The Full Council of the City of Bristol meet on October 14th. The agenda and members' questions are now up on the web, and there's an interesting one from Cllr Ashley Fox (blog here):

  • MQ2 COUNCILLOR A FOX TO ASK COUNCILLOR M BRADSHAW,
  • CABINET MEMBER FOR SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT CONGESTION CHARGING

I note with interest that an article in the "Builder and Engineer" (dated Monday, 22nd September 2008) states the following:- "Cllr Helen Holland had announced at the Labour Party Conference that Bristol City Council has become the latest to confirm that it is to submit a bid for Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) money to ease congestion in the city.

It is said to be preparing a joint bid with Bath. As part of the package both cities will introduce a congestion charge. The news comes as Manchester's bid heads towards a referendum in which the congestion charge element of the proposal is likely to be rejected. This would ensure the TIF money would be withdrawn. News of Bristol's bid was confirmed to the magazine NCE by the leader of Bristol City Council (BCC) Helen Holland at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester.

The bid would be for up to £1.4bn in government money to improve public transport, and BCC to impose a congestion charging scheme."

  • Q1. Was the Executive Member aware of this decision before it was announced?
  • Q2. Why was the announcement made to a fringe meeting of the Labour Party Conference instead of to this Council?
  • Q3. Does the Executive Member propose to hold a referendum in the City on the merits of introducing a congestion charge?
  • Q4. If so, when?

See my previous post for more thoughts.

Browser Security & Web Statistics

There are some nasty cross-browser security vulnerabilities coming to light at the moment. One possible attack scenario of this new type of "clickjacking" exploit is to hijack the web cam and microphone on a target system and use them for hidden surveillance.

If you're using the Firefox browser, a quick and easy solution is to install the NoScript Add-on. In addition to protecting against this sort of attack, it can also show you what else is going on in the background when you open a particular website. For example, whenever you access the council's web site, you are being tracked through two mechanisms:

NoScript allows you to disable the GovMetric.com tracking, which should also prevent the irritating SocITM survey from popping up every half hour.

Freedom of Information

As of Monday, several of my Freedom of Information requests to the Council of the City of Bristol will be officially overdue. I'm still puzzling my way through the legislation - anyone know what I'm supposed to do next?