Bristol City Council launches parks consultation

Bristol City Council has launched a city-wide consultation on the future of Bristol’s parks and green spaces.

By April 2019, the council will need to save at least £2.868 million from its budget for day to day parks’ services. This means services will need to run in a very different way, working in partnership with communities to look at income generation opportunities, while also making savings and making services as efficient as possible.

The council is now consulting on a number of proposals for 2018 and 2019 that will help achieve the savings target.

Of the £2.868 million required to be saved from the budget, it is predicted that £490,000 can be saved by making efficiencies and reducing park services. The aim is that the rest can be achieved by generating income.

Ideas up for discussion in the consultation include: increasing income from cafes and concessions; introducing appropriate advertising in parks and green spaces; introducing new, competitive fees and charges for any businesses operating from a park or green space; and introducing new fee-paying activities into parks.

Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor and cabinet member responsible for parks, said: “Our priority is making sure that our parks and green spaces remain available for everyone in Bristol to enjoy and that includes maintaining free access.

“Working with partners across the city, our vision is to provide Bristol with good quality, attractive and enjoyable parks.

“We want to be positive and ambitious for our parks whilst being clear that we have to work differently to maintain a high level of service citywide. There is a real opportunity here to come up with some inventive solutions to protect our parks for the future.

“We will be listening closely to the feedback we receive from the public and community groups and I would encourage everyone to take part in the consultation.”