The communities cleaning up Bristol

Marvin Rees has launched his Bristol Clean Streets initiative. One of his key election pledges was to clean up the streets of the city and he’s now encouraging everyone to ‘do their bit’.

As part of the three year campaign Bristol Waste Company will provide practical support to community groups by loaning equipment such as hi-vis jackets, gloves and litter pickers. The company will provide bags to collect litter free of charge and arrange for them to be collected after litter picks.

Bristol 24/7 meets the grassroots community groups around the city who have already taken responsibility for their own area. 

Tidy BS5

Steve Woods has lived in the Easton area of Bristol for the last 40 years and during that period he noticed the streets were getting dirtier and more untidy.

The introduction of communal bins on Stapleton Road two and a half years ago became a magnet for fly-tipping which quite literally ‘tipped’ Steve over the edge and he set up Tidy BS5, which originated as a Twitter hashtag.

As well as encouraging residents to report litter and fly-tipping, the group also works closely with neighbouring Up Our Street (Easton & Lawrence Hill) to host joint event such as community litter picks.

Steve keeps a close watch on what’s happening in his patch and said that fly tipping in the area has plummeted since the communal bins were removed from Stapleton Road as part of a 12-week pilot project by Bristol Waste Company. 

His advice for other community groups looking to make a difference is to get in touch with Bristol Waste Company, talk to your local councillors and be prepared to get stuck in.

ParkWork

ParkWork is an initiative offering people work experience, horticultural skills and training, while also helping to improve Bristol’s parks and green spaces.

Initiated by the Bristol Parks Forum and supported by Bristol City Council, ParkWork has been running for 18 months, and many graduates moving on to either full time employment or education.

To date, the ParkWork volunteers have undertaken work in a number of diverse sites that has involved clearing pathways of invasive weeds, the installation of benches, tree planting, hedge trimming and bulb planting, as well as stream clearance, river bank refurbishment, notice board installation, pathway and step construction and tidying of flower borders.

ParkWork also coordinates Corporate Social Responsibility volunteering, providing opportunities for businesses and community groups to look after Bristol’s 450 parks and green space.

Muslims for Bristol

Muslims for Bristol is a social action group that encourages the Muslim community to participate in active citizenship by volunteering across the city. As well as helping to clean streets across Bristol, the group promotes social cohesion through fundraising, supporting the homeless and speaking to businesses about what they can do to help. 

The group, which was founded by prominent social action campaigner, Mohammed Elsharif, helps make Bristol’s streets cleaner and tidier, whilst spreading the message that it is everyone’s responsibility to take action. The team works with Bristol Waste Company to identify fly tipping or dumping hotspots that need attention.  

Portland Brown graffiti team

With its headquarters in Stokes Croft Portland Brown have a vested interest in looking after the neighbourhood. Andrew Brown owns the housing and relocation company, and over the past five years his team have been working to combat the area’s tagging problem by commissioning large pieces of street art from local artists and painting over any tagging as soon as it is appears on their offices and neighbouring buildings. 

He believes that by painting over the graffiti quickly, it has had the positive effect of deterring people from ‘tagging’ walls and buildings and the team hopes that levels of graffiti will continue to decline over the next few years. 

Greater Bedminster Community Partnership

The group work tirelessly to make the streets of Bedminster and Southville cleaner, tidier and greener.

The partnership, made up of local councillors, voluntary and community groups, private businesses and public agencies and chaired chaired by Stef Brammar, runs a number of different projects to improve the look and feel of the local area for residents and visitors, help those with disabilities or mobility problems to get around, encourage greater participation amongst communities and influence local policy.

Some of the partnership’s priorities include improving green infrastructure, smartening up key walking and cycling routes and making them more accessible for those less mobile, buggy pushers etc, and improving the economic health of the two wards’ retail streets and neighbourhoods.

Read more: This man has a plan to clean up the streets of Bristol