Consultation Hub

We ran a public consultation on the Spatial Framework and two companion documents, the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) and the Public Realm Guide. The consultation ran from 3rd March and 14th April 2016 and an accompanying survey received 72 responses. An additional 24 letters were received. The consultation’s primary aim was to collect feedback from key stakeholders and members of the public, and then use this feedback to inform further development of the document.

The majority of respondents were supportive of the objectives and approach of the Framework, and responses were tailored to the relevant sections of the document.

Some areas for further development became apparent through the collation of responses, including concerns about amount and nature of public space, land use (desire for more residential uses), the need for public transport improvements, barriers to connectivity, the need for parking guidance and the retention of historic assets

The document has been updated following the consultation. Some examples are given below, but detailed responses are available in the Statement of Community Involvement.

• Land use guidance has been amended to encourage a greater proportion of residential floor space;
• Transport plans have been updated to reflect the latest position in respect to the arena and Temple Gate projects, as well as other emerging city council transport projects in the area;
• The section on heat networks has been retitled ‘Environmental Design and Construction’ and redrafted to incorporate guidance on a range of environmental measures;
• Further work is planned to respond to the need for a residential parking standard for the zone;
• The Framework’s guidance on public spaces has been strengthened to include an aspiration to increase tree coverage by 50%, place greater emphasis on accessibility for people with mobility difficulties and to propose opportunities for formal and informal play spaces within Temple Quarter near Totterdown Basin and Avon Street Market.

The intention is that the Spatial Framework be a living document that is periodically updated, so it will remains relevant as the area changes and as new challenges and opportunities emerge.

We asked voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations what they thought about our co-designed proposals for a new approach to grant funding.

We asked a local VCS organisation, Voscur, to help us to consult with over 150 VCS organisations and they did this through existing events, organising specific consultation events and organising a discussion programme about our proposals on Ujima radio.  We also held a number of events specifically for equalities-led organisations and ran a survey.  In total we talked to and received feedback from 225 people who were from over 170 VCS organisations (as well as from individuals and people from statutory organisations).  There was positive broad support for the proposals but people told us how the details could be improved and what their concerns were.  Voscur wrote a report with their headline findings.

We collated all the feedback from Voscur, our own consultation sessions, the survey and from letters and telephone calls.  We shared this feedback with the Prospectus co-design working group in March and we used it to shape our design of the final VCS Grants Prospectus.  We had two co-design working group meetings to talk about the consultation feedback and the changes that we needed to make.  The last co-design working group meeting was in May and since then the council has worked to make those changes and write the final prospectus.

We have made many changes as a result of the consultation and these are the main ones:

• People liked our aim to reduce disadvantage but some people seemed confused about our aims and values.  We have now agreed three impacts for the fund: reducing disadvantage and inequality, improving health and wellbeing, increasing resilience.
• People thought the values were too aspirational, were not clear enough and were not really values.  We have revisited our approach and have now agreed four clear ‘ways of working’ for organisations funded through the prospectus pooled grant.
• People thought some of the 7 challenges were very prescriptive, some were very loose and people suggested more and different challenges.  We have decided to focus the prospectus on 5 challenges which are broad and interlinked.
• We asked people what grant cycles would work best in a four-year prospectus and how we could make savings if needed.  As a result we have decided to offer 2-year small grants so that we can respond flexibly to changing or new need and 4-year medium and large grants.  We will be introducing tapers in years 3 and 4 for the medium and large grants.

Consultation was undertaken on the admission arrangements for schools for September 2017.

The proposed arrangements for community and controlled schools were unchanged from those currently being used.

Responses received supported the proposed arrangements.

Where responses related to individual schools that are their own admission authority, these were passed to the school and considered prior to determination.

The admission arrangements for Bristol community and controlled schools for the 2017/18 school year have now been determined by the Local Authority. Details are available on the School Admissions pages of Bristol City Council website.

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/schools-learning-early-years/school-admissions

Admission arrangements for academies (including free schools), foundation schools and voluntary aided schools have been determined by the appropriate governing body or trust. Details are available on individual school websites and/or the Bristol City Council website.