At the end of last week the occupants of the Bearpit were suddenly evicted, and the whole space fenced off. We at the Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft were as surprised as anyone. Maybe more so, as Bristol City Council had signed documents with us, including guarantees that we’d be consulted throughout the process.
Although Marvin spoke in defense of the sudden clearance on BBC Bristol, neither he, or anyone else at the council have taken responsibility for giving the order. Despite our best investigative efforts we’ve drawn a blank, with the Mayor’s office, the council executive & the police all denying any involvement or foreknowledge. As with many aspects of local politics since the implementation of our mayoral system, there seems to be a massive democratic deficit, with no transparency or accountability for decisions made.
Given the legal assurances we had received, and how much care we had put into ensuring that the structures we built could be easily taken apart (so all the materials could be saved and re-used elsewhere) we were shocked and saddened to see the contractors using a digger to smash them down.
Among other clauses, the agreement states the “BCC will take all reasonable care in the dismantling and removal of items with a view to their re-use elsewhere. BCC will liaise with PRSC in this regard.”
The contents of the structures (many £100s worth, which we’d also been assured would be delivered back to us) were heaped in the middle of the Bearpit, and were obviously damaged beyond repair.
Whilst there are broader issues around the council’s treatment of those involved in the Bearpit project, these actions, for which no-one in the council seems to be willing to take responsibility, not only break the agreement we’d made, but constitute a massive waste of resources.
We stated many times that the infrastructure in the Bearpit (which we’d offered to BCC) would best have been used in situ, and removal was a waste itself. The wanton destruction playing out in the Bearpit is a gross waste of both the resources of the PRSC, a community business which invested massively in improving the space, and even more public money, which BCC can clearly ill afford.
We continue to investigate these actions, who ordered them, and what has been done with removed materials, and any information in this regard will be gratefully received.
It was a good effort but ultimately a failed and naive project. Sometimes you’ve just got admit your own failings and stop blaming others who gave you a shot to try out your fantasies.
Hi Greg, I don’t think we go into any of that history at all here. We had agreed to pull out a while ago, and haven’t been active down there since BCC “took back control” back in March 2018. The post is about how they have needlessly destroyed both our property, and BCC resources in the rushed and un-planned execution of the clearance.
If you pulled out in March then maybe you should have pulled your property out also. It’s yours responsibility. I get it’s annoying and deflating but ultimately you can’t expect them to care about your stuff. You are not victims, you just left your stuff about naively assuming they or anyone else care about it. Sad face.
The whole future of the space was (and is) uncertain, and we hoped that other community organisations would be given the chance to use what we had made, rather than it go to waste.
We then had an agreement with BCC, where they agreed that they would take care of our stuff, which they have reneged on. Maybe we should expect that BCC would give out assurances and then ignore them, but one of our slogans is “relentless optimism.” If we’d known that they would just smash it all up, then we’d have gone in and taken it down sensibly. Wasting perfectly good materials like that may be the council’s style, but it’s certainly not ours. We go to huge lengths to use reclaimed materials, and to re-use everything we possibly can from our own past projects.
BCC killed the Bearpit when they wasted Millions of pounds building the raised pavement because people feared for their safety going down through it, especially at night. Fair enough. The obvious solution would have been to install a permanently manned police kiosk in the middle. Hey presto! safe space and the whole area could benefit from night markets, entertainment, music etc. I suggested this to GF in 2012 when I too ran for Mayor….I wish he’d stolen my idea but no. All that has happened is an increase in traffic fumes because now there has to be extra pedestrian crossings. What a farce1
As a resident of 51.02 apartments I really am glad that your suggestion did not pan out. The ‘pit’ acts as an amplifier for any noise and having music in the pit inthe last several months became (pardon the pun) unbearable. Starting at 4pm and finishing at 2am continous monotonous trance music is not my idea of fun (don’t get me wrong I like a lot of music) but being forced to listen to it constantly every Thursday, Friday and Saturday and any bank holiday drove us insane. Closing the windows did nothing to stop the music bleed. On top of this the witnessing of violent assaults, drug abuse and the domestic abuse on a near daily basis makes it hard to love the bear pit anymore. So my suggestion is to fill it in and tunr it into a green space with trees, grass and benches with Ursa in the middle, standing testament to what was here. This way we get a bit of green in the centre once more to help with the fumes and a nice space for people to pass through on their way in and out of town.
It’s interesting to hear that tteamhe music carried so badly into your appartments. Especially one of the few areas where we found mostly positive feedback from the council was over plans to put music/theater/circus/talks on down there (although from the Events team, rather than the Clean Streets, who seemed to be otherwise be given controll over what we thought of as a cultural space).
They would only have been daytime & early evening though.
As far as the violence & drug dealing, I’m sure you’d noticed the sharp increase since other activitiy down there was stopped. Even the Police made a statement at council that Bristol Council’s lack of clarity about the space was causing policing problems, and that lack of clarity has not been cleared up. They “took back control” way back in March 2018, and as far as we’ve been able to determine still have no plan for it’s future. Marvin has said that their scraping everything back to grey, and removing the community infrastructure was their plan to make the space safer, which we can’t see making any positive impact.
As for the filling it in idea (certainly one of the most popular if you look at comments under Bristol Post articles, apparently it’s prohibitively expensive, as all the services & utilities run at the current ground level, and moving them all would cost too much…
A great opportunity to develop the Bearpit to the advantage of Stokes Croft. Fill in the pit (keeping underground access for service vehicles only) and create safe overground footbridge access to a two or three floor building that showcases the wealth of creative talent that exists In Stokes Croft, and in the city generally: painting, sculpture, applied art , multi-media etc, plus cafés and associated outlets. Showcase the Bristol bear sculpture against a plain wall, and use other plain wall surfaces to feature quality street art. It could become a great visitor attraction as well as a focal point for Stokes Croft.