‘The good, the bad and the ugly from Marvin Rees’ State of the City address 2018′

Let’s start by acknowledging that the climate crisis is real and #WeDontHaveTime. Therefore, every action during Marvin Rees’ administration should be taking strides towards reducing the cities carbon footprint.

Here are my thoughts from Marvin’s State of the City address to Bristol.

The good:

– A single flat rate unified bus fare across the city is a powerful move forward from Marvin to create an inclusive and socially mobile city for all. And I highly applaud this action.

– Bristol Housing Festival takes strides forward towards looking at varying models to deliver our housing shortage. It must be noted that the options must be with local providers and small-scale developers (within the construction industry large scale developers and contractors aim for maximum return on their investment and skew results when providing ‘affordable housing’). Radical new delivery approaches must be adopted with modular pods and self-build options being key to the mix of offerings.

– Protecting children’s centres

The bad:

– Tower blocks should be no higher than five to seven storeys with a few exceptional cases where they could go taller (but this should not be the governing rule as laid out in SPD consultancy planning document where 72 per cent of Bristolian have already said no to 10-plus storey tower blocks). The reason being that this provides poor spaces at ground human interaction level and the associated land will be privatised and the apartments built will be over-priced. There will be the offer of mixed-use tenure at ground level but this will push rental market value up and prevent small scale innovation in start-up business. Again, a radical new delivery approach should be adopted at this scale and not further privatisation of the city.

– Prioritising cars and stepping back from the residence parking scheme is utterly detrimental to reducing pollution levels, to creating safer environments for our children to play and adds to carbon emissions. We should in fact be considering moving down to 15mph speed limits. Painful as it sounds the less cars that are on the road the more likely it will be that Bristolians move to peddle power and public transport which is both good for one’s health and the environment.

– Creating the largest secondary school in the city is not going to offer a healthy environment for learning however creative the architecture is. Smaller and more varied schooling options across the city and near to homes will be less disruptive to roads and transport and create more effective and skilled young people.

– Locating the arena on Temple island and describing it as a security risk next to the Temple Meads station is absurd. However, I do agree with Marvin that the finance strategy is over stretching the public purse and I personally think the scale, style and procurement process needs to be overhauled. But not to have some sort of cultural offering for the city on that site would be an unbelievable missed opportunity and must happen.

– On entering the city via train Marvin’s current 3D visualisation, the high-rise tower-blocks (undoubtedly over-priced) would be in such bad taste and so far removed from the fun, creativity and spirit of Bristol. A cultural hub on Temple Island delivered through small-scale, creative, local contractors and suppliers to create a mecca for circus, performance and visual arts would be a more suitable offer. We do not need a shiny big standard arena when we have all the skills in the city to deliver something more inspired and put that money back locally into Bristol.

– Not acknowledging the need for local small-scale diverse food production. As Helena Norberg Hodge said: “If you want to create a more sustainable society, a good place to start is by helping to rebuild your local food economy: food is something everyone, everywhere, needs every day, which means that even relatively small changes in the way it is produced and marketed can have immense effects. And since eating is a natural part of daily life, we all have frequent opportunities to make a difference.”

– Not acknowledging the role of culture and arts in the city, green spaces for recreation and planting trees for carbon absorption.

The vision for Arena Island from Legal & General

The ugly:

– It was incredibly poor form on Marvin’s part to begin his speech by condemning the previous administration especially as much of what he said was factually untrue. He should have acknowledged that the previous mayor George Ferguson had secured some of the sites for housing and provided the foundations to deliver some aspects of what Marvin is working on now.

– High level foreign investment might give short term gains but who will we be in debt to and how much of our assets will be privatised to get there. These are conditions which can not be undone. Should we encourage short-term gain or slow growth which sustains future generations?

– Gentrification was mentioned. Marvin must push to cap rents across the city. People are being pushed out of not only buying a home but also renting now. The city should be an enabler to support and deliver community owned assets from affordable work spaces to manufacturing (for example Hamilton House on Stokes Croft and the Exchange in Old Market). If we as a city do not invest money into these centres, the vibrancy of the city will be lost. The nighttime economy should be preserved and supported, not to be petitioned and shut down.

To finish, Marvin continuously mentioned the global issue with migration and climate change but did not reflect on why this pattern is occurring or what we as a city should do.

As a city we should be taking economic power away from unaccountable large contractors, banks, investors and big businesses, handing the power back to communities at a local level at all stages of our delivery process. The reason being that allowing our council taxes to be put into big business widens the gap between rich and poor, which directly impacts our health and well-being, spreads job insecurity and prevents us being resilient to economic instability.

And on a global scale supporting these corporations exponentially expands the number of economic and political refugees and increases the climate chaos because of what these organisations are doing to these places and/ or the scale at which production is occurring on mass.

The key is a new strategy for delivery limiting the import of goods that could be produced locally (from food to products and services). A more locally focused approach which protects jobs and local resources from the disruptive impact of international finance and big business. Ultimately this renews our connections, creates stronger communities and protects our ecology through scaling down and diversifying.

So, the message from me is to innovate with procurement processes. Go local, small-scale and bring back the fun!

Shankari Raj

Shankari Raj is an architect at Nudge Group

Read more: 14 things that we learned from Marvin’s State of the City address 2018