Kay Barnard

Bristol – A leader for the West Country

Bristol is undoubtedly a great city with a vibrant and positive atmosphere.  It’s not for nothing that Bristol was one of the biggest cities in England in Saxon times.

From those times it has grown as a major international trading port with an outgoing perspective.  It is now a city of about 430,000 people within the city’s current boundaries and a population of 620,000 in the wider urban area.

Bristol is the media centre of the West Country area with big hitters in the media, the BBC and film production based in the city.  It’s known internationally for its superb animation and wild life programmes.  There are two major Universities, a host of manufacturers of all sizes from caravans and hot air balloons to suppliers for the big aviation manufacturers on the city’s edge.  (Last year I sat on the coastal path at Portishead and watched a large ship marked “Airbus” carrying aircraft wings down the Severn Estuary).

There is a substantial financial sector, matched by a genuine and imaginative concern for the environment. The city is a major player in organic food distribution and has the only commercial fresh fruit and vegetable market in the whole area.  It boasts a huge number of parks and lots of leisure activities, from concerts and talks to paddle-boarding at the Underfall Yard.

Bristol has a somewhat mixed history of trading - it was once the centre of a huge trade in human beings as slaves.  Bristolians are not proud of that part of the city’s history, as can be seen by the exhibition about slavery at the city museum, the M Shed.

But Bristol has its internal domestic problems.  Anyone who lives in the city knows how difficult it is to get around by public transport, how expensive housing is in the city and how the waste collection systems have weaknesses.  Those problems have knock-on effects.  Some people are put off moving here for those very reasons;  moving around the city for everyone - working people, visitors, trades-people and customers - is extremely difficult and expensive. As for housing, the incidence of tuberculosis is worryingly high in the city and, of course, that disease is linked to poor, often cramped housing.

The wealthy West of the city often seems like a different world from the rest. The South and East of Bristol seem overlooked in plans to improve the city for the people who live here.  I think we can do better.  I write this as someone born, raised and schooled in the city and living here, with a real affection for one of the greatest cities in the World.

Please see below for some of my favourite places in Bristol.  You will probably realise that they are all in open spaces, something Bristol has in abundance!   Please send me a message about any that I have missed or that are your special favourite.

Cabot Tower on Brandon Hill, Perretts Park, the M Shed, Snuff Mills, the Mirror Maze at Bristol University.