#Bristol on the Move: L Pondweed's Laxative-Branded Disaster (Part 1: The 5-Minute Summary)
A Quick Read Summary of Bristol City Council's Latest Transport Fantasy.
L Pondweed is at it again. Could it be Sanatogen keeping his brain alert? Though I didn’t know it was a hallucinogen, I must try some myself in that case.
Whatever’s in those alleged pills, Ed Plowden must be taking double doses. Because only someone experiencing a prolonged pharmaceutical adventure could look at transport policies that have catastrophically failed in every other UK city and think “yes, this is what Bristol needs!”
Bristol City Council—led by the head plank for transport himself—has perfected the art of watching other cities abandon failed policies, then picking them up and running with them like they’ve just discovered fire.
LTNs? Other cities scrapped them. Bristol’s doubling down. Bendy buses? London, Cardiff, and Swansea all binned them. Bristol wants to bring them back.
Bristol on the Move (Or: Constipation Remedy for the Elderly)
Councillor Ed Plowden has launched something called “Bristol on the Move.”
Let that name sink in. It sounds like a laxative. An over-the-counter remedy for constipation, marketed to the elderly. “Are you feeling blocked up? Try Bristol on the Move! Gets Bristol moving again!”
Which is grimly appropriate. Because this scheme is going to be an absolute shit-show to follow.
It’s a website. A propaganda portal designed to make you feel informed whilst systematically destroying every aspect of your daily commute. With nice graphics! And a video! Featuring bendy buses.
You know, those articulated abominations that every major city tried before realizing they were expensive disasters. London got rid of them in 2011. But Bristol’s going to explore them as part of a “mass transit system.”
The Pattern: Bristol’s Genius Strategy.
Here’s Bristol City Council’s innovative approach to transport policy:
Step 1: Watch other cities implement a policy. Step 2: Watch those cities realise it’s a disaster and scrap it. Step 3: Implement the exact same failed policy in Bristol with unwavering confidence. Step 4: Overdose on Sanatogen and declare it “transformative.”
Bristol already tried bendy buses. They cancelled them around 2011-2012. London withdrew its last bendy bus in December 2011 after it blocked junctions, created blind spots that killed cyclists, and took up 80% more road space than double-deckers. Swansea spent £10 million on them, then scrapped them six years later. Cardiff withdrew its in January 2022 after “horrendous MPG” and reliability issues.
But L Pondweed wants to try again!
This isn’t just about bendy buses. It’s about Liveable Neighbourhoods (LTNs) that other cities scrapped as disasters. East Bristol’s LTN was so popular that they installed bus gates at 3 am with police escorts before residents woke up. That’s not democracy. That’s an occupation.
What’s Actually Happening.
The Plan (Starting April 2025):
Buses kicked off Horsefair, Penn Street, and Union Street
“Controlled barriers” for deliveries (at approved times only)
Three kilometres of bike lanes (in a city where it rains 200 days a year)
Roads closed, traffic capacity removed
Bus gate fines: £70 per violation
The Reality: The independent bakery can’t get flour delivery because the driver arrived at 8:03 am instead of 8:00 am. The pharmacy can’t get medications because distributors don’t align with “approved time slots.” Corner shops lose stock to spoilage.
The council doesn’t care. They’ve never run a business. They’ve never had to make payroll. They have salaries. Pensions. Job security. They can afford to treat your livelihood as an experiment.
Who This Really Serves: Students, Not Bristol People.
Bristol’s growing population needs housing, they say. But let’s be clear: these flats are for students.
Bristol already has 43,000 students. Unite Students operates 4,400 student rooms with a new £75 million development adding 623 more bedrooms. Universities have been housing overflow students in Newport, Wales, because Bristol is oversaturated.
But sure, let’s build more student flats in Broadmead!
Here’s what nobody says out loud: Students are perfect tenants from the council’s perspective. They don’t vote locally—they’re registered at home. They don’t complain about services—they’re temporary. They don’t organise against transport changes. They don’t attend council meetings. They don’t have a long-term stake in the city’s future.
