Thread by @adam_ldr

Welcome back to City Hall for Bristol City Council cabinet. Strap in and hold on to your hats....

#LDReporter

Mayor Marvin Rees begins with a big smile and a bit of banter aimed at me. "I wish we had a journalist here." Nicely done :-)

#LDReporter

Marvin hails the award announced recently to ZedPods, one of the new modular housing schemes as a result of Bristol Housing Festival. #LDReporter

And then Marvin has a pop at "clickbait" journalism. Ahhh well. #LDReporter

Anyhoo, onto the first main item. Cabinet to ask voluntary community and social enterprise groups to apply for share of £1.2million pot. #LDReporter

Lib Dem Cllr Anthony Negus asks for examples of how voluntary and community sector groups have produced better results than the "abolished neighbourhood partnerships". Deputy mayor Asher Craig replies with a whirlwind of impressive-sounding facts and figures. #LDReporter

Cabinet member Cllr Helen Holland introduces the next item, recommissioning adult social care advocacy services and stresses their importance. #LDreporter

Now onto budget monitoring report. Deputy mayor Craig Cheney says there is a risk of overspend on the general fund to the tune of £4.3million. Cllr Cheney uses a "whack-a-mole" analogy to describe the social care budgets. (One pops up just as you push another down.) #LDReporter

Cabinet member Anna Keen outlines how the council is recruiting staff urgently to try to tackle the widely reported problems surrounding emergency care and health plans for kids who need them. #LDReporter

Rattling straight on to the council tax base agenda item, which isn't actually setting the council tax. #LDReporter

Cllr Negus raises the "really serious" problem of AirBnB taking houses of multiple occupation out of the stock that could be available for family homes. #LDReporter

Cllr Cheney says the council is facing a £1.7million deficit in business rates collection. #LDReporter

Cabinet now agreeing to reallocate £1million from the local growth fund because of an unexpected funding gap for Portway park and ride station. It will be the first new railway station in Bristol in 20 years. Costs rocketed during Network Rail's development phase. #LDReporter

Ward councillor Don Alexander welcomes the £1million reallocation. Cabinet member Kye Dudd says Portway park and ride station's detailed design process should be completed by the end of May. #LDReporter

Next item. Cabinet agreeing a bid for £3.8m to govt for roads maintenance, and also a bid to try to fix St Philips Causeway which needs £20million-worth of repairs. £20MILLION. #LDReporter

Now onto the proposed Hartcliffe Reuse and Recycling Centre, which would be Bristol's third rubbish dump, whose costs have almost doubled, from £4million to £7million. #LDReporter

Cllr Steve Pearce insists: "It's a household reuse and recycling centre. It's NOT a tip and NOT a dump. It's a household reuse and recycling centre."

I do believe he's referring to this. bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…

#LDReporter

Cllr Pearce: "By building this facility we will have better reuse and recycling facilities. It will mean people south of the river can easily access reuse and recycling facilities. Fly-tipping will reduce in the south of the city." #LDReporter

Cllr Pearce says the previous administration is partly to blame for the under-estimated £4m budget, which is now £7m. MetroBus infrastructure near the site has increased costs for the access, he says. #LDReporter

Cllr Pearce says he'd be "very happy" to see the project's costs examined by scrutiny commission members. #LDReporter

Green Cllr Martin Fodor: "There are significant escalations in the cost so I would like to make sure we're getting value for money." #LDReporter

Cllr Pearce: "The costs have escalated but we're not comparing like for like. The conditions on the ground now are very different than they were under a previous administration." #LDReporter

Cabinet member Helen Holland says the street cleansing depot is a major employer in south Bristol and the new recycling centre will create more jobs. #LDReporter

Cllr Fodor: "Will this jeopardise the other services of Bristol Waste, seeing as it's taking £1million out of its budget?"

Cllr Cheney: "No it woudn't."

#LDReporter

Marvin Rees: "The previous administration under-estimated the cost of delivering this thing. It was like trying to have a champagne lifestyle on beer money." #LDReporter

Marvin: "I saw some pretty poor writing that called this a dump. It's not a dump. That's a very, very low-level description."

That'll be me again then.

#LDReporter

And now onto the next item, "Drain clearance and land drainage CCTV surveys on properties owned or leased by Bristol City Council". The one they were all waiting for. #LDReporter

Now a retrospective decision following the sudden closure of Catch 22 school which the council had been paying to take in mostly excluded, troubled pupils with complex needs. #LDReporter

Cllr Helen Godwin: "After a tender process, Cabot Learning Federation was awarded the contract." She says staff who wish to transfer from Catch-22 can do so to maintain the links with the youngsters. #LDReporter

Green Cllr Clive Stevens: "You've done really well. This was an emergency. It shows how fragile the SEND system is in Bristol." #LDReporter

Mayor introduces item on Bristol Harbour review. "It will mean a fair and sustainable future for Bristol's harbour." #LDReporter

Cllr Pearce: "This is an asset that costs us a six-figure sum every year. It's not sustainable. so this review, not having been done since the 90s, is well overdue." #LDReporter

Cabinet member Paul Smith: "It's really important that the stakeholders in this review include the residents around the harbour and those who live in boats on the harbour, which forms a left-field form of affordable housing in the city." #LDReporter

Final item is the corporate risk register. Talk about saving the best for last. Ahem. #LDReporter

Meeting is brought to a close.Part of that was massively unpleasant and aimed directly at me. #LDReporter