Residents living in parts of east Bristol will help design huge traffic changes due to be introduced later this year, according to City Hall chiefs. A liveable neighbourhood scheme will ban through traffic and rat-running in parts of Barton Hill, Redfield and St George - but some locals have voiced their 'deep concerns' about the scheme.
Pressed for details on what will happen, transport bosses at Bristol City Council said this will be left up to local people to decide. Changes could include new trees, planters and benches, and restrictions on some drivers passing through certain areas.
The liveable neighbourhood scheme is expected to cost £6,004,000, paid for by the Department for Transport. But it’s unclear what this money will be spent on.
Read more: Through traffic to be banned in parts of Bristol for ‘liveable neighbourhood’
Labour Councillor Don Alexander, cabinet member for transport, said the project would help cut air pollution, reduce congestion, and help get to net zero carbon emissions, during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, April 4. He added the council is trying to get more people walking or cycling.
Asked what specific measures will be introduced, Cllr Alexander said: “That’s the whole point of the consultation, it’s what residents want. That’s why we’ve done enormous amounts of consultation. We’ve met with every demographic of people who live within the proposed area of the liveable neighbourhood.
“We will soon bring forward a proposal, and there will be some areas where we want to talk to people a little bit more, before we implement anything. What we’re doing here, I find it really exciting. We are actually reimagining street space. Whether we get this right or wrong, it has implications for the whole city.
“We’ll learn things which we can take to improve the lives of residents all over our city, if we do this well and we do this carefully. We’ll leave it to our residents to decide what their neighbourhood looks like. This is not a top-down imposed liveable neighbourhood, this is a bottom-up, community-designed liveable neighbourhood for the people who live there.”
The experimental trial is expected to launch towards the end of the year in an area south of Lawrence Hill, Church Road and Summerhill Road. The area is bordered by Troopers Hill Road in the east, St Phillips Causeway in the west, and the Feeder Canal and the River Avon in the south. Some changes could then later be made permanent from early 2025.
More details of the changes should become clear soon. In May and June the council will host workshops and walkabouts with local people, and then consult the public again on the changes during the summer months.
Liveable neighbourhoods have been introduced recently in several other parts of the country, including Oxford, Bath and London. These schemes have sometimes been controversial and caused protests. In Bristol, some concerns already raised include access for disabled people and others who rely on their cars to get about the city.
Transport campaigner David Redgewell, from the Bristol Equalities Network, said: “The issue here is about access, making sure that the streets are open to disabled people. We’ve seen the Oxford model, which has been very difficult for some disabled people to access streets — barriers and gates, taxis going round huge journeys to drop off wheelchair users.”
As well as access for disabled people, some residents are concerned about the lack of details and how restrictions could affect drivers. The council has said access would be maintained for residents, deliveries, services and emergency vehicles. But two residents raised fears at the cabinet meeting of the scheme “curtailing freedom of movement”.
Alex Klaushofer said: “I’m concerned about the implications of restricting traffic access to everybody. I haven’t been able to find any details about exactly what the measures proposed would do, or how they would be implemented. If that would end up restricting everybody’s access to the streets, that would be a huge problem.
“There are all sorts of reasons why people cannot always cycle or walk. It would affect family and friend visits, local businesses, self-employed people working from home. It seems like a huge amount of money is being invested in this without much detail, and I wonder whether that could be more constructively spent.”
Chris Johnson added: “I’m deeply concerned about this scheme and its implications for Bristol residents trying to go about their everyday business. This will be seriously life changing for those within and beyond the boundary of the scheme, because it will dramatically curtail freedom of movement for many. This is entirely undemocratic.
“This will cause the most problems for the poorest and most vulnerable, not to mention people with disabilities. Not everyone can walk or cycle any distance, and not all journeys are suitable for walking or cycling. What about people who need a lift from a friend or relative? Nobody I know had heard of the consultation and I live three streets away.”
The east Bristol liveable neighbourhood scheme has cross-party support in the council. Greens urged Labour, who have been talking about the scheme since 2021, to roll out the changes more quickly.
Green Cllr Ed Plowden said: “The evidence from London shows that they actually speed up journey times for the emergency services. Generally it reduces overall traffic and therefore makes things better for everyone, which is why the Green Party supports them.
“My concern is we’re not doing them fast enough. Yes we’ve got to take our time to get it right, but we’re taking an inordinate amount of time. We need to increase the pace. [Elsewhere] in the country we’re seeing hundreds of cycle hangars, dozens of school streets and massive amounts of low-traffic neighbourhoods, rolled out at pace.”
But Labour mayor Marvin Rees said the council was trying to “take a range of the city’s experiences into account”, before introducing the liveable neighbourhood scheme. He added the council is often urged to make changes faster, such as the long-delayed Clean Air Zone.
Mr Rees said: “We are constantly lobbied to make changes in the city faster, and one of things we’re often doing in this administration is saying yes we can see the prize, but be aware of the unintended consequences of going too fast without taking into account the real life experiences of Bristol.
“We faced the same kind of raking over the Clean Air Zone, when we said hold on, there are potential consequences for businesses and low income households, and yet we were being lobbied constantly in this chamber and in the press about not doing it quickly enough. We do try and make sure we’re taking a range of the city’s experiences into account.”
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