Bristol parks sell-off surveys were 'waste of time'
Consultation meetings held in Bristol as part of the green spaces sell-off plan have been branded a waste of time by one of the people who went.
A series of "stakeholder" meetings were held by Bristol City Council before public consultation began in June on the plan to sell off up to 64 sites, as part of the research into which green areas should be put forward for disposal.
Whenever the council has faced criticism for an apparent lack of thorough research into the sites under threat, it has pointed to the stakeholder sessions to counter the claim.
But now someone who was invited to attend the sessions by the council has come forward to criticise them.
Hartcliffe resident Keith Way attended four two-hour meetings organised by the head of the area green space plan project, Richard Fletcher, in 2008.
He said: "It was really basic stuff – what's your favourite park, how often do you go.
"When it came out they would be looking at 'low value' sites to sell off my alarm bells went off.
"I asked what is 'low value' and couldn't get a straight answer.
"They asked us to stick dots on our favourite bits. It felt like we were having our time wasted so they could say they have consulted with stakeholders. We were going through the motions and there was no serious discussion of sites."
During the consultation process Mr Way and others in Hartcliffe helped collect 1,000 signatures against the disposals in their area, and a further 172 against the loss of Valley Walk. Despite this, the cabinet agreed to sell off Valley Walk, potentially for development.
Council spokesman James Easey said: "There has been a very detailed and thorough consultation process.
"In total, at least 125 consultation meetings were held across the city over an 18-month period.
"In each of our 14 Neighbourhood Partnerships, officers held at least three meetings specifically on elements of the parks and green spaces strategy in relation to that neighbourhood.
"One of these meetings was solely focused on providing details of the disposal plans (unless that particular area did not contain any disposals) as they were at the time.
"Then on top of this, further meetings were held on the specific site proposals, again with full details on the disposals."
3 Comments
by The Hedgehog, Horfield
Tuesday, December 21 2010, 4:26PM
“The Councillors' Dictionary - Appendix
Consult (v ,trans) CON-sult
To gather the opinions of (usu. the general public) and then to ignore those opinions.
See also: Insult, Time-waste, Take the mick (colloq.)”
by David, Fishponds
Tuesday, December 21 2010, 12:43PM
“I attended a couple of these meetings in Fishponds and have similar recollections. They were poorly attended, probably due to lack of advertising, and badly run.
My understanding at the time was that it was being run to identify improvements to be made to local green spaces but the facilitator (someone from the Planning Dept) was quite dismissive of specific improvements suggested.
I remember there were some very detailed maps of the city identifying green spaces with radii around them identifying which residential properties benefit from the individual green spaces. The facilitator also had some arbitrary distances set by the council. e.g. Everyone should live no more than ¿x¿ metres from a bit of green space.
There were no minutes kept of the meetings but the facilitator made occasional notes. I remember she was very keen to identify areas where the ¿Site Quality Score¿ was ¿Poor¿.
All the maps are dated 2008. I still have A4 copies for, what is now, the Greater Fishponds Neighbourhood Partnership.
Fishponds benefits from Vassall¿s Park but there is no substitute for having a bit of local green space that you can see from your home which your kids can play on and still be supervised from the ¿kitchen window¿! I don¿t think the facilitator grasped this. She admitted that she didn¿t have children; she said that it was ¿a lifestyle choice¿!”
by Ali D, conned by cabinet in Bristol
Tuesday, December 21 2010, 10:11AM
“So the cabinet ignore the thousands who said no development. The swindlers of the public should be held accountable! Thank goodness the conservatives and Labour have used the call in procedure. What will then happen is that this will go to the Overview Management & Scrutiny Committee who will investigate our claims, we are checking the rules on public forum, they will then decide for one of three options 1) That there is no case to answer, decision stands.2) That there is doubt over the decision and that cabinet should look again3) That there is grave doubt over the decision and that the full Council should look again at the case. Hopfully pushing for number 3, we can then see the two faced lib/dems vote again and see if they still maintain to help fight for sites in their own areas. Thank you Conservatives and Labour for doing what elected to do, speak up for the people.”