Bus Gate Battle: 'Bristol's now a city planned by developers' Fadumo Farah George Ferguson Joe Banks

Interesting chit chat last night about bullying disabled residents with 3am bus gates ... with Fadumo Farah, ex-Mayor George Ferguson and Bristol journalist Joe Banks - - on LTN Battle of Barton Hill Bristol, Liveable Neighbourhoods (21Mar25) - on www.thisweek.org.uk - the city's politics show which BCfm's Pat Hart banned during Covid and the Trans lobby then evicted but which has been continuing online -

https://politicsthisweek.gn.apc.org/2025/03/not-the-bcfm-politics-show-presented-by-tony-gosling-232/

Police join contractors as bus gate installed before sunrise

https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/police-join-contractors-bus-gate-installed-before-sunrise/

By Martin Booth Thursday Mar 13, 2025

Dozens of police officers joined council contractors in the early hours of Thursday morning as a bus gate in Barton Hill was finally installed.

The bus gate, part of the East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood trial scheme, is now on Avonvale Road.

On Thursday, some people drove their cars straight through the gate in both directions while others took alternative routes, with Beam Street becoming particularly busy.

At around 4am, a small group of women lay down on Marsh Lane to prevent contractors painting the road and installing another bus gate outside Barton House.

One man who parked his car on Beam Street to get a newspaper from the Spar on Avonvale Road, called the move to install the bus gate before sunrise “sneaky”.

He said: “I had a feeling they’d do that at nighttime. It will cause chaos.”

Several of the protesters who lay down on Marsh Lane are currently fasting because it is Ramadan and were unable to have their Suhoor pre-dawn meal.

Another protester said that no legal notice had been given that the roads would be closed in order to install the bus gates.

Fadumo Farah, who lives in Barton House, said that she left her home before 4am after being notified about what was happening via a WhatsApp group.

She said: “The police officers told me they were here to keep the peace but it looks like they were assisting.

“We were only four women and one man. We were peacefully protesting and there were around 50 police officers…

“They said we would get arrested and we were breaking the law for protesting on the road.”

As protesters filmed police officers, one officer filmed the protesters.

The newly installed bus gate on Avonvale Road – photo: Martin Booth

When contractors divided themselves to work on different sections of the infrastructure including on Marsh Lane and Avonvale Road, protesters also split up.

Infrastructure was also installed before dawn on Victoria Avenue.

Farah added: “My position is supporting the community. As soon as I saw so many police officers, that was really disappointing because there were only a few of us…

“I have seen so many women broken and crying. We missed our special meal with our family this morning and now we are fasting…

“I asked them to bring us water or something but they refused to do that.”

How Bristol’s tallest building will be linked to Israel’s atrocities

https://joe-banks.com/2025/03/08/how-bristols-tallest-building-will-be-linked-to-israels-atrocities/

If you stood in the Bearpit this winter – a sunken 1960s concrete plaza in the middle of St James Barton roundabout in Bristol’s city centre – you would have seen up to a dozen tents pitched on its raised grass sides. As the relentless traffic goes round above like water circling an enormous plughole, you are confronted with the raw end of Bristol’s housing crisis. Tragically, it no longer registers as a shock. Tents like these can be found all over the inner city, from parks to roundabouts to the walls of the cathedral. Beyond the centre, hundreds of battered vans and caravans line residential streets, industrial estates and the avenues of the Downs – homes to the growing mass of people who cannot afford a roof over their head in a place with the least affordable housing of any major British city outside London.

Looking up from the tents at the Bearpit, you see a very different, but equally emblematic feature of Bristol’s housing crisis. Across the road, the former 18-storey Premier Inn, originally built as offices in the 1970s, is currently being demolished floor by floor. In its place will stand two high-rise towers. One of these will be a 28-storey Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) block, the other an 18-storey ‘Co-Living’ block – a new housing product similar to PBSA, with small bedrooms and shared amenity spaces, but aimed at young professionals. The larger tower will be Bristol’s tallest ever building, two storeys higher than the Build-to-Rent development Castle Park View, completed in 2022. It will be a defining landmark on the skyline, visible from across the city.