Your say / Housing
‘Marvin should concentrate on practical schemes rather than pie in the sky visions’
I have difficulty understanding why Marvin Rees compares Bristol in 2018 with New York in 1863, which is the year that New York opened the first part of its subway.
At that time there was no transport apart from horse-drawn carriages for the rich. What this has to do with inequality in Bristol today I am not sure.
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is needed now More than ever
Read more: ‘A successful city depends on achieving big aspirations’
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With innovative technology ruling the way car manufacturers think (as evidenced by the fact that all major manufacturers are falling over themselves to produce electric cars), a big project on driverless cars being pioneered at UWE, a Metrobus project which has not yet started and home working on the increase, I feel that a better vision for Bristol would be to persuade people away from travelling in polluting vehicles across the city.
Bordeaux, our twin city, has had the same mayor, Alain Juppé, since 1995 with the exception of two years from 2004 to 2006, and he has overseen the development of the tramway, a massive urban and suburban transport network.
On being asked by our previous mayor whether he would be able to do it today, he admitted that it would be far too expensive.
We had a scheme for this in Bristol way back in the 70s which came to nothing because of lack of courage, I believe.
Trams in Bordeaux – Bristol’s twin city
There are many alternatives to this proposed investment which seems to be a vanity project for our current mayor, Marvin Rees, who has many concrete proposals on his desk both for transport and affordable homes.
As far as I know there is not a lot of progress on reopening suburban railway stations. Most helpful would be the re-opening of the lines to Portishead and Thornbury and the expansion of the Severn Beach line with double tracks along the whole length.
Discussions should continue with the companies running our city buses, both on fares which should be much lower, and reliability which could be improved 1000 per cent and that would still not make it perfect.
Buses from outlying suburbs where many of the poorer people live are too expensive, and the incidence of car ownership there is much higher than one would think.
As for housing, We Can Make… Homes is a most ingenious scheme being led by Knowle West Media Centre which involves using the spaces in the gardens and between the houses on the Knowle West estate, to construct houses for as low as £90,000 in order to create small, environmentally sound buildings which could be run by a housing association and rented out for reasonable rates to individuals, couples or small families.
These houses are constructed out of straw bales and are flexible, so could be one or two bedroom houses, with kitchen, bathroom, living room, and at least a patio outside.
I would suggest that mayor Marvin concentrate on affordable and practical schemes, rather than pie in the sky visions which will do nothing to help the disadvantaged who need help now, rather than in 25 years.
Judith Sluglett used to work at the European Parliament in Luxembourg. She is currently company secretary and trustee of re:work, a charity in Filwood Broadway that offers training to young people and those wishing to re-enter the world of work. She is an active political agitator, though rather handicapped by being handicapped.
Main photo: A mock up of Siemens’ Inspiro train proposal for the London Underground
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