News / Western Harbour
Poet and illustrator to ‘paint a picture’ of the future of Western Harbour
Workshops with community groups across Bristol will form “the first stage of active engagement designed to open up city-wide conversations to inform the Western Harbour Vision”.
In an email seen by Bristol24/7, the company employed by the city council to take the engagement process back to the drawing board says that later this month, “place visioning” will see people invited “to have their say and input ideas, challenges and hopes during this stage of creative engagement”.
The Western Harbour is the name for the major proposed development centred around the Cumberland Basin, which could see the current road system dismantled in order to create more space for housing.
is needed now More than ever
£150,000 has been allocated for the ‘placeshaping vision’, which will be carried out on behalf of the city council by The Place Bureau and Play Disrupt, with Rosanna Vitiello from The Place Bureau revealing in the email seen by Bristol24/7 that “local creative ambassadors” have now been recruited.
A poet, videographer, photographer and illustrator will capture so-called “harbour hopes through their creative medium and paint a picture of what the future of the Harbour could hold. They will be active in and around the area talking to individuals capturing and communicating their hopes and dreams for the area.”
An early image of the proposed Western Harbour bore a striking resemblance to Wapping Wharf – image: Bristol City Council
“The objective of this early engagement is to inform the Masterplan Brief, well before formal consultation commences,” Vitiello writes.
“We’ve set out a collaborative approach to open an inclusive dialogue with the city’s communities, before design commences. Through the engagement process, we’re setting out to find out what is important and establish together, how the future of Western Harbour can make a positive contribution to the community and the area as a whole.”
Vitiello says that she is “mindful that there are challenges to overcome” – with many local residents concerned about how the plans have taken place so far.
Bristol mayor Marvin Rees attended a community meeting in Hotwells in January 2020, which he had to leave early in order to pick up one of his sons.
He later said that he was on a stage by himself (he was in fact at a table with the Labour Party organisers of the meeting) in front of 400 residents, “really angry” at his proposals to build new homes.
“There’s me on the stage by myself,” said Bristol mayor Marvin Rees talking about the meeting in Holy Trinity church in Hotwells – photo by Martin Booth
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: Rees: ‘A failure to deliver affordable homes is not an option for us’
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