Green perspectives on Stockwood and Bristol. Mostly.

Monday, 5 July 2010

Who's Losing Ground?

The consultation now under way for the 'Site Allocations' and the Area Green Space Plans is structured around the Neighbourhood Partnerships - those arbitrary non-neighbourhoods engineered to provide administrative convenience for the council's devolution ambitions.

Today it was was our turn in "Hengrove and Stockwood" to enjoy a 'drop-in session' to examine the plans.


It was very well attended too - and with the emphasis strongly on the suggested 'site disposals' required by the Parks and Green Spaces Strategy that our councillors approved in a rare display of cross-party consensus (well, apart from the Greens, but technically they don't count as a party) a couple of years ago.

The strategy relies on the sale of 'low value' land to help finance restoration and improvement of Bristol's long-neglected parks.

There's a list of all the drop-in sessions on the council web pages, partnership by partnership. Each runs from noon till 8.

Here's a shortlist. You might expect more local interest at the ones marked with an asterisk. They're the ones where the council hopes to sell off public green spaces for development. Asterisk free = threat free.

Date:     Neighbourhood Partnership Area:
30-Jun     *Filwood, Knowle & Windmill Hill
05-Jul     *Hengrove & Stockwood
12-Jul     Cabot, Clifton & Clifton East
14-Jul     *Horfield & Lockleaze
22-Jul     *Greater Fishponds Area
26-Jul     *St George
01-Sep     *Greater Fishponds Area
02-Sep     *Brislington
06-Sep     *Hartcliffe, Whitchurch Park & Bishopsworth
13-Sep     Bishopston, Cotham & Redland
15-Sep     *Avonmouth & Kingsweston
20-Sep     Henleaze, Stoke Bishop & Westbury-on-Trym
22-Sep     Ashley, Easton & Lawrence Hill
27-Sep     *Henbury & Southmead
29-Sep     Greater Bedminster
04-Oct     *St George
06-Oct     City-wide
07-Oct     City-wide

You might even see a pattern emerging.

3 comments:

SteveL said...

Some of us in the bits without an asterisk are threat three as the only local parkland is the bearpit; nothing left to flog off. Doesn't mean we don't value the other parts of the city...

Stockwood Pete said...

Fair enough, Steve (except that, on reflection, there's always that western end of Castle Park that's threatened in your patch).

My point is, though, that this is a pretty regressive way to find the cash to finance parks improvement/maintenance, penalising as it does the poorer parts of the city.

woodsy said...

Pete:

You mention 'penalising the poorer parts of the city'. If you've lived in Bristol for any length of time, you'll be well aware that the usual modus operandi of the city is that it's run for the benefit of the great and the good and paid for by the great unwashed. Sad but true.