NEWSLETTER (20:15)
Age-friendly Ideas
In March we asked for ideas that would make Greater Bedminster friendlier
towards older and/or younger people. These are your thoughts, so far.
• For an ALL age-friendly neighbourhood, we need to get rid of rubbish and bins
on the streets, enforce non-parking on the pavements, and crack down on
anti-social behaviour.
• We need to sustain our local food shops, post offices and chemists; ensure
routes to parks, surgeries, libraries and social centres are uncluttered, well
lit and pleasant; improve our pavement surfaces; ensure public transport
fulfils people's needs; provide more on-street seating where necessary;
maintain existing - and establish new where needed - indoor community
facilities.
• As a disabled wheelchair bound member of the community, I would like to
suggest that the angle of the dropped curbs leading off North Street into the
roads above Raleigh Road be reduced. At present because of the camber of the
road, it is necessary for me to enter the road backwards where I have no vision
of traffic and then have to turn around in the road to proceed ascross and do
the same action on the far side. If I do not do this, the angle is enough, as
it stands. to throw me out of the front of my chair. I am sure I am not the
only wheelchair user to experience this and I think it could help mothers with
children in buggies when they are loaded with shopping.
• Easy access to toilets whether public or run by sympathetic cafes, pubs etc .
• All pavements to have drop down kerbs for disabled people in wheelchairs etc.
Also, good for mums with prams to be able to get around freely. Cars should
be fined for parking on corners and drop down kerbs.
• Better information on events etc, even if they have no computer.
• Everyone to pick up their dog mess and rubbish to make streets healthier and
safer.
Let’s Walk Bedminster
An Awards Panel met on Monday, 13 April and their recommendations are attached.
These will go to the GBCP Board meeting on 27 April for ratification, or not.
An Introduction to the BS3 Planning Group
Care about your local built environment, but not sure how you can influence it?
Care what businesses open where, but feel like a lone voice likely to be
ignored?
The BS3 Planning Group gets together once a month and is the recognised voice
of GBCP on planning matters and applications in the partnership area. What is
built, how and where, change of use applications (e.g. offices to residential).
Where an application is made for a significant development, the developer is
required to undertake a community consultation. They come to us as part of that
exercise, or sometimes the whole exercise. Every week BCC publishes a list of
all planning applications that they have validated – we review those each month
and comment as we feel appropriate (for, against or conditionally “we like it
apart from…”).
I maintain a mailing list of ca 40 people and each month between 4 and 15
people join our meetings at the Hen and Chicken on North St (typically 7.30pm
3rd or 4th Wednesday). Therein is part of the problem we could have in arguing
for our voice to be heard. Are those 4 people that turned up really
representative of the population’s views? Are the 15, when maybe 10 of them
have very strong views about a particular development because it happens to be
on their street?
If you’d like to join the mailing list or learn more about what we can and
cannot do then drop me an e-mail to <email obscured>. Absolutely
no commitment beyond that, but would be great to get some more views around the
table at our meetings. I do attempt to get an agenda out prior to each meeting
so you know what is being discussed, particularly if there is a developer due
to present to us. There are 3 in the pipeline at the moment – one being a site
that you will recognize if you have ever come into Bristol from the direction
of the airport.
All you need is a viewpoint, no experience necessary!
Neil Sellers, Chair, BS3 Planning Group
Land Seekers Survey
Bristol Food Producers is excited to announce the launch of our Land Seekers
Survey and want to invite you to register your land needs. We are a diverse
network of local, independent growers, farmers, food processors and
distributors collaborating and supporting each other by sharing advice and
resources to scale up our local food system and make good food more visible and
available. We want to identify suitable growing land (we are already talking to
Bristol City Council and others) and also what demand for land exists. If you
complete the survey we can’t guarantee to find you land, but we will keep you
informed of new opportunities and get in touch if something matching your
profile comes up. Please share the survey link bit.ly/lookingforland and sign
up to our distribution list if you are a food producer or strategic
organisation at www.bristolfoodproducers.uk, where you can also read about our
other strands of work @BristolProduce
Volunteers Week (and in Bedminster?)
This year, Volunteers week will be celebrated across the country during the
first week of June. Volunteer Bristol will be hosting a Volunteers Fair at the
Baptist Church Hill in Broadmead on Thursday 4th June from 1pm to 5pm. This is
a great opportunity to raise awareness of your organisation's activities and
celebrate the contribution of your existing volunteers.
At the same time, a volunteers fair is a very effective way of recruiting new
volunteers, including engaging passing shoppers, who may be new to the idea of
volunteering. This superb location, combined with our publicity should ensure
a good attendance.
We are pleased to be able to offer Voscur members the opportunity to exhibit
for a nominal charge of £25 towards the venue hire costs, although this may be
reduced if we have a large response. We have a limited number of places
available, which will be allocated on a first come first served basis. To
reserve your place please email <email obscured> with the
following information:
Name of organisation, Name of contact, Phone, Email
Please reserve a stand for my organisation at the Baptist Church Hall
volunteering Fair on 4th June
I understand that a non refundable fee of £25 is payable to confirm this
reservation.
