by Transition Bristol Core Team

On Wednesday 3rd December there was a meeting organised by Transition Bristol to empower communities within Bristol to learn about Council’s Bristol Development Framework. The meeting was to give information on how to feed into the Council’s call for sites as part of the overall plan.

There were approximately 55 people present at the meeting.

Claire Milne from the Transition Bristol began by providing the context of the meeting from a Transition perspective.

She noted that currently it is central government policy to get lots of our food imported from outside the UK. Only 10% of our fruit, and just 60% of all the food we eat is grown here. We need to make sure that this figure is higher, and therefore this call for sites was important in terms of food growing spaces for the future.

Claire also noted the importance of buildings in terms of resilient communities, for example in being able to prioritise their use for bakers, butchers and grocers rather than take-aways, and that the City Centre was important to consider in this context, not just areas on the outside of the City.

She also mentioned the existence of a group called Geofutures based in Bath, and that they are researching Bristol’s ‘food print’ to determine whether Bristol could feed itself.

The next speaker was Sarah O’Driscoll, who is the Team Manager for Strategic and Citywide Policy Development for Bristol City Council.

Sarah gave an overview of the spatial planning system which Bristol is currently involved in and which informs the Bristol Development Strategy. For the spatial strategy Bristols’ region is the South West.

The Spatial Strategy has to be drawn up according to central government guidelines which dictate much of what can be done. It also provides national targets on things like how many houses need to be built for the future. Based on this the Spatial Strategy and the Bristol Development Framework (which feeds into that and will replace the Local Plan) can’t introduce anything which is against the central government policy. It has to conform with what this policy dictates (unless it can prove a compelling reason as to why not).

National guidance has dictated that Bristol must plan for 92,000 jobs by 2026, and 36,000 new dwellings. Bristol City Council believes they have evidence to show that they can accommodate 29,500 dwellings and are prioritising south Bristol for much of the development, but that 36,000 homes is very challenging. (Editorial note: This is a correction to this information sent to us by Sarah in an email. Could I firstly clarify an error that I made last night though re population projections? The actual figures are as follows (significantly higher than I stated!)
Total Population change:
2006 = 410,500; 2026 = 519,800; change = 109,300
[Source: ONS 2006-based Subnational Population Projections, ONS Migration and Subnational Population Projections Unit © Crown Copyright])

This growth figure is therefore somewhere in the region of 25% above the amount of homes the City has already. Up until the start of this financial year, they have been on target, delivering 1,500 new homes/year. It was noted that conversions of existing buildings do not count in this figure. They have to be new homes. Bristol Council received a huge number of objections to the Secretary of State’s amendment (changing the plan from 29,500 planned homes to 36,000) and has sent this back for review. As a result it is unlikely that the Spatial Plan will be finalized till approx April. There will be an opportunity to input in February.

In the meantime the Council needs to deliver the Bristol Development Framework by June 2009 and it is the public involvement phase of this that today’s meeting was about. It is not just about the development of new homes, but also the creation of jobs and open spaces. The council is inviting organisations, business, and the public to put forward suggestions of use for land and buildings in Bristol. Once a plan is drawn up from the information received there will be opportunities to engage and comment next year.

The next speaker was John Douglass, who is one of the sites officers working on the Development Framework.

He noted a couple of important points. 1. Just because a certain area gets allocated for a purpose in the plan does not imply that planning permission for such a purpose has been granted. 2. In putting forward suggestions for usage fo a piece of land or building it is important to being able to show DELIVERABILITY of the idea. So for example, there is no point in suggesting a food project for contaminated land unless you can come up with something very compelling as to how it could be achieved.

Many of the suggestions put forward for land use, be it a change or protection of existing use, will depend on the emergence of groups showing that they are able to deliver what they propose as a use. A draft document would be produced in the summer with all suggested land use for the City. People putting in suggestions for land use needn’t limit themselves to publicly owned buildings or land.

Form Filling
John then showed us what the form asks, and noted that people should not be too put off by part 2, as we could not possibly be expected to know all the information requested if we do not actually own that land. It was just necessary to fill in as much information as we can, and include a map of the land, printed off at 1:5000 or less, and clearly outlined. In order to find the land on a map and provide the printed map we should use the ‘pinpoint’ tool on the Bristol Council. Please find the link to the pinpoint tool here and the link to the required form to fill out for the Call for Sites here.

The meeting then broke into different discussion sessions.

Useful links and follow-up information from Sarah O’Driscoll from the Council.

Information on community engagement works via the (mostly) newly established Neighbourhood Partnerships can be accessed via the following link.

These are the organisations that we have mostly been liasing with and presenting to (the website explains more about them, and has maps and a list of contact officers for each area).

The other relevant contact group would be the Bristol Neighbourhood Planning Network whose website is here. The person to establish contact with is Alison Bromilow, (there are contact details on their site). I’m sure she’ll be pleased to talk to you about Transition and linking you in.

Following on from the Parks and Green Spaces Strategy, Area Green Space Plans are also being developed for each of the Neighbourhood Partnership areas, and the majority of areas are either already undertaking stakeholder consultation or due to start imminently (ie if Transition Bristol members wish to get involved they shouldn’t hang around!). The parks team are due to update the timetable available at the following link with the lead officer’s name and contact details sometime next week so keep an eye on this (or call the number on this page to find out who to get in touch with). I think Transition members would find this a useful process to link into.

My only other hint would be to keep an eye on BCC consultation finder. The council now has a commitment to direct any consultation through this search engine so it’s a good way to make sure you don’t miss out on anything.

We wish to thank Sarah, John, and Kim for coming out and spending their entire Wednesday evening with us. We hope that this is the beginning of a very fruitful relationship with Bristol City Council and Transition Bristol.

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