They’re transient. Disposable. Replaceable. Every September, a fresh batch arrives. Every June, the old batch leaves. No continuity. No memory. No accountability.
Meanwhile, actual Bristol people are moving to Wales.
The average house price in Bristol: £340,000 (highest of all UK Core Cities). The average house price in Newport: £238,000 (saving £102,000)
Private rent in Bristol averages £1,513 per month—one of the least affordable places outside London.
People who work in Bristol can’t afford to live in Bristol. So they live in Wales and commute in. Every single day. Burning fuel. Sitting in traffic. Wasting hours of their lives.
Newport’s housing market is seeing its “strongest start in years”, driven by Bristol workers who’ve been priced out.
This is class cleansing dressed up as regeneration. It’s the systematic replacement of a community with a constantly-rotating population of temporary residents who have no stake in the city’s future.
Who Pays, Who Benefits.
Bristol City Council has decided—without asking your permission—that you’re going to cycle. Or walk. Or take the bus.
They don’t care if you have kids to drop off, if you’re disabled, if you work shifts, if you’re a tradesperson with tools, or if you’re a carer visiting multiple clients around the city.
If you dare to drive? You’ll pay. Through congestion (deliberately engineered worse). Through £70 bus gate fines. Through parking charges that have tripled.
But here’s the thing they won’t tell you: they’re not affected by any of this.
The councillors making these decisions don’t rely on First Bus. They don’t explain to their boss why they’re late. They don’t leave an hour early “just in case.”
They have security. Salaries. Pensions. Job protection. The ability to absorb a £70 fine without choosing between that and feeding their kids.
You don’t.
This is class warfare dressed up as environmentalism. It’s the systematic punishment of working people who need to get places quickly and reliably.
And when it fails—when the bike lanes are empty and businesses have closed and residents have fled to Wales—they’ll blame you. You didn’t believe hard enough. You’re the problem.
Meanwhile, L Pondweed’s salary still clears. His pension still accrues. His job is still secure, and presumably, the Sanatogen is delivered in vats to his home address, for intravenous application, because by now, he’s likely somewhere in orbit on the stuff, and taxis will sprout wings.
Yours? Not so much.
The Bottom Line.
Bristol on the Move. Gets things flowing, alright. Flowing out of the city. Flowing into Newport. Flowing into the council’s ideological sewage system.
Want to live in Bristol? You'd better be earning six figures, or you'd better be a student who’ll leave in three years. Everyone else—the nurses, the teachers, the tradespeople, the shop workers, the people who actually make the city function—can commute from Wales. Or just leave entirely.
It’s ethnic cleansing for the middle class. Not with violence—we’re too civilised for that. We do it with transport policy. With housing policy. With systematic, bureaucratic pressure that makes it impossible to stay unless you’re rich or transient.
And floating serenely on top of this entire septic tank? L Pondweed himself. Green and slimy. Clogging everything. Completely unaccountable.
Because that’s what this is. Millions in government funding—your money—being spent to make your daily life measurably worse.
They’ll tell you it’s for the environment. For air quality. For the children.
It’s bollocks.
If they cared about the environment, they’d invest in electric buses. If they cared about air quality, they’d tackle actual pollution sources. If they cared about children, they’d make sure their parents could afford to live in the same city where they work.
They care about hitting targets. Securing funding. Looking progressive. Implementing fashionable theories regardless of residents’ needs.
They care about the vision. Not the reality.
READ THE FULL ANALYSIS: Bristol on the Move: Part 2 - The Complete Breakdown
For the full 21-minute deep dive including:
Complete bendy bus history across UK cities
Detailed breakdown of delivery barrier chaos
Full LTN pattern analysis
Comprehensive housing crisis data
The solutions nobody wants to hear
Complete sources
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CONTINUE TO PART 2 → The Full Analysis