Bristol residents say no to greenspace housing development
7,000 people have signed a petition
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 next week (Tuesday 10 January) 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.
Despite that declaration though, petitioners say new developments “fly in the face” of the promises then made to protect green spaces.
Those at threat from construction include the Western Slopes, Brislington Meadows and Ashton Vale.
The petition, organised by Martyn Cordey, will be presented to a full council meeting next Tuesday, with the mayor Marvin Rees invited to respond to its calls.
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.
Marvin Rees himself has also talked about the importance of building new homes in the centre of cities on brownfield land, saying in the future, "people will live more densely and centrally".
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 formally 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 at Ashton Vale were also given planning permission in October, despite criticism from campaigners.