Would you like cleaner air where you live? Peace and quiet? Less
traffic? Safer streets? Play areas for kids and safe routes to school?
An attractive, thriving local high street with outdoor seating and
lots of greenery? Higher life expectancy?
If so, then you’ll like a proven way to give you all this – Liveable
Neighbourhoods.
Liveable Neighbourhoods Explained
Liveable Neighbourhoods are residential neighbourhoods with traffic
filters inside them to stop cars, vans and lorries using the streets
as rat-runs.
British Road, Bedminster, today...
...and as a Liveable Neighbourhood
Residents can still drive to their homes, residents and businesses
can still get deliveries, and pedestrians and bikes can get through
freely.
Liveable Neighbourhoods offer huge benefits for elderly and disabled
people (and children) as reduced car traffic allows them to move
around their neighbourhood safely.
Cotham Hill today...
...and as a Liveable Neighbourhood
High streets in these areas become attractive destinations where
people want to spend their time again and again, and so footfall and
trade increase.
Find the Liveable Neighbourhood group for your area
There’s now a groundswell of public support for low-traffic
neighbourhoods, but the council won’t provide them if we don’t show we
want them.
So please join the discussion in your local Liveable Neighbourhoods
online group – there is one for each local area.
test
Sign the petition
What we want to see:
A rapid rollout consistent with the 2030 emissions commitment to be a carbon neutral
city. At least two Liveable Neighbourhoods (LNs) implemented in Bristol every year over the next 5 years.
A focus on equality to tackle air quality issues in neighbourhoods outside the Clean
Air Zone, in areas with low levels of car ownership.
A child-friendly city with safe spaces for children to play and travel and a
permanent play street in every LN.
Grants and facilitated partnerships to enable resident-led planting and greening as
part of wider
placemaking
initiatives, such as pedestrianisation of local high streets.
Engagement and emphasis on supporting local businesses to increase revenues.
In combination with:
A network for walking and cycling enabling 15-minute
neighbourhoods, improving health outcomes and halving
short
car journeys.
Affordable, reliable, fast and clean (energy) public transport to join up
neighbourhoods. Free / discounted
bus
travel for children.
Active Travel initiatives such as cycle hangers, shared bike and scooter schemes,
free cycle training, as
well as
car clubs.
So please sign our
petition
to ask Bristol City Council to work with local people to create
Liveable Neighbourhoods across the city, starting now and completing
by the end of the next mayoral and council term in May 2024. We’ll
break down signatures by postcode to show the council the strength of
support in your area.
Sign our petition for Liveable Neighbourhoods in Bristol
Join our mailing list
Sign up to hear regular updates about Liveable Neighbourhoods in
Bristol. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Sign up to hear the latest news about Liveable Neighbourhoods in
Bristol
You can read our open letter to the mayor and council in the FAQs
section below.
Got questions? Answers below, and don’t forget to watch the video of
Waltham Forest’s amazing transformation into ‘Mini-Holland’.
Could we see the same transformation in Bristol that has happened in
Waltham Forest?
Frequently Asked Questions
A Liveable Neighbourhood is a group of residential streets that are
bounded by the kind of main roads that buses, lorries, and non-local
traffic should really be on, and discourages or prevents
through-traffic.
Residents and local businesses still have full access and can get
deliveries, but the only way to pass from one main road to another
is on foot or by bike.
The schemes rely on traffic filters, which can be bollards or
planters, for example. The filters are placed at strategic locations
inside the neighbourhood so that no useful through-routes remain and
rat-run traffic isn’t displaced onto other streets within the
neighbourhood.
In Liveable Neighbourhoods, the streets are for locals, not
through-traffic.
With through-traffic gone, the streets in Liveable Neighbourhoods
see dramatic reductions in motor traffic, and often in traffic
speeds too.
As you might expect, there isn’t a simple answer to this!
1) The impact of displaced traffic to main roads is likely to be
less than the impact of removing through-traffic on residential
roads. That’s because the rat-running traffic may not be a huge
volume. Enough to spoil residential streets, but maybe imperceptible
when added to main roads, which are designed to carry high volumes
efficiently.
2) Any displacement to main roads may not be adding new traffic to
roads that never used main roads before, but rather taking away the
increase in rat-running traffic that has come about over the last
decade or so from use of satnavs. Studies have shown that traffic on
residential streets has increased massively over the last few years
with the advent of sat navs. If you told people on residential
streets several years ago that this was planned there would have
been uproar, yet somehow this situation has embedded itself as the
status quo.
3) The impact on traffic varies between schemes. Whilst small-scale
road closures lead to traffic displacement, this may cause minimal
disruption on the nearby main roads, as discussed above.
Larger-scale or strategic closures may cause more disruption
initially, but It can take months for traffic patterns to settle.
Studies have shown that over time traffic levels reduce. Around 15%
of displaced traffic may disappear from the area entirely as drivers
adjust routes and behaviour – avoiding the area, changing modes or
even cancelling journeys. The result is a couple of minutes’ extra
on some resident journeys as they have to drive further round the
edge of the cell before entering, but little substantive change to
main road congestion.
4) It is important to look at the wider picture. Liveable
Neighbourhoods are just one element of transport policy. Other
elements of transport policy include reallocating space on main
roads to free up buses and make walking and cycling safer, and that
will reduce the number of motor vehicles on main roads, improving
the environment for those who live on main roads.
5) There may be some increase in traffic on main roads in the
short-term, but does that mean that Liveable Neighbourhoods are the
wrong thing to do ? Is that a reason not to bring the benefits of
healthy streets to everyone who does not live on a main road, for
instance to make roads safer for children?
