“The first week, it took me 17 minutes for someone to let me out of my road. There was a queue of nine cars trying to get onto Church Road.”

St George resident Kay Jones is one of 30 or so locals at a meeting at Cafe Conscious, in Barton Hill – part of a campaign to stop the East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood, a trial scheme restricting through-traffic. 

“My family feels further away,” says Kay, who juggles multiple jobs along with looking after kids, and has to commute as far as Filton and North Somerset. “[It’s] worrying when you’re someone’s primary carer.” 

The liveable neighbourhood scheme, which is gradually being installed up until early January, is meant to stop cars rat-running through Barton Hill, Redfield and St George, encourage people to walk, cycle and take public transport, cut air pollution and make streets safer. But as proposals for similar schemes across the city take shape, two years of planning and much-criticised consultation on this side of Bristol have exposed divisions among locals.

When the first measures were introduced in November, some residents physically blocked council workers from installing planters on the street. In recent weeks, thousands have signed a petition calling for the scheme to be scrapped.

The council insists there will be ‘co-design’ in the next few months as part of the trial, so residents can share concerns. But as opposition intensifies, what would it take for the council to call the whole thing off? And what does the evidence show from similar schemes elsewhere in the country? 

The story so far

Since 2022, Bristol City Council has consulted via online surveys, an interactive map and in-person events. Early engagement highlighted concerns over air quality, excessive traffic, and the area feeling unsafe for walking and cycling. Many people wanted safe crossings and junctions, better cycle lanes, more street trees and ‘modal filters’ to block through-traffic. 

But when plans were published in 2023 to restrict traffic on certain roads, there was a backlash, and accusations people hadn’t been consulted enough or had been misled. So the council ran extra sessions in autumn 2023 and made some changes, introducing bus gate exemptions for taxi drivers, carers and parents with SEND kids. 

Even so, in early 2024 more than half (54%) of respondents to the statutory consultation said they were against the scheme, with just 30% in favour. 

The first measures, in early November, notably stopped cars driving down a well-known narrow rat-run, Beaufort Road in St George, which many have complained about as dangerous. 

Stuck in traffic

While these changes have been welcomed by some, there have been reports of long traffic jams nearby, particularly for people commuting into town from eastern suburbs. Every day there are photos of drivers stuck in traffic posted on the STOP The EBLN Facebook group, and reports of buses on Church Road, the main A420, being delayed. Kay says her journey has taken 40 minutes extra. 

Ian Malley, another local who works fitting woodburners and sweeping chimneys, says he has had to put his prices up since longer journeys make fewer jobs possible each day.

“It’s become tragic for me and my wife, she’s a SENCO [Special Educational Needs Coordinator] worker in Brislington. What used to be a 15-minute journey is 45. It’s a nightmare getting out onto Church Road and the same coming back, waiting in big queues at Blackswarth Road junction.”

Blackswarth Road which runs through the centre of the zone is home to St Patrick’s primary school, the last place you would want to see an increase in pollution. 

“You need to be able to get onto Church Road in a different way to relieve that bottleneck,” says Ian, who used to drive down Beaufort Road. “It’s not a rat-run, it relieves other routes in and out of [town].”

Another business owner who has spoken up about the impact of traffic jams on Church Road is Marc Loud, who has an office there with 30 employees struggling to get to work on time.

“St George has been coming alive in the last few years, but I feel this could be the end,” he says. “Close friends, who are scaffolders and plasterers, will be able to do fewer jobs a day. The local chip shop are concerned about their future, too.” 

Even after 43 years in the area, he’s considering moving. About 15 businesses have signed a statement opposing the scheme, according to the campaign group – but this is just one of the strategies they are planning. 

Campaign getting in gear

At the meeting in Cafe Conscious, residents discussed how to oppose the liveable neighbourhood, including stopping council workers installing infrastructure, systematically gathering evidence of negative impacts, and getting experts to make video explainers.

Locals raised issues like the impact on disabled people, the financial impact of small delays on those working multiple jobs or short shifts, and people worrying about not being able to quickly reach older family members. 

As well as anger towards the council