earn some money is by working unsociable hours in a lap dancing club, when her mum can look after her little girl. She has to pretend to like the men she is dancing for but she doesn't. She hates being propositioned for 'extras' and being groped and she hates having to shave her genitals every night. It hurts! She hopes her daughter never has to go into an environment like this. She wants to stop working in the club and is looking for a way out.

Thanks to S.P.

Footnote: The provisions within the Policing and Crime Bill will reclassify lap dancing clubs as ‘sex establishments’ under Schedule 3 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. This will give local communities a stronger say over the establishment and location of a lap dancing clubs and allow them to make objections on grounds wider than is currently allowed. Local people will be able to oppose an application if they have legitimate concerns that a lap dancing club would be inappropriate given the character of an area, for example, if the area was primarily a residential area. Local authorities will have the power to set a cap on the number of lap-dancing clubs that they think is appropriate for a particular area and impose a wider range of conditions on the licences.

Dissenting voices

Not everyone is delighted that the Old Market Community Association has come into being.
There are some who feel that, far from uniting the community, its effect has been to split it. That there are greater tensions now than there ever were before.
Most agree that the closure of the massage parlour at 70 West Street was the right thing to happen. But now it's done, they think the meddling in Old Market's affairs should stop.

There are fears that the complaints about litter and fly-tipping will lead to even fewer parking spaces, because the council may install those large rubbish bins in the road. Their advice: leave well enough alone!

It's an offence!

If you park your car for too long, or at certain times of day, outside the last remaining massage parlour in West Street, Old Market, it may not be there when you return. But the brothel will.

At the first meeting of the Old Market Community Association, a week ago, attendees were told by a senior policeman that little was done about the crimes taking place in so called 'massage parlours', because they are a lower priority than dealing with street based sex workers.

He told the group that it was considered better for these women to be working in licensed establishments than out on the streets.

He was wrong. There are no licences for massage parlours. It is not possible to license a brothel.

At a local PACT meeting, recently, a former policeman, who had worked in the vice squad at Trinity Road Police Station and whose beat had included Old Market, expressed a similar view.

He told the meeting that the women had chosen their work and were happy doing it!

If someone is holding a gun to your head, you may have the choice to close your eyes - and you may be 'happy' to do it - but would you call it a choice?

Isn't it more likely that a person would turn to prostitution through desperation - lack of choice - than choice?

When you talk to the police about brothels, they rarely mention the criminals.

They talk about the sex workers. It's not illegal to be a sex worker at a brothel.

It is an offence, a criminal act, for a person to keep, or to manage, or act or assist in the management of a brothel.

...

There was a sponsored walk a few nights ago in aid of One25, an organisation whose aim is:

"...to enable women marginalised from mainstream society primarily through involvement in street based sex work to access appropriate services and to become aware of alternative possibilities for their lives..."

The One25 website reports the following facts about street sex-workers:

• 99% are addicted to one or more Class A drugs and/or alcohol
• In 2007 we recorded 123 violent incidents reported to us by the women including domestic violence, rape and armed attacks
  
• All suffer from chronic physical, mental and/or sexual health problems and half suffer from acute ill health*
  
• 66% are homeless *
  
• 62% were abused as children*
  
• 38% have been through fostering or children's homes*
  
• 46% went through the criminal justice system in 2007
  
• 32% left school at 14 or younger *
  
• Their age range is 17-49
  
• 65% have had children but 79% of those have had their children removed from them
  
• Only 1% of violent incidents against street based sex workers results in a conviction**

* Jeal, N and Salisbury, C (2004) @Self reported experiences of health services among street based prostitutes' British Medical Journal 65 pp 123

** (2001) 'Violence against sex workers' British medical Journal 332 pp524

You think they're not listening - They are now!

Image by theparadigmshifter via Flickr

Don't you wish you could tell the police what they really ought to be spending their energy on in your area?

Wouldn't you like to tell those developers a thing or two about their projects - before it's too late for them to change their plans?

Well, you can!

Believe it or not, it's a lot easier these days to influence decisions affecting your local area than than you might imagine. Especially, if you've never tried, or if it's been some time since you last attempted it.