To summarise, displacement of traffic is a genuine concern – but the
impact on main roads may be less than you would expect, and may just
be a return to how things were a decade ago.
In London, several boroughs have introduced Liveable Neighbourhoods.
Westminster University studied them after the changes had been in
place for one year. The research compared people living in the parts
of these boroughs that had been changed the most to favour active
travel with those living in similar but unchanged areas. In the
changed areas, people were, on average, walking and cycling for 41
minutes a week more than the other areas.
Researchers calculate that in Liveable Neighbourhoods, life
expectancy increases by 7–9 months, due to improved air quality and
residents’ increased activity.
Liveable Neighbourhoods are a great opportunity for businesses to
get higher footfall and increase trade.
A
wealth of evidence
shows that schemes friendly to pedestrians and people on bikes are a
real gift to high streets. Improvements to the pedestrian
environment have led to average increases in footfall of 32% and
retail turnover by 17%.
This makes sense. The rise of internet shopping means that high
streets need to do more than just sell things. They need to become
destinations where people enjoy spending their time and will keep
returning.
Liveable Neighbourhoods have been implemented successfully in the
UK. Despite some initial opposition, they have proved popular with
residents and been widely hailed as a huge success.
The best-known is Waltham Forest in London, and this
gallery
of before-and-after photos of the borough – as well as our own
Bristol slideshow below these FAQs – shows what we could have in our
city, with enough popular and political support. (See also the video
of Waltham Forest above these FAQs, and this fascinating 12-minute
video presentation
and tour of Waltham Forest by expert local Dan Kelly.)
The Draft Local Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plan for the West
of England identifies St Werburgh’s and Southville as two areas of
Bristol where Liveable Neighbourhoods could be implemented. But the
plan covers the period 2020-2036 so that means only two Liveable
Neighbourhoods over the next 15 years.
Councillor Kye Dudd, Cabinet Member for Transport, and Councillor
Nicola Beech have both shown an interest in Liveable Neighbourhoods
by touring the scheme in Waltham Forest. And Councillor Dudd has
said
that the council will bring forward initial proposals for liveable
streets as soon as possible, and that it will be keen to engage with
communities.
But any new scheme affecting traffic is often controversial, and it
will be important for us local people to show our support for
Liveable Neighbourhoods for the council to take the political risk
of implementing the schemes.
Liveable Neighbourhoods can initially be trialled for 12–18 months
before they are made permanent if they are popular (and they almost
always are). This way, local residents and businesses are in control
of the process and if the scheme is unpopular then it can be altered
or removed entirely.
Liveable Neighbourhoods won’t happen without popular support from
local people in their local area. So please sign our
petition
and then use the search tool above to find a Liveable Neighbourhoods
group in your area and start convincing your neighbours, local
councillors and the mayor that the time for change has come.
Liveable Neighbourhoods won’t happen without popular support from
local people in their local area. So please sign our
petition
and then use the search tool above to find a Liveable Neighbourhoods
group in your area and start convincing your neighbours, local
councillors and the mayor that the time for change has come.
Our open letter to the mayor and each councillor – also for the
attention of all Bristol candidates in the upcoming 2021 local
elections – is below, and has been co-signed by organisations that
support the request.
‘We are writing as a network of Bristol organisations to ask you to
work with local people to create Liveable Neighbourhoods across the
city, starting now and completing by the end of the next mayoral and
council term in May 2024.
‘As you will know, Liveable Neighbourhoods are residential areas
that contain traffic filters to stop cars, vans and lorries using
the streets as rat-runs. Residents can still drive to their homes,
residents and businesses can still get deliveries, and pedestrians
and bikes can get through freely.
‘In Liveable Neighbourhoods, the resulting reduced traffic has many
benefits. Air quality improves. So does road safety. Social
distancing is easier. There is safe space for play areas for
children, and room for outdoor seating for businesses. Tree-planting
and landscaping can be done, making the streets greener and more
pleasant.
‘Residents’ life expectancy improves because the air is cleaner and
they walk and cycle more. High streets in Liveable Neighbourhoods
become attractive destinations where people want to spend their time
again and again, and so footfall and trade increase.
‘As well as these benefits for citizens, Liveable Neighbourhoods
would help the council meet its One City plans for a healthy and
sustainable city, including its goal for a carbon-neutral Bristol by
2030.
‘We are encouraged by the
statement
by Councillor Kye Dudd, Cabinet Member for Transport, that the
council will be bringing forward initial proposals for liveable
streets with less traffic on local roads as soon as possible, and
that it will be be keen to engage with communities.
‘To this end, Liveable Neighbourhood Facebook groups have been set
up in each local area in Bristol, and we invite you – the mayor and
current councillors – as well as prospective councillors, to join
the discussion in your local groups.
‘We have also started a petition that people in Bristol can sign to
ask for Liveable Neighbourhoods to show their support for this
policy. More information, and signposting to local Liveable
Neighbourhood Facebook groups, can be found on our website.
‘The extraordinary circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic present
a perhaps once-in-a-generation opportunity to build back better. We
hope that we can help each other to do this.
‘We look forward to your response.’
Every neighbourhood in Bristol deserves clean air and safe and
pleasant streets, so please tell your friends and family in the city
about this campaign, and ask them to sign the
petition
and find their own Liveable Neighbourhoods group in their own area.
It’s time to transform Bristol!
What might Bristol's streets look like as Liveable Neighbourhoods?