Councillor Mike Davies

St Pauls Planning Group For the time I remain a councillor (until 6 May 2021) I am facilitating a St Pauls planning group over Zoom. The group will review live planning applications and, if appropriate, submit comments on the planning portal or statements to Development Control Committee meetings. Get in touch (cllr.mike.davies@ bristol.gov.uk) if you are interested in getting involved in the group. The next meeting of the group is at 6.00pm on Monday 4 January. Transport Schemes in our area Bristol City Council are progressing with plans to accelerate existing long-term transport ambitions to improve infrastructure around walking, cycling and public transport, including in Ashley ward. There have already been cycle lanes introduced in parts of Mina Road (north of the James Street roundabout) and Stokes Croft. The next stage will involve consultation around possible measures in Picton Street and Mina Road (south of the roundabout). For Picton Street there is an opportunity for a radical option such as full pedestrianisation. Mina Road is more difficult because it is very well-used and is needed to access so many roads, but one measure that could be implemented is closing the exit onto it from the M32. If you have any thoughts about these issues please email transport.engagement@bristol.gov.uk. If you have any other suggestions for transport changes, please use the Council’s transport request form: bit.ly/3hcjjSj (they are accepting submissions until 31 December).

Council budget consultation The Council wants to know what you think about proposed changes to council tax as part of its annual budget setting for the next financial year. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the Council’s finances and seen many more people needing its support with council tax, business rates, business grants, providing food packages to people in need, food vouchers to children, as well as emergency accommodation and homelessness. The Council says it will aim to avoid cutting any essential services. However, council tax may need to increase by a small amount to make sure these services can continue to run. Visit bit.ly/3pHhane to complete the consultation before the closing date of 28 December. Information can be provided in an alternative format, including paper copy, by emailing consultation@bristol.gov.uk or by calling 0117 9222848. Council meetings The Council are still conducting official meetings via videoconferencing, and you can watch these live on their official Youtube channel (bit.ly/35HSFOQ). To find out when meetings are happening visit bristol.gov.uk/council-meetings. Members of the public can still submit questions and statements to meetings by emailing Democratic Services (democratic.services@bristol.gov.uk). Council CONTACTS

Your local councillors are available to support residents with queries relating to Bristol City Council services such as planning, adult care children and schools, waste and other community issues. Here’s how you can contact them.

Cllr Jude English (Green Party) Email: cllr.jude. english@bristol.gov.uk Call: 07584 151 099 Correspondence address: Green Party Office City Hall PO Box 3399 Bristol BS3 9FS

Cllr Mike Davies (Labour Party) Email: cllr.mike.davies@ bristol.gov.uk Call: 07584 370 413 Correspondence address: Labour Group Office City Hall PO Box 3399 Bristol BS3 9FS Cllr Carole Johnson (Labour Party) Email: cllr.carole. johnson@bristol.gov.uk Call: 07584 370 414 Correspondence address: c/o Labour Group Office City Hall PO Box 3399 Bristol BS3 9FS If you have queries about welfare benefits or immigration issues, you can contact your MP Thangam Debbonaire’s team: thangam.debbonaire. mp@parliament.uk; 01173 790 980.

Creativity and Adversity

Were out walking one day The wind in flight through the streets and trees. Fear swirling on the pavements Driving people apart.

They sat a while In a shaft of light Creativity had spotted.

Adversity started right away, His litany of restrictions.

Creativity sat back, nodded

and turned her mind to the treetops,

the grey clouds rushing across the sky. After a while Adversity

declared, emphatically.

“Well that's just the way it is! “ Creativity listened to the silence that followed

and thought, “I wonder what happens to the wind.

When it's done”.

Deasy Bamford

Delivery We’ve changed the way we deliver Rather than a door to door service we will have magazines located at key drop off points across Ashley Ward for you to collect. Drop off points include:

St AgnesBaba Ganoush Adventure Playground Local shops MontpelierHealth Centre Local Shops St PaulsGlen’s -Learning Centre Docklands/Malcolm X Local shops St WerburghsSt Werburghs Community Centre Better Food Local shops

LocaL news

agents, take-aways cences in your area may be hoLding copies. and off-Li-

If you would like to be included as a drop of point please email us at: info@vocalisemagazine.org We also appreciate that some of you may be less able to go out and collect a magazine for yourself. Perhaps ask a neighbour or friend to collect an issue for you.

Window Wanderland

“ There will be a Window Wanderland (www.windowwanderland.com) taking place in St Pauls on the 26th & 27th March. More information will be available soon but if have any questions or you would like to offer sponsorship or get involved please contact stpaulswindowwanderland@gmail.com

Before writing this piece I read through my submission from March of this year. I talked about coming out of the winter months, looking forward to longer days and better weather, and all of the engagement activity the neighbourhood policing team hoped to achieve with members of the community throughout the rest of the year. How little we knew then about what was to come. As we turn the corner into 2021, with the promise of a vaccination programme and a way out of this nightmarish situation, we also need to acknowledge that the challenges of overcoming COVID-19 will remain with us for many months still. Normality, as we knew it when I wrote my March piece in blissful ignorance, is not something that is going to come back to us quickly. This is true for all of us. Within the police service we have had to change so many ways of working, getting used to new restrictions and regulations, and the requirements placed upon us to assist with this public health emergency. Like everyone else, we cannot wait to return to a time where the burdens of living through a pandemic no longer operate upon us, but until then, we will continue to play our part in the fight to stop the spread of this disease, working alongside you to make the necessary adaptations in your own lives. Even though we have been asked to ‘police’ aspects of everyday life that none of us ever imagined doing – restricting gatherings, closing bars and restaurants, promoting mask-wearing – we have tried to do this in the Ashley Ward with the same sensitivity and understanding that characterised our starting position on community policing before anyone had ever heard about this strain of coronavirus. I hope that members of the communities across our ward have been able to see and feel this, and much of the feedback that I have received in recent weeks suggests you have. However, we are always open to your views on what we could change or do better, so please get in contact with me if you have something to raise or share, positive or negative. At the moment we do not know what tier of government restrictions Bristol will find itself in after the holiday period. We do not know how the Christmas period relaxation of restrictions will have impacted on case numbers across the city. We do not know whether further, tighter restrictions will be bought back into place. But we do know that whatever state of affairs we find ourselves in, we can only get through it by working together, and we will continue to be a key part of that. When this crisis has begun to retreat and the world as we knew it is returning, I want us to continue to work on reducing the social distance between the police and local communities, even if we’re still asked to stand two metres apart.

M 32 Maple Trees

You may have heard of the campaign surrounding the maple tree. We have covered the story online and photos from the most recent meeting.

www.vocalisemagazine.org

Bristol’s young people work alongside police in battle against knife crime

Avon and Somerset Police have been collaborating with young people on the complex issue of knife crime, in a way that puts them at the heart of helping the police to understand and tackle the problem. Over the past year, the police have been working with young people from four schools across the Avon and Somerset area, in order to better understand why they might carry knives, what support they want from the police, and the issues they face in their daily lives which can lead to them becoming involved in knife crime and violence. The police have supported them to turn those ideas into short, animated films, working alongside student animators at UWE Bristol in this creative process.

The films form part of a wider campaign in east and south Bristol, Weston-super-Mare and Taunton, which sees the students’ work reflected on buses, billboards and bus shelters, as well as the key messages from each film discussed on local radio and in the local media. Importantly, the films and messages are also being shared widely on social media, with a prize on offer for the school whose film gets the most views on YouTube. In Bristol, the project has involved pupils from Bristol Futures Academy in Barton Hill and Merchants Academy in Withywood. The Merchants Academy film, created by a student who is now in year 8, is called Life b4 Likes. It tells the story of a girl who films a fight on her phone, live streaming it and racking up likes until a knife is pulled out and one of the girls who is fighting is stabbed. Viewers are left thinking that had the person filming sought help rather than filming the fight, the outcome could have been different.

The Bristol Futures film, created by a student who is now in year 11, is called The Cycle. It explores the tit for tat, retaliatory nature of knife crime and calls for agencies in Bristol to work together to break the cycle of violence. Sergeant Richard O’Brien, who works with the Violence Reduction Unit in Bristol said: “After months of hard work by the students, and the frustration of having to put the project on hold due to the pandemic, it’s brilliant to see this campaign come together.

“The key element of this project is that it has young people’s opinions at the heart of it. We know that police telling young people not to carry knives is not the solution, and police enforcement alone will never be enough to resolve this complex issue.

“By listening to young people’s voices and engaging them in a creative process to produce campaigns which mean something to them and their peers, we hope that they can feel empowered and less fearful.” The students have also been working with a local film maker to produce a documentary which explores the themes raised in the project and which looks at the work being undertaken by various agencies to tackle serious violence. During the creative process, the young people spent time in workshops with their peers, facilitated by IDEAL Sustainable Development CIC, discussing the issues, before coming up with a film concept that they pitched to a panel who chose one idea to take forward.

The winning teams then spent time developing their ideas with the team from IDEAL and student animators from UWE Bristol, who then brought the ideas to life on screen. Legendary animation studio Aardman Productions also gave their support to the project, inviting the young people to attend a special day at their Bristol site, where they learned more about how to create a successful animation. The team at Aardman also provided professional guidance and support to the young people as their films developed. Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and Somerset Sue Mountstevens said: “Young people should be free to experience and enjoy life without the fear of challenging confrontations or upsetting situations as a result of knife crime. I have been saddened to hear that some young people do not feel safe in their communities due to a fear of serious violence. I hope that by working closely with young people on this innovative project we can empower them to become part of the solution.

“It is really promising to see such inspiring films produced and I really hope they have a long-lasting, positive impact on our communities.”