Council challenged over plans to build youth centre on green space

The deputy mayor of Bristol has apologised over the handling of the process to build a youth centre on green space in the south of the city.

Bristol City Council is working with national charity OnSide to erect a £8.4 million ‘youth zone’ around the edge of the Inns Court housing estate.

But at a recent public meeting, residents raised concerns about the proposed location of the facility, which is on the border of Knowle West and Hartcliffe.

Councillor Asher Craig admitted she would have approached the project differently if she was responsible for it from the start.

The deputy mayor inherited the project in October last year, after being appointed cabinet member for children’s services, education and equalities.

Deputy mayor Asher Craig addressed concerns about the proposed youth zone in south Bristol at a public meeting – photo: Charlie Watts

She told the meeting at the Inns Court Community & Family Centre on Thursday: “I apologise to all of you if you feel as if you haven’t been engaged in this process right from the very beginning.

“I’m not trying to push it off onto my predecessor [former councillor Helen Godwin], it’s really just about different ways of working.

“But we are where we are and the proof will be in the pudding when we see the zone emerge.”

The youth zone has been proposed on green space between Knowle West and Hartcliffe – photo: OnSide

The youth zone, which will cost £1.3 million a year to operate, was one of Marvin Rees’ campaign pledges during the 2020 Bristol mayoral election.

The “world-class” facility will be run by local charity Youth Moves and give young people access to a range of activities and facilities for 50p per visit.

It will follow the same model as the 14 youth zones that already exist across the country and are open seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

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Read more: First look at proposed new youth centre in Bristol 

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But on Thursday, residents asked why their green space is being sacrificed for the facility.

Councillor Craig responded by saying the site is not one that is ecologically important.

“Wherever we were going to put it, someone was going to say, ‘not in our back yard’,” she said.

But the site is next to the Western Slopes, which the council only recently said has significant ecological value, and part of the same wildlife network which runs along the Hartcliffe Way.

The youth zone would interrupt a wildlife network along Hartcliffe Way – photo: Charlie Watts

Other residents suggested the site is too archaeologically important to build on, with Inns Court previously being a Roman settlement.

But the council claimed that 71 per cent of residents in Filwood (Knowle West & Inns Court), and the neighbouring wards of Hartcliffe & Withywood, Hengrove & Whitchurch and Bishopsworth, supported the proposed location of the youth zone in their recent consultation.

This statistic surprised those in the meeting, with one saying “everybody you talk to on the estate don’t want it”.

Attendees also suggested that positioning the youth zone between Knowle West and Hartcliffe will feed into the long-standing feud between the two communities.

But the council said division between communities is something it hopes the facility will address.

The youth zone opposite the entrance to Imperial Retail Park will only take up about a fifteenth of the green space around Inns Court – photo: OnSide

Councillor Craig added: “It’s going to take a couple of years before we get to the realisation of the zone, but we have to start somewhere to break the cycle.

“We can’t keep going on about how this side doesn’t like that side. We owe it to our children and young people, and we have to raise ambition.

“I hear all of your concerns, but the direction of travel we’re going in is the right direction.”

OnSide is set to submit a planning application for the youth zone in the next few months, with the mayor and cabinet due to make a final decision on the facility in the spring.

Charlie Watts is reporting on Knowle West as part of Bristol24/7’s community reporter scheme, a project which aims to tell stories from areas of Bristol traditionally under-served by the mainstream media

Main photo: Charlie Watts

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