Green Spaces Project of
the Month
September
2002 - St Agnes Park, Bristol
Contact: Peter Wilkinson,
Head of Parks Department, Bristol City
Council 0117 922 2000
Background
At the turn of
the millennium, St Agnes Park was a
virtual no-go area frequented mainly by
local drug dealers. The Victorian lodge
house was derelict, the playground
abandoned, with overgrown shrubs and dead
trees making the park seem like a dark
and dangerous place. Today, it is a
clean, bright, welcoming community green
space at the heart of Bristol's
multi-cultural St Paul's neighbourhood. A
major factor in its revival is having a
park warden living on the ground and a
building, which brings the community into
the park. The restored lodge is now home
to Park Keeper Constantine Blake, a well
know local figure who has received an
award from the Institute of Leisure and
Amenity Management for his role in
transforming the park. The building's new
annex also houses a management committee
drawn from local communities, together
with offices and meeting space fro
various community groups. So what else
happened to bring about this dramatic
change for the better?
“It's
about the community coming together to
make this a community park,”
Constantine says.
Making it happen
First an organisation called Involving
Residents in Solutions (IRIS) funded by
the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB)
conducted consultations with local
communities. They found out that people
wanted to use the lodge for a resident
park keeper and as a community resource;
and they wanted to clean up the park,
improving lighting and pruning trees and
shrubs.
The next step was for IRIS to help St
Agnes Park Association to apply for
funding to achieve their goals.
Refurbishment of the building was paid
for by £165,000 from the Regional
Development Agency (RDA) and the SRB's
Inner City Lifeline scheme. Salaries for
Constantine and his colleague Kathy Jacks
a community development worker, were paid
from European funding.
The council's park maintenance
contractor got together with the
probation service to tackle the clean-up,
then donations from the council, the Home
Office Police fund and residents' own
fundraising provided thousands of bedding
plants and bulbs to brighten up St Agnes
Park.
A survey by Bristol parks department
showed that, as well as appreciating
improvements to the infrastructure and
maintenance of the park, a majority of
residents felt that improved security was
an important achievement. Armed with this
evidence, they were able to make a case
for Neighbourhood Renewal funding to pay
for additional lighting. Children are now
able to use walkways through the park as
a safe route to and from the nearby
school. Peter Wilkinson, head of the
parks department says, “A safer
park makes people feel more confident and
better about themselves.”
We asked Constantine what sort of
activities local people enjoy in the park
and he listed,
“family picnics, a fun day at
which they have puppet shows, workshops -
children orientated, teach them how to DJ
and everything - they have a four day
event just before Jamaican Independence
Day with circus leader workshops, drama
...”
In 2002 St Agnes Park received a
mention from the Civic Trust in
recognition of the architectural
restoration of the lodge. By March 2002
IRIS withdrew from the project. St Agnes
Park Association is growing, becoming
increasingly representative of the
communities it serves, and has plans to
become a charitable company which would
manage the lodge and may manage the park
in future. Constantine still lives in the
lodge house and is currently employed by
Bristol City Council on secondment to
Bristol Contract Services who maintain
the city's many parks and green spaces.
In order to address wider community
concerns, and in the context of the
Neighbourhood Renewal Initiative,
Constantine now works half his week at St
Agnes and the remainder of his time is
divided between nearby St Paul's Park,
Grosvenor Road open space and Mina Road
Park. When he sees that some maintenance
work is needed, he brings his tools and
attends to it.
Future Plans
The St Agnes Park Association want to
improve the kitchen in the lodge house
annex and get it working as more of a
café, to bring in some funds. The Parks
Department are thinking of ways
Constantine can safely transport tools on
his weekly rounds. One idea is to use
sustainable transport such as a milk
float or a little three wheeled buggy -
like a motorised rickshaw.
There are plans to develop the park
further over the next couple of years,
with new paths, a play area and better
shrub borders. A memorial garden to Bangy
Berry, the community worker who was shot
dead in St Pauls in the 1990s, has
occupied a small corner of the park, but
the hope is to position a more prominent
feature - perhaps a sculpture placed in a
circular flower bed - to create a focal
point in the park. A design for improved
railings and entrances would enhance the
feeling of St Agnes Park as a `secret
garden' - a surprise green space in the
midst of the urban chaos.
Further Information
For Alison Benjamin's Guardian article
`Bright Spark' go to
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0.7843.553847.00.html
Institute of Leisure and Amenities
Management
http://ww.ilam.co.uk
Database of historic parks
http://www1.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/landscapes/ukpg.database
Background to community safety in St
Paul's area and survey results
http://www.crimebristol.org.uk/audit/appendix3.html
http://www.crimebristol.org.uk/index.html?audit/action-groups/ashley.html~main
Bristol City Council website gives
lots of information about how to get
involved in parks:
To complete a survey on park
maintenance in Bristol go to
http://www.bristol-city.gov.uk/cgi-bin/w3index-frames.p1?BLO0017+BG
For a picture of residents
volunteering to maintain St Agnes Park
see
http://www.bristol-city.gov.uk/cgi-bin/w3menu?C+BLO00108+BG+F+CMM00102+DPE00104
For more details about Civic Trust
awards visit
http://www.civictrust.org.uk/top.shtml
click
here to download a copy of this page
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