Bristol on the Move: Or How L Pondweed Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bendy Bus (Part 2: The Complete Analysis).

An Unfiltered Breakdown of Bristol City Council's Latest Transport Fantasy New here? Start with Part 1: The 5-Minute Summary for the basics, or dive straight into the full analysis below.

Oct 27, 2025

Bristol on the Move: Or How L Pondweed Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bendy Bus (Part 2: The Complete Analysis)

An Unfiltered Breakdown of Bristol City Council’s Latest Transport Fantasy

New here? Start with Part 1: The 5-Minute Summary for the basics, or dive straight into the full analysis below.

You know the premise: Bristol City Council is bringing back bendy buses that every other city scrapped, closing roads to “fix” congestion, and pricing out residents while flooding the city with student accommodation. L Pondweed (Ed Plowden, Chair of the Transport and Connectivity Committee) is at the helm.

Now let’s see exactly how this fails, who profits, and who pays.

The Vision: Prepare for Our Ongoing Success

Ed Plowden says “We need to prepare for our ongoing success as a city.”

Not create success. We’re already successful, apparently.

So successful that Broadmead is a wasteland of empty shops, First Bus couldn’t hit a timetable with divine intervention, and the city centre is permanent gridlock.

This is Orwell’s Ministry of Truth rebranded as a transport committee. Victory is defeat. Gridlock is progress. Anyone pointing out the Emperor’s bollocks are dangling is just “resistant to change.”

Well done, Ed. Or should I say, L Pondweed. Because like actual pondweed, you’re choking the life out of everything whilst looking harmless from above.

The Plan: Absolute Chaos

Starting April 2025, buses get kicked off Horsefair, Penn Street, and Union Street. They’re installing “controlled barriers for deliveries at set times.”

When can you get deliveries? Depends. What phase is the moon in? Have you sacrificed enough small animals to the Green Party transport gods?

Here’s reality: Greggs can’t get their delivery because the driver arrived at 8:03am instead of 8:00am. Taste of Napoli can’t get ingredients. Caffè Nero’s stock is refused. The few remaining shops lose everything to spoilage.

But that’s fine! They should have adapted! Never mind that adaptation means bankruptcy.

The council doesn’t care. They’ve never run a business. They’ve never made payroll. They can afford to treat your livelihood as an experiment.

The Pattern: Bristol’s Genius Strategy

Step 1: Watch other cities implement a policy. Step 2: Watch them scrap it as a disaster. Step 3: Implement the exact same failed policy in Bristol.

Bristol already tried bendy buses. They cancelled them around 2011-2012. London withdrew its last bendy bus in December 2011—they blocked junctions, killed cyclists, took up 80% more road space than double-deckers. Swansea spent £10 million, scrapped them six years later. Cardiff withdrew theirs in 2022 after “horrendous MPG.”

But L Pondweed wants to try again!

Same with Liveable Neighbourhoods. Other cities scrapped LTNs as disasters. Bristol? East Bristol’s LTN was installed at 3am with police escorts before residents woke up. That’s not democracy. That’s an occupation.

Other cities: “This doesn’t work, we’re scrapping it.” Bristol: “MORE! EVERYWHERE!”

It’s not incompetence. It’s aggressive incompetence.

Students Replace Bristol People

Broadmead’s getting “hundreds of new flats.” For students.

Bristol already has 43,000 students. Unite Students operates 4,400 rooms, just added 623 more bedrooms at £75 million. Universities house overflow students in Newport, Wales because Bristol’s oversaturated.

But sure, more student flats!

Here’s why: Students are perfect from the council’s perspective. Don’t vote locally. Don’t complain. Don’t organize. Don’t attend meetings. No long-term stake in the city.

Transient. Disposable. Replaceable. Fresh batch every September. Gone every June. No continuity. No accountability.

Meanwhile, actual Bristol people move to Wales.

Bristol house prices: £340,000 (highest of all UK Core Cities) Newport house prices: £238,000 (saving £102,000)

People who work in Bristol can’t afford to live here. They commute from Wales. Daily. Burning fuel. Sitting in traffic. Wasting hours.

This is class cleansing dressed as regeneration. Replacing a community with temporary residents who have no voice, no stake, no power.

Who Pays, Who Benefits

The council has decided you’re cycling. Or walking. Or taking the bus.

Don’t care if you’re disabled, work shifts, have kids to drop off, need tools.

Drive? You pay. Through congestion (deliberately worse). Through £70 bus gate fines. Through tripled parking charges.

But councillors making these decisions don’t rely on First Bus. They have flexibility to work around problems. Can absorb £70 fines without choosing between that and feeding their kids.

You can’t.

This is class warfare dressed as environmentalism. Systematic punishment of working people who need to get places.

When it fails—empty bike lanes, closed businesses, residents fled to Wales—they’ll blame you. You didn’t adapt. You’re the problem.

Meanwhile, L Pondweed’s councillor’s allowance clears. His position remains secure. And presumably, the Sanatogen is delivered in vats for intravenous application, because by now he’s in orbit on the stuff, and taxis will sprout wings.

Yours? Not so much.

Bristol Having a Massive Clearout

“Bristol on the Move” should be “Bristol Having a Massive Clearout.”

Because that’s what this laxative-branded scheme actually does. Makes the city so expensive, so congested, so unliveable that people shit themselves out to Wales.

Want to live in Bristol? Earn six figures or be a student who’ll fuck off in three years. Everyone else—nurses, teachers, tradespeople, shop workers—can commute from Wales. Or leave entirely.

Meanwhile, the city fills with students (too much accommodation already), cycle lanes (seven people use when sunny), and bendy buses (every other city scrapped).

Floating on top of this septic tank? L Pondweed. Green and slimy. Clogging everything. Completely unaccountable.

Millions in government funding—your money—making your life measurably worse.

They’ll tell you it’s for the environment. For children.

Bollocks.

If they cared about the environment, they’d invest in electric buses. If they cared about children, they’d make sure parents could afford to live where they work.

They care about hitting targets. Looking progressive. Implementing fashionable theories regardless of resident needs.

They care about the vision. Not the reality.

The Solutions They Won’t Implement

One: Break First Bus’s monopoly. Or bring buses into public ownership like every sensible European city.

Two: Invest in infrastructure before demanding modal shift. Proper cycle routes, accurate information, integrated ticketing.

Three: Stop closing roads. Traffic just goes somewhere else—usually residential areas.

Four: Actually listen to residents. Real engagement where concerns change plans.

Five: Accept some people need cars. They’re tools. Stop treating motorists like criminals.

Six: Stop implementing theories from cities with different geography and weather. Bristol is not Amsterdam.

But they won’t. Because L Pondweed doesn’t want solutions. He wants compliance.

Welcome to Bristol on the Move.

Where the only thing moving is L Pondweed’s mouth.

And the only thing going anywhere is the city’s reputation.

Straight down the drain.

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