A personal view

Bristol Parks Forum and Bristol City Councils [Parks and Planning] officers inadequate response during the green spaces debate.

As a Brentry resident and a member of the Friends of Okebourne Park and BS10 Parks and Planning groups, I, amongst many thousands of other Bristol residents attempting to retain community green spaces, was appalled by the response from the so called "independent" and City wide Bristol Parks Forum to the Green Spaces consultation exercise or should I say fiasco. The Lib Dem councillors on Bristol City Council were eager to use the support given them by the Bristol Parks Forum to defend their position and deny Bristol residents their rights to have the overriding say in how they wished to retain their much valued community green spaces.

Whilst we had a few successes within the BS10 area, the majority of Greenfield sites throughout Bristol did not have any joy in terms of their opposition to the proposals. Decisions on some sites such as Crow lanes open space have been deferred and we await further news on the ongoing evaluation process for its future.

Local residents and Friends groups supporting their communities green spaces,as well as responding individually. need to learn from this experience and if at all possible attend and engage in local and Bristol wide forums when circumstances permit, if they are going to seriously challenge such flawed consultation exercises and to ensure that, for example, the Bristol Parks Forum does not run away with its own self importance and that it reflects not only the views of the middle classes in Redland, stoke Bishop, Clifton and the like, but more importantly, the many areas of Bristol that are far less affluent and where communities are always being targeted to take the hits when unpopular strategies of this nature are introduced against the will of the people.We should not forget the inadequate response made by a number of Parks and planning Officers employed by the City Council, whose jobs are paid for from the public purse and for the part they played in the consultation exercise.

Yes council officers were few in number and Yes they attended many meetings in council and probably in their own time. However, the reports they produced as a result of the consultation exercise in no way reflected either the weight of opinion against the strategy or were they seen to do anything other than justify theiroriginal position which the vast majority of Bristol residents taking part in the consultation clearly disagreed with. Their whole definition of Low Value land has been distorted, misleading and over complicated to the detriment of transparency and meaningful dialog with local people within the consultation process.

At the start of the consultation process the Evening Post [who in fairness championed local democracy], was kind enough to publish a letter I had submitted which warned people that in my experience the Consultation exercise would almost certainly not mean true negotiation with residents when it came to its conclusion, especially when there is a political will to enforce policies, come what may by a party in power. Sadly I think I have been proven correct in so many ways.

So lets all support those communities who have been victims of this discredited consultation strategy or where decisions have been deferred and not stop until we have achieved an outcome that FULLY satisfies local democracy and nothing less.

COUNCILLORS AND COUNCIL OFFICERS SHOULD TAKE NOTE RESIDENTS OF BRENTRY AND HENBURY WILL NOT BE IGNORED, MISREPRESENTED, OR TAKEN FOR GRANTED.

Bob Farmer