The news that shook Bristol in 2015

Sexting chief constables, Banksy in Weston-super-Mare and a missing DJ; what a year it has been in Bristol. Packed with controversy, intrigue and mystery, 2015 has been eventful to say the very least.

European Green Capital

Bristol became the European Green Capital at a handover/launch party on January 24. Public art projects like the whale made from 70,000 plastic bottles left over from the Bristol Half Marathon drew the crowds. But grumblings remained over the allocation of funding. Critics were delighted when TreeSong, a tree on the Downs which was supposed to produce music from the nuts that fell in autumn, failed to produce any nuts.

Becky Watts

St George and Barton Hill were thrown into the national spotlight after 16-year-old schoolgirl Becky Watts went missing from her home in Crown Hill at the end of February. A huge search operation which lasted 10 days ended with her dismembered body being found in a garden shed and her step-brother and his girlfriend being arrested on suspicion of murder. Nathan Matthews and Shauna Hoare were jailed for murder and manslaughter, respectively.

Elections

There were no shortage of rosettes on the doorsteps of Bristol all the way up until May 5, after the city was identified as a major target for Labour and the Greens. Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire beat the Greens’ Darren Hall to steal Lib Dem Stephen Williams’ seat in Bristol West. Charlotte Leslie held onto her Bristol North West for the Conservatives (with Labour candidate Darren Jones memorably fainting in a live television debate on Made In Bristol TV), while Karin Smyth took over from Dawn Primarolo as Labour’s Bristol South MP. Kerry McCarthy maintained her place for Labour in Bristol East, and later went on to be appointed shadow secretary of state for the environment under Jeremy Corbyn.

Carnival

Sad news on June 26 that St Paul’s Carnival would be cancelled was met with shock and, in some cases, anger as people took to social media to vent their frustration. Organisers said they pulled the plug on the event for the second time in 10 years due to event management concerns. They promised to return in 2016 once a new team had been put in place. Since then there have been suggestions that the carnival could scale back to finish early like at Notting Hill.

Shaun in the City

Nick Park driving a tractor across the Clifton Suspension Bridge signalled the beginning of another charity trail around Bristol following gorillas in 2011 and Gromits in 2013. Shaun in the City officially started on July 6, lasting until the end of August and bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the city during the school holidays. The success of the trail was topped off by a charity auction which raised more than £1 million for the Grand Appeal, the Bristol Children’s Hospital charity.

Bristol Rovers

Dreams of a shiny news stadium in Stoke Gifford for Bristol Rovers were dashed after a High Court ruling found in favour of Sainsbury’s over a dispute. Rovers needed Sainsbury’s to come good on a deal to buy the Memorial Ground in Horfield so they could fund the move to their new site. But on July 13 a judge found Sainsbury’s were within their rights to cancel the deal.

DJ Derek

In a mystery which has offered very few clues, DJ Derek seemingly vanished from Bristol on July 10. His great-niece raised the alarm on Twitter after realising nobody had seen the reggae-playing patois-speaking elderly DJ for three weeks. A keen ale drinker and fan of Wetherspoons and buses, theories have flown around that Derek Morris took a bus to the newest chain pub to open. But nationwide searches have found nothing.

Dismaland

Banksy showed us he hadn’t lost his sense of humour, opening up an apocalyptic theme park parody in Weston-super-Mare on August 21. Dismaland was advertised as a bemusement park and was a wry critique at, well, everything. Banksy managed to pull together 50 other artists from across the world and bring them to the seaside for a grand exhibition at the derelict Lido, which also included live music in the evenings and a surprise DJ from Fatboy Slim.

Bristol Arena

Plans were finally released for the long-awaited arena behind Bristol Temple Meads on September 16. The winning £93 million project from the team who designed the London 2012 Olympic Stadium and the O2 Arena was announced alongside a vision to create ‘Arena Island’, a patch of development on the old diesel depot with two new bridges crossing the New Cut. George Ferguson also announced the council had purchased the old sorting office next to Temple Meads as part of grand plans to grow the Temple Quarter Enterprise zone and create a new entrance to the station from the back, with a new boardwalk also connecting it to the arena via Totterdown Basin.

Nick Gargan

It only took 16 months, but chief constable of Avon and Somerset police finally resigned on October 16. First suspended in in May 2014 over inappropriate advances to women, the investigation, which grew and grew, eventually included gross misconduct charges. Gargan was cleared of gross misconduct but was found guilty of misconduct through a public investigation which revealed he had sent “intimate” messages to female staff members from his work iPhone. He was subsequently asked to resign by the police and crime commissioner under new powers in August. He finally chose to step down in October.