Please do not hesitate to contact myself or Sian
(<email obscured>) if you have any queries about this and keep
an eye out for further Volunteers' Week news on our homepage
www.volunteerbristol.org.uk and digital channels Twitter: @VolBristol or
Facebook: Volunteer Bristol
Volunteering in Bedminster
Why not make our Make Sunday Special an opportunity for you to recruit helpers
for your project? We will be closing North Street (between the roundabouts
at the Hen & Chicken and Cannon Street) to traffic on June 14 and expect
hundreds of visitors. We’ll also be in Dame Emily Park. If your community
organisation would like a pitch to give out leaflets, tell people about what
you do and recruit new members, contact Ben asap. First come, first served.
Blooming Bedminster Events – Volunteers Needed
Please find attached the Blooming Bedminster events taking place during May.
Details of all the events can be found at www.bloomingbedminster.org.uk
We need volunteers to help us staff the Blooming Bedminster stall at the
Tobacco Factory Plant and gardening Market on Sunday 10 May between 10am -and
2.30pm. If you can help for an hour (or more!) please get in touch.
The volunteers staffing the stall will give info out about the Blooming
Bedminster Festival and selling 'Bedminsters' Secret Gardens' open gardens
brochures (the spring open gardens day is on the same day 1 - 5pm)
Please share and invite your friends to this event.
https://www.facebook.com/events/350630871800589/
If you're on Facebook, once you have joined, you can invite friends by clicking
on the ‘invite' buttons under the banner
Volunteers are also required to help the residents of Monica Wills House to
take part in the Bedminster's Secret Gardens open day on Sunday 10 May. There
are some concerns about security with visitors coming and going so we have
agreed that visitors will be met in reception, sign in and then volunteers will
escort small groups around, as well as volunteers on the roof to answer any
questions about the garden.
Escorted visits to the roof garden will be restricted to between 2.45pm -
3.45pm and we'll be encouraging people to pop into the McMillan fundraiser that
the residents will be running between 3 - 4pm for a cup of coffee and a muffin.
If anyone is able to help volunteer with this on Sunday 10 May between 2.30 -
4pm, please contact Matthew Symonds <email obscured> or 07986 293356.
Food Action Plan
Bristol Food Network are going to be working on a 3-year Food Action Plan for
Bristol, on behalf of the Food Policy Council. We envisage this as being
something which will be updated over time to incorporate people's projects and
aspirations as they change and adapt - but we actually need to work on the
first iteration of the Plan quite quickly, publishing a 1st draft at the end of
May.
In order to pull together a 1st version of the Food Action Plan, we would like
to tap-into as many other related networks as we can, in order to "capture" as
many people's plans as possible - plus we would like to log your individual
organisation's non-Green-Capital-funded projects (we'll be in touch separately
about the projects we already know about!).
If you're going to be working on something new and food-related in Bristol over
the next 3 years, and you'd like to be part of a comprehensive plan to make
Bristol a Sustainable Food City, please get in touch! Or if you can pass the
request on via your other networks, please let us know.
The current version of the 1-year plan -
www.bristolparksforum.org.uk/BristolLAP2015diagram.pdf - pulls-together the
Green Capital-funded projects to-date (this is still missing the 2nd round of
small grants funding, and the last of the Neighbourhood Partnership-funded
initiatives).
Community Garden Worker
Please find attached an ad and job description for a gardening tutor at HHEAG
Bristol University Vision & Falls research
This is on behalf of Dr Ute Leonards and Dr George Stothart, Bristol University
and the GBCP. We are seeking to start a research project that investigates the
effects of dementia on the person’s ability to process visual clues and the
impact of the designed environment on that ability as it relates to falls and
falls prevention; therefore, the work should be of interest to a wide range of
groups and people. The first meeting is aimed at professionals working with
older people and will be held on Wednesday 6th May 2-4PM at the Southville
Centre; it will provide an opportunity for Drs Leonards and Stothart to provide
some detail regarding the research project and highlight how you could support
that work and also get involved with the project. Please can you RSVP to
<email obscured> on, or before, Friday 1st May so that we are
able to determine how many people we need to cater for.
Next GBCP Meeting
This will be on Monday, 27 April at the Youth Club (Risdale Road) in Ashton
Vale. Papers attached. The meeting will start at 6.30 in order to deal
with important financial decisions, including resolving the current S106/CIL
wrangle (too complex to explain!!) and ratify the Let’s Walk Bedminster
decisions. This process will allow key local projects to continue, but should
be over by 7. From 7 to 8.30 we will be considering issues related to equal
opportunities. Which are the groups, areas etc that benefit from GBCP’s
activities and who gets left out?
Next, next GBCP Meeting
May 18 at Ashton Gate Primary School. We are holding this jointly with
Bristol University and UWE to explore existing and future links between the two
worlds. More info later.
First Steps
This is a government programme to support smaller organisations (annual
turn-over under £50K) who want to ‘shape your area and have a lasting effect on
the community’. Groups wanting to develop sections of GBCP, say, WoW, Ashton
Vale Together or the Marksbury Area Community Association might be interested.
The down side is that the window of opportunity is very narrow, so don’t
dither. Go to <email obscured> for more information.
Thanks to Kirsty Barrett for this edition. Please pass it on to others and
invite them to join the circulation list. Let me know if you want to drop
out.