In fact, it's possible not only to have your say, but also to have it listened to and acted upon.

You can do it at the public meetings of your local community partnership and Safer Bristol. In the case of Old Market, the Easton Community Partnership and PACT meetings.

Here's an excerpt from the Community Safety page on the Bristol City Council website:

Community Safety is about delivering local solutions to local problems that have been identified by local people. [...]

Residents can raise their community concerns and priorities through PACT meetings (partners and communities together). This new approach called Partners and Communities Together (PACT) gives residents the chance to meet the team and influence priorities in your neighbourhood. [...]

You can do most of your complaining from the comfort of your own armchair!

For PACT Priorities, you can do it online here.

For planning or environmental issues, you can email or call Neighbourhood Facilitator, Matthew Cheney, at Easton Community Partnership:
Phone: 0117 377 3640
Email: matthew.cheney@eastoncommunitypartnership.org.uk

But it's much more fun to turn up at one of the meetings and get it off your chest in person.

The surprising thing (when you first try it) is that everyone listens and then passes your issues on to the right person in the council or police or whichever local partner(s) it needs to go to - even councillors and MPs.

Of course, you don't need to have anything to complain about - you may just wish to be more involved and influencial in what happens to your neighbourhood.

For Environment Issues: A chance to raise issues and concerns about the environment such as fly tipping, graffiti and dog fouling, and to work with the council to reduce the impact of this on the area.
All meetings are open to anyone.
Next meeting: 22nd July - 6-8pm, Easton Community Centre, Kilburn Street (map)
If you'd like to join the mailing list contact matthew.cheney@eastoncommunitypartnership.org.uk

For Planning issues: Want to find out what new developments are planned for the area?
Interested in making sure any new planning applications will be of benefit to the community?
Come along to this resident group to discuss local planning applications and make recommendations to developers and the council.
All meetings are held at Easton Community Centre, Kilburn Street. (map)
Next meetings: July 6-8pm. August 11th 6-8pm.
If you'd like to join the mailing list contact matthew.cheney@eastoncommunitypartnership.org.uk

A Parable of the Local Economy

The following is quoted from Plugging the Leaks a handbook on how to nurture sustainable communities.

The African Savanna is a plain that has an astonishing variety of wildlife that live off one another and the plant-life in the area. A key part of this ecology is the elephant, which eats the small budding seeds of a particular type of tree. Although few in number compared to the countless herds of grazing animals, if the elephants were to be removed then there would be no other animal to eat those saplings. Soon they would grow into large trees and the Savanna would become a forest. And with it the entire ecology of the area would change, as the type of plant-life and animals that happily survived in the plains would be quite different from the type that thrives in forests.

Just as removing an elephant from the Savanna would have huge impacts on its ecology, so it is with vital components of the local economy, like village shops which support a dense network of local producers who sell through them. The removal of the final cashpoint or Post Office facility can be just as devastating to the local economy as the high-profile closure of a factory or coalmine. The loss of the main shop that 'anchors' people to a high street or shopping parade. The wider impacts of all such decisions – and they are decisions – cannot always be foreseen. But many of the impacts can frequently be predicted if they are carefully thought through. It really should have been no surprise when Wheathampstead lost a bakery, dry cleaners and newsagents in the months following the high street bank's closure.

So – if your economy has bits you like and bits you would like to see developed then you need to take action to make that happen. It isn't going to happen naturally.

Quoted from: Plugging the Leaks - Making the most of every pound that enters your local economy

Photo by Roddy Smith. Roddy Smith is a wildlife conservationist and safari guide based in the Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia.

One person's musings on Old Market...

This may not be to everyone's taste, but it has some thought provoking images of Old Market.
Found on YouTube:

If you wish to see part two, it's here.

What could you do with a defunct massage parlour?

Just a thought...

How about opening Old Market clubs for coffees and lunches?

Loads of nightlife and hardly any 'daylife'.

That's one of the problems with Bristol's Old Market.

Now, if the clubs could be persuaded to open during the day for lunches, teas and coffees, wouldn't that attract more people into the area?

The pavements are wide; the hanging baskets are up. With the glorious summer that's promised this year, why not go for a little more of that continental feel in Old Market...