More than 7,000 petition city council to stop building on Bristol’s green spaces

By Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporter

MORE than 7,000 people are petitioning the city council to stop giving permission for new buildings on Bristol’s green spaces. Councillors will debate the petition at a full council meeting amid ongoing concern about green areas being lost to development.

Bristol City Council declared an “ecological emergency” three years ago, responding to escalating threats to local wildlife and ecosystems. But despite that declaration, petitioners say new developments “fly in the face” of the promises then made to protect green spaces.

Green spaces at threat from construction include the Western Slopes, Brislington Meadows and Ashton Vale. The petition, organised by Martyn Cordey, was presented to a full council meeting in January.

The petitioners said: “We the undersigned call upon Bristol City Council to halt any further development on green spaces in the city. It is an absolute travesty that we are seeing highly biodiverse and ecologically important urban green spaces potentially destroyed. This massacre of green spaces appears to be unrelenting and needs to be stopped, now.

“We do not deny that Bristol has a housing crisis, due to an increasing population and unregulated university expansion, but the solution is not to continually build on valuable green spaces.

“This petition is asking for better use of brownfield sites and redundant previously developed buildings and areas. Stop building on valuable green spaces.”

Over the past 50 years, according to the council, the world has lost 60% of wild invertebrates and up to 76% of insects. In Bristol, songbird populations like swifts and starlings have dropped by more than 96%. In 2021, the council set out an “ecological action plan”, with promises to take action and protect local wildlife habitats, such as reducing pesticide use.

Some recent progress has been made on protecting green spaces in Bristol, as the council draws up its new Local Plan. This housing plan no longer allocates space for housing development at three green spaces: Yew Tree Farm, Brislington Meadows and the Western Slopes. This makes it harder for developers to get permission to build new housing there.

But the new Local Plan might also allocate space for hundreds of new homes on two countryside sites on the outskirts of the city: off the Bath Road in Brislington and off Elsbert Drive in Bishopsworth.

Controversial plans to build hundreds of houses on green space in areas at at Ashton Vale were also given planning permission in October, despite outspoken criticism from campaigners.

FOLLOWING an Ofsted inspection at Ashton Park School in November, pupils, staff, and governors are delighted to have received a ‘Good’ rating for all areas of the school’s provision in the recently published report.

Ashton Park School in South Bristol is a large 11-to-18 secondary with more than 1,200 students, including Sixth Form provision.

In the first inspection of the school since it became part of the Gatehouse Green Learning Trust in 2018, and since the appointment of new headteacher Richard Uffendell in 2022, the school has shown itself to be an outstanding asset to its community, both in educational and cross-community provision.

The modern school is set in extensive grounds, facilitating a wide range of curricular and extracurricular activities, which were commended by Ofsted. The report stated that from Key Stage 3 “…all pupils follow a curriculum that is broad and ambitious”, and that “The many clubs, including sports, art, drama, and music are well attended.”