Katie Sullivan points to the middle of a busy junction in east Bristol where she sat for four hours in the cold last week to stop council contractors installing a bus gate. It was the third time local people had come out en masse to prevent the rollout of a “livable neighbourhood” trial backed by the Green-led city council.
“We’re furious the council is doing this to us,” says Sullivan, who lives nearby. “[The scheme] doesn’t solve the problem [the council] wants it to solve… the imposition on people’s lives is huge.”
The more than 30 people involved in the latest guerrilla protest against the scheme – which aims to reduce traffic and improve air quality by creating no-through roads for private vehicles – are part of a Facebook group with nearly 3,000 members. They argue that the scheme increases journey times for those who need to drive for a range of reasons, including mobility issues and shift work.
The council’s Green deputy leader, Heather Mack, and executive director, John Smith, were met with cries of “shame on you” when they approached last week’s protest, which has become a lightning rod for wider grievances.
One woman made a speech decrying the lack of facilities in the area, which is among the poorest in the city: “Why are you choosing Barton Hill [for the scheme]? 55% of children in Barton Hill live in poverty. We need a pharmacy. We need a dentist. We need appointments from GPs.”
This is just one of multiple backlashes facing Bristol’s Green-led council, which last May became the first major British city to be run by the Greens Last week, the council also appeared in national headlines when it emerged it could become the first authority in England to collect black bins every four weeks. A consultation estimated that moving to monthly collections would give the authority £2.3m a year to spend on other hard-pressed services and boost flatlining recycling rates in the city by 10%.
The proposals have generated widespread opposition, with over 7,500 signing a petition in the city. Even some Green party members in Bristol are uncomfortable with the idea. Danica Priest, who was a Green party candidate in May, fears voters could start deserting the party: “People are seeing their council tax go up and services go down. Bins are one of the main roles of local government, and if bins aren’t being collected that’s all people will care about.”
The Greens are also having to contemplate cutting other services. The failure of government funding to keep pace with demands on local services has created a growing financial shortfall. The Green’s first full budget will have to find an estimated £43.1m of savings in the coming financial year.
An initial raft of cost-saving options, which included closing libraries and mothballing museums, provoked an immediate backlash, forcing the party to rule out the proposals for at least this coming budget. The Green leader of the council, Tony Dyer, knew it would be a challenge running Bristol, but was shocked by what he uncovered: “It was a bit like when you buy a car but you don’t look under the bonnet… and then you look at the engine and think, “Oh, my God, what have I got into?’”
Dyer, who grew up on a deprived council estate on the southern edges of the city, stresses that there has not been “an end to austerity” under the Labour government. “[Bristol’s funding] has gone up 5.2% in real terms but demand is increasing at a much higher rate,” he explains in his offices at Bristol’s city hall.
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It has not been easy for a party elected on a manifesto pledging to “protect the vulnerable from cruel cuts” to contemplate reducing services. Dyer says the council is likely to cut social care packages this year: “They won’t be painless cuts. You can’t make those changes without someone losing out. It feels bloody awful.”
The spectre of Brighton haunts many Greens, as a council led by Green councillors ended up implementing the austerity cuts handed down by the coalition government and got into a protracted dispute with refuse collectors. The party now only has eight councillors, just three more than the Conservatives in the south coast city.
Dyer says it will be different in Bristol. He hopes the Labour government will make more money available in the spending review this spring: “We’ve learnt lessons. Brighton took their eye off the ball, but what will make the difference is delivery.”
Despite the pockets of discontent, Dyer doesn’t feel besieged. He understands why some people in Barton Hill would be suspicious of the council because they have been “let down in the past”, but he says the Greens will press ahead with the trial. Dyer also doubts the council can keep bi-weekly collections: “We have to recognise we have serious financial problems coming down the road.”
Back in east Bristol, the supporters of the livable neighbourhood are keen to be heard too. Tim Northover, a union rep for ambulance workers, who lives in Barton Hill, says many people want to give the scheme a chance as it will make it safer for children to walk and cycle in the streets. “Green party councillors stood on a ticket to implement [the scheme]. They were overwhelmingly voted in… so there’s a democratic mandate.”
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