Battery Point bell on display in town centre

Now let's get the facts right on this one shall we The bell was tracked down

after a public campaign to restore it to its home town. This campaign

was led by two local residents Carol Thomas & Annette Hennessey.

However, if you believe the hype that our local media published,

obviously fed to them by councillors desperate for a bit more self adulation

than the return of the bell, it was all part of council plans to celebrate the Jubilee.A quote from Quargo it's back

Town councils allocate thousands of pounds of tax payers money every year and I doubt we will all agree on how it is spent. 3_2_1 can request the accounts, look at the income and expenditure, the grant allocations, the large reserve funds, earmarked funds, money invested (and not being used in the town) in Bonds etc., schedules of payments including pension contributions, compare current assets to current liabilities and if unhappy, can always attend council meetings to raise his objections or concerns. Did he/she do that on the matter of the Bell I ponder to myself? Does he/she not like money donated to anything that enhances the wonderful town of Portishead and that which embraces its history? Does he/she even know what is contributed in town council funds to the glorious flowers we see each year? Pennies? - No.
Hundreds? - No. Thousands - Oh yes and all worth it despite each petal fading and dying each year. 3_2_1 is would probably object to that too.

I listened fairly recently on You Tube to a very poignant song called I believe Portishead In Boom (2006) which I cannot find on vinyl. It begins;

"The bell it tolls for no one, it is absent from its station
Where once it served a purpose to steer clear of this location
They ought to bring it back again, it's needed here more now than in the past".

It includes,
"The lines of cars are endless, (I wonder where they all go)
I'm seeing faceless sculptures, deformed, not representative
Of people who had made this town (a place they want their kids to live)"

It ends saying,
"And I watched it happen and the seasons changed and the flowers wilted then they died again, should have bought a ticket but there was no train and it makes me wonder.....are we all insane?"

I am with the songwriter on their sentiments. Give me the Bell before the faceless statues.

Whatever the case is, well done to all concerned. At less than a pound per resident, money well spent.

That said, feel it would have been good to stick this in no mans (land outside the library). This would have added some continuity between the old and new areas of portishead and allowed the kids to give it a patter as they pass.

My comment was flippant, but the point was really that in these times of austerity should the town council be spending money on such things?

If "supporters" want the bell returned they could have done a minimal amount of fundraising and paid for the construction of the housing (which, at £15k, makes you wonder exactly how many quotes the Town Council got to do the work ...). Let's face it, apart from a contented grin on two faces, exactly what immediate benefit is this project going to deliver to the wider community?

Remember we're talking 'town council' money here - something very limited. We're not talking about national or local government taxes for schooling and roads ...

If it helps I don't think they should have given the money for the church roof either.

3_2_1, what a selfish comment. Just because you have no interest or pride in the history of the town you lve in does not mean that history should not be remembered by those who do. Shortly after moving here I made a point of reading up on the history of my new home and found it fascinating. I pay my council taxes and do not begrudge some of it going to schools which none of my family use, nor to subsidising bus services i do not use, £20,000 was given by the Town council recently for a church roof at redcliffe which thousands of tax payers do not use. The list is endless but from what I have read there was a large petition asking for the bell to be returned not just the two who organised it. I think it has more of a place in the town than any of the new expensive statues dotted around the new developments. Maybe if we spent less on our inefficient councillors and their own pet projects the towns history would have been better preserved in the first place.
And whist on the subject of council matters does anyone know what has happenned to the informative Quargo website, I have not been able to access it since before Christmas.