Lockleaze

We are aware of plans to use the location of Blake Centre on Gainsborough Square as a meanwhile site and understand this will be subject to planning; we’ve not yet seen the planning application.

We have a housing crisis in Bristol, which results in many people, especially young people, struggling and turning to unconventional housing options. We have deep sympathy for those in insecure and inappropriate accommodation. With rents for a single room in a shared house in Lockleaze starting at £800 per month and the Government having no legal responsibility to house single people, there are few options for people on low incomes.

We support the use of and creation of more ‘meanwhile’ sites to provide safer places for people to live in their vans. Ultimately, we need to provide appropriate housing and measures such as rent controls so everyone can afford somewhere safe and decent to live.

Residents will have an opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns with the meanwhile team (meanwhile.sites@bristol.gov.uk), and as councillors, we will also be doing this. There will also be a process for commenting on the planning application; this is not yet live, but we will share when it is. We have already raised concerns about nearby residents’ properties and the security of the site and hope this will be considered appropriately. Toilet and waste facilities will be provided on-site.

Deadline for the consultation is 13th March, we strongly encourage you to submit your views here:
https://www.ask.bristol.gov.uk/cameron-centre-consultation

As your local councillors we have been in negotiations between council officers, cabinet members, the Mayors officer, Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust and residents to get the best deal possible for the community.

We hope changes will be made to the current plans being consulted on. Here are our comments on the proposed plans.

We support affordable housing, especially housing which meets the needs of the local community, will be included in the Lockleaze lettings policy, and is wheelchair accessible.

However, we’re also very aware of the numbers of houses being built in an area which currently has very few amenities, and where services are already under great pressure. The health centre does not have capacity for all of the extra residents, and there are already significant issues with dentists. Lockleaze has no café, pub or any venue for people to just spend time and socialise. The Lockleaze estate doesn’t even have a proper supermarket. We cannot just keep building houses without providing space for all these other necessary services.

Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust provides an invaluable service to the community, providing a weekly community café/lunch, coordinating warm spaces, hosting many, many community groups, supporting the residents planning group, and much, much more. We welcome the commitment to community asset transfer the community space in this development to LNT, but thus far the council have not committed to providing adequate space. We support LNT’s plan to run a nursery for the local community. We are facing a child care crisis, with 2/3rds of UK women saying lack of childcare impacts their career progression.

We would like to see 450msq committed to community space. Plans for a nursery would require outside space connected to the indoor nursery space. We would not be happy to see secure bike parking space removed in the development.

We are keen that residents views about a library service are considered, particularly around providing access later in the day, study and computer space and think there is a real opportunity for the council to work closely with Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust to deliver community needs if they are included as development partners in the project.

We have heard concerns from residents about the appearance of the designs, and would like to see a more aspirational design.

One for Purdown Open Space – 10 new feature trees

And for Lockleaze Open Space – behind the Lockleaze Family Club. Four new feature trees.

Please email your thoughts to onetreeperchild@bristol.gov.uk

Heather and David invited Mark Shelford, the Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner, to visit Lockleaze to discuss a top concern among residents – road safety and youth provision.

The police chief promised more visits from the speed camera van and to work with the councillors to reduce speeding in Lockleaze. He said that plans for the Stottbury and Rousham Roads traffic calming scheme were due to be made final so that work could begin soon.

Heather and David are working with the Vench and other youth service providers to get more funding and facilities for young people in Lockleaze.

We are thrilled to have secured almost £100,000 of funding for a playground in South Lockleaze, where there was a really lack of playground provision. We have been consulting with local residents for around 6 weeks and have concluded the Elmcroft/Muller Road location is the best option.
Thanks to everyone who responded to the consultation. We had a good number of responses from a variety of local residents, many with children who would use the facility. Responses were well split between communities near each site.
54% of respondents showed a preference for the Elmcroft/Muller Road site, 31% for the Heyford site and 15% showed no preference. Based on this, and the numerous comments – we will ask the Council’s parks team to move forwards with the planned Muller Road Site. There is still a long road to go as we need to secure another £85,000 in matched funding – which we can now apply for.

FAQ’s
Why were only these options proposed?
There are many considerations to be taken into account for a new playground. Firstly, the request for a new playground came mostly from residents in the Shaldon Road area – so it needed to be accessible from there. Secondly, there are often issues which prevent use of a certain site, like underground cables/pipes, or flooding. And we also needed a site that was reasonably overlooked and visible in order to stop vandalism.
Why wasn’t a formal consultation run?
The council has a legal obligation to consult on certain decisions, such as road changes and major developments. A new playground does not fall into this category so the Council provided no funding or resource for a formal consultation. Ultimately the location decision was left to us, as your local councillors. We thought it was important to consult the community, so we have chosen to put our own resources and effort into that, we hand delivered letters to many of the local streets, posted on social media and knocked on doors to hear people’s views.
Why did we not propose a location covering the Lockleaze estate?
We are elected to represent Lockleaze ward – which covers the area of Eastville West of the M32, and the area around Fairfield School. As part of the Council’s Parks and Green spaces strategy Bristol has a max walking distance any residential street should be from a playground – and this area around Muller Road/Shaldon Road is the part of Lockleaze furthest from a playground. We are also pushing for (and hopeful) that there will be a playground in the new Dovercourt development, to cover that area.
Is the air quality by Muller Road dangerous?
We have walked around the area with an air quality monitor at various times in the afternoon/evening to measure the worst air quality, and all readings were within the ‘good’ category – apart from high pollen when we were near tree blossom.

Conclusion
Ultimately there are a lot of compromises to be made, between cost, accessibility and which parts of Lockleaze will be closest to the playground. The Muller rd location was the most popular location, seems to be the best spot, and a new playground will be a fantastic asset for many young families on the nearby streets.
Speaking to parents in the area I heard that most currently drive their children to a playground. This has negative impacts on the environment, on local traffic and air quality, and children’s health, as the worst air quality is often inside a car sat in traffic. So I am thrilled that we have managed to secure this new playground for Lockleaze, and can’t wait for it to open and improve quality of life for many families and children in the area.

As Green Party councillors we take Bristol’s commitment to improving biodiversity and ecology very seriously.

We are awaiting the Action Plan that will spell out the changes needed to fulfil our Ecological Emergency Strategy.

In the meantime Heather has been working with the BCC parks team to agree a reduction to the current mowing regime to allow for more flowers and long grass.

There is are also plans for more trees on Purdown and Downend https://www.bristol.gov.uk/web/guest/museums-parks-sports-culture/tree-planting-consultations