Martin Tancock of East Bristol TOTALLY NAILS IT!
Feb 11, 2025
How can the physical area covered by the EBLN scheme be best described?
Is it a pretty village nestling in the Mendip hills with a leafy lane and a babbling brook passing through it....?
I wish.
Is it an out of town purpose-built housing development....?
Don’t think so.
In my opinion it’s neither of the above, and is in fact an inner city area with high density housing and commuter routes passing through it.
Despite its location the area is blessed with many green spaces such as Gaunts Ham Park, Netham Park, St Georges Park, Blackswarth Woods, Troopers Hill, Conham River Park and the foot/cycle path alongside the river to name a few, so why would anyone want to look at a wooden box in the middle of the road?
So, dealing with the highlighted areas:
Inner city area… Sorry, can’t think of any way to change that: it is what it is.
High density housing… A considerable amount of the housing is at least 90-100 years old, so short of knocking all the houses down, building high rise student accommodation which can be renamed/re-purposed as “combined living” and putting all the displaced peasants in what will become high rise slums... Oh, but wait - isn’t that the route BCC already seem to be taking?
Commuter routes… To answer the question of traffic in and through the area it is necessary to look at how the changes in employment locations, domestic circumstances and economic challenges have affected travel throughout both the area covered by the EBLN scheme and the wider city in general.
Employment… In the past, up until around the late 1980s, most people lived within a relatively short commute by foot, bicycle or bus of their place of employment, as there were many small and medium-sized manufacturing and office businesses scattered throughout the city such as Carsons Liqueurs in Greenbank, Strachan and Henshaw in Speedwell, the Board Mills in St Anne’s and Bendix in Kingswood. The larger employers, such as Imperial Tobacco at Hartcliffe and Bedminster, BAC and Rolls Royce in Filton, Avonmouth docks and even places further afield such as Parnells in Yate had public transport that was tailored to the needs of people working at these locations and also for the many office locations in the centre of Bristol. Unfortunately public transport now seems to be based on the needs of the operators and not the users. People have to commute much further now and for many driving is the only practical way to get to work.
Domestic and economic circumstances… In the past there were three basic groups of people. These were: single, couples, and couples with children. The first two groups had much more flexibility as to when they leave for work. In general, in couples with children one of the couple would be the main wage earner and the other would tend to look after the children and as they got older and went to school they could get employment which still enabled them to take and collect the children from school. Many family members lived in the same area and would help with child care. Things have changed: the cost of living has increased to the extent that more couples both have to have full time jobs just to pay the bills and this means that most people do not have the luxury of being able to walk their children to school and then take a leisurely stroll to work 5 minutes down the road, but instead have to drive their cars to drop off their children to have any chance of arriving to work on time. Family members tend not to live in the same general area as much as they used to and are less able to help out with child care. There are also many more single parent families who face the same challenges as couples with children, and so much more.
Conclusion… So unless BCC can solve the financial crisis, re-introduce local employment, fix the broken public transport system, and provide child care for those who need it all at the same time, blocking roads with what will become weed-infested boxes of mud will not solve anything and as can be seen already will only make things so much worse.
That’s how I see it, but then I may be wrong.
Thanks for sticking with it to the end. I think you will agree this is not an issue that can be covered in just one or two sentences.
And thank you Martin! Beautifully said, in really not that many sentences!
