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Friends of the Earth event

The Big Society –
can local residents use the Localism Bill to build better communities? 

Bristol Friends of the Earth will be holding the last of their three public talk/discussions on topical issues on Tues 5th April. If you missed’ What next after Cycling City’ and ‘How Green is a Green Capital’, you can still catch:

Tuesday 5 April 
at 7.30pm
Bristol Youth Hostel building,
(Conference Room 2nd Floor)
Harbourside, near Pero’s Bridge.

Speakers:
David Farnsworth 
of the Bristol Neighbourhood Planning Network
on Neighbourhood Plans and Vanguard projects in Bristol and

Keith Cowling
,
from the Community Land Trust
on new opportunities for community hubs and buildings.

All Friends of the Earth meetings are free admission
and open to the public.


Bristol Civic Society event

Bristol Civic Society (BCS) invites you to their April speaker event

Wednesday 20 April 
at 7.30pm
Redland Park United Reformed Church,
9 Redland Pk, BS6 6SA

(entrance in Redland Park, just off Whiteladies Road – top floor). 

The speaker will be 

Peter Insole

one of the city’s Archaeological Officers, working on the historic web maps project.

Bristol City Council has secured funding from English Heritage to provide access via a dedicated website to the many historic maps and other records held at Bristol Record Office. The historic maps will be linked to modern maps to allow the public to investigate the history of their neighbourhoods.

The public will be able to upload their own images and information.

See Bristol City Council website:

www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Environment-Planning/archaeology/knowyourplace.en

Amongst other things this will inform planning policy decisions and help to map the city’s heritage assets. 

The involvement of local groups and community volun­teers as well as staff of Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives will help to open up the history of the city to a larger audience and facilitate better care for these valuable archives.

Admission for members is free, non-members £2.00

Click here to see the flyer for the event 

see also http://www.bristolcivicsociety.org.uk/ and sign up for the BCS


Planning Online

A new programme for accessing planning applications has been launched on the Bristol City Council (BCC) website. This has the added feature of allowing you to sign up for alerts if a particular application is updated in any way, or of registering for notification of applications in a particular area.Go to http://planningonline.bristol.gov.uk/online-applications/ to register. 

Please note:

The BCC website reports there is currently some problem with viewing documents which is being rectified, this will not prevent you registering for notification 

www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Environment-Planning/Planning/publicaccess-for-planning.en


Bristol Planning Protocol

The Bristol planning protocol: working together on major planning applications

has been revised and updated. 

See the News (NPN website) for further details and a link to the document. 

This sets out the current expectation for pre application involvement of the community, developers and the Local Planning Authority.


Development Management Structure

Click here to see the DM structure diagram again.

Some of you may have had a problem reading the copy sent out with the previous email


South Gloucestershire development at Cribbs Causeway/ Patchway / Bristol North Fringe

See http://www.bristolnpn.net/in-the-news/southglosdevelopmentbristolnorthfringe

for information currently available on the development proposals for this area.


Civic Day

Bristol Civic Society invites expressions of interest in participating in Civic Day,
which is a national day on 25 June to celebrate civic activity,
the brainchild of Civic Voice, the national association of civic societies.

See http://www.civicvoice.org.uk/campaigns/civic-day/

Bristol Civic Society has been thinking through how it might participate in Civic Day.
An idea they are running with for part of what we do is as follows.

  • a call for the public to celebrate public space in the city by suggesting they go along to a local public space on Civic Day and have a picnic, read a book, play a game or organise their own clean up.
  • this could be tied in with publicity about research about 
    public spaces and their value to people for quality of life
    .
    (possibly Henry Shaftoe)
  • more ambitiously, with the growing mobile location technology there is scope to ask people torecord their location in a Bristol public space on the day and see the spread across the city. or upload pictures of activity in the parks to our flickr or facebook site. (we have a submission in for a project for UWE students)
  • possibly a competition for most novel activity or best community effort.

NPN members could play a major role in this. It’s probably too ambitious for BCS to do on its own, and anyway Civic Day needn’t be the preserve of civic societies. It can involve other community organisations too, such as NPN members. BCS invites expressions of interest and offers to be involved, as partners.

If this appeals to you, please contact
Alan Morris,
Vice-Chair, Bristol Civic Society at
alan@morrises.fastmail.fm.