When is a bustling, successful shopping street in Bristol not a bustling, successful shopping street? When it is East Street in Bedminster apparently.

Mike Ford fans will know that I have been keeping my ears and eyes firmly fixed on the 'campaign' that certain uppity members of Southville have taken to the south Bristol streets recently.

In doing so, I managed to unearth some information that shocked me to my very core.

I stood at the base of Mount Parsons (formerly Mount Stevens) awaiting the tablets upon which were scribbled all that is just and true.

They were read out by the wise and noble souls who rule the land from the Lanes of Dean to Greenway Bush, and lo it was spoken- "East Street in Bedminster is a deserted shell of a place that is falling to pieces and mere days away from total and utter collapse" – Deli 6:9.

Obviously this took me aback somewhat, being as I am someone who not only walks down East Street daily, I also do a lot of shopping there, (along with my girlfriend and her family) and I literally cannot recall a business day I have walked down the red-bricked road and not been faced with crowds.

I tried explaining this to the hushed crowd, but the case study from my own fair lips wasn't good enough for Mr and Mrs "Southville Scene", oh no. "So how come there are so many empty shops down there then Mike?" they asked.

Off I set, a massive 10 minutes early for work to count the empty lots. I counted a whopping five vacant spaces on the stretch of East Street and Bedminster Parade, and four empty lots in the ever-glamorous St Catherine's Place.

Bearing in mind that we are in the middle of a worldwide recession, one would be fooled into thinking this is actually quite an achievement for a commercial strip in an area on the lower end of the Bristol affluence scale.

Can you guess what my intrepid findings were met with? Respect? Admiration? Begrudging acceptance? Of course not. I was hit with two barrels of Berate's own-brand special buckshot, a heady mix of ignorance and arrogance. POW. The ignorance hit me first: "You're wrong, you probably never even leave the house, Woolworths can't find a buyer, Blunts is closed down, I don't care what you say, it's dead down there."

WHAM! The arrogance nearly put me on the ground: "No, we're talking about REAL shops, not a load of bookies and pound shops, who wants those?"

Lesser mortals might have limped off, licked their wounds and called it a day.

Not Mike Ford though – I endeavoured to get out this message of what these people really stand for. They are not pro-Bristol, they are pro a secular, exclusive community. They look down on those beneath them as scum, worthless, and if you have nothing that they want then they are not interested in you.

People of Bristol, remember my words as the council meetings for the Ashton Gate planning proposals draw ever closer, for they will start to ring clear and true. Their real, selfish colours will be flown as their desperation increases.

East Street is a thriving, diverse, real community-spirited part of Bristol.

No, it's not glamorous or chic, but it's filled with decent, local, welcoming people from the guys at the fruit and veg shop – always up early in all weathers – past your man who sells towels and pictures, all the way down to the Italian guys from Bottelinos.

Real people making honest money. Just because it doesn't fit your profile of clichéd bohemian chic, does not make it "dying", "dead", or "deserted".

If you could peel yourselves out of your comfort zone, one day you could see this first-hand.