Neighbourhood Partnership

Any ideas for using the Stockwood Green School buildings after its enforced closure this summer? That's one of the items coming up at a public meeting of the new 'Neighbourhood Partnership' next week.

These Neighbourhood Partnerships, now being launched across the city, must have the council's paper suppliers and photocopier providers rubbing their hands!

Ours (Hengrove and Stockwood) is next Tuesday (16th) at Christ the Servant Church - top of Craydon Road - starting at 7pm. It's hard to see how it can end by the target 9pm - it would be a long agenda even without having to approve adoption of a long and centrally determined Constitution that defines most of the local partnerships goals.

In law, it's a council committee meeting, though it seems to be the Bristol Partnership, that's applying the branding. Like other council meetings, the public can make statements in a 30-minute 'public forum' at the beginning. They should be submitted by noon on Monday, though.

So far, the Neighbourhood Partnership hasn't attracted much public interest in the couple of years it's been limping along. Maybe it's because of the double misnomer in the title; it's hard to see much neighbourhood or partnership in this arbitrarily defined area, divided geographically by the A37 Wells Road and the 'green corridor' of the Whitchurch Railway Path. There's not even a regular bus route that links the two wards. Still, now it's taking on some local spending decisions, perhaps people will get more interested.

A health warning, though.... be selective in reading the meeting papers on screen. Too much of it, and the will to live will just ebb away.