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Bristol Parks Forum
Bristol Street Tree Forum
Bristol Parks Forum has always had an interest in street trees and will be taking an active role in the new Bristol Street Tree Forum.
A detailed report on the first meeting and some relevant background information has been posted on the Bristol City Council website. Hugh's notes on the first meeting are also shown further down the page.
BCC Bristol Street Tree Forum Page
Bristol Parks Forum 19th April 2008
Richard Ennion of Bristol Parks was asked respond to the BPF on an article that appeared in the Bristol Evening Post. The text of the response and the original article can be seen via the links below.
Bristol Street Trees - Response from Bristol Parks 18 Apr 2008
Bristol Evening Post Article 16 April 2008
Street Tree Forum 5th March 2008
Preliminary Brief Report
A two and a half hour meeting attended by about 20 people, half of whom were council officers. A brief and cheerful intro by Richard Mond (Head of Parks), in which he accepted there were problems, and that changes needed to be made, set the tone for a surprisingly good natured and constructive discussion.
Essentially this fell into two parts, the larger of which took the form of everyone being asked to identify two reasons why street trees weren't being planted/maintained to public satisfaction; these were written on post-its, stuck on display boards, and grouped according to general themes, with questions from the (excellent) facilitator as to why the participants had made their particular points. Not surprisingly ,this left very little time for a similar exercise in trying to suggest solutions.
The latter part was a general discussion as to how future Forums should be organised and run. After much chat it was agreed that, as the Parks Forum works well with its mix of organisation and informality, this would be a good model. The suggestion that numbers be limited was dismissed as unworkable and likely to lead to accusations of council control-freakery. The vast majority of participants agreed they would be likely to attend some or all future meetings.
Dates have been set for a summary of the meeting to be distributed to participants and thereafter posted on BCC and BPF websites. The date of the next meeting will be arranged at the same time.
Hugh Holden. Parks Forum and Bristol Civic Society rep.
