Liveable Neighbourhood

'Divisive' scheme needs to change, Labour councillors say

- Tristan CORK

POLITICIANS who started the plans for the controversial East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood now say it should be changed, because it has divided communities.

Bristol's Labour Group has called for key parts of the low-traffic neighbourhood scheme to be stopped immediately, but said the scheme is working in some places.

In a lengthy report on the impact of the project, which has created “traffic zones” for cars, vans and emergency service vehicles, but allow people to walk, scoot or cycle freely, the Bristol Labour Group has called for the measures implemented earlier this year in Barton Hill to be changed and in some cases scrapped, while keeping the controversial “modal filter” road block planters in areas where there is support for them.

Labour's City Hall leader Councillor Tom Renhard said he acknowledged that the East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood was a project started by the Labour administration which ran Bristol City Council until May 2024, but added that at that point it was still only a proposal, and it has been the Green Party-led council that has implemented the scheme.

The project covers a wide area, from Lawrence Hill and Barton Hill in the west, to Redfield and St George in the east, with roads divided up into cul-de-sac zones with drivers having to leave one zone via the surrounding main roads and return into another, rather than drive freely between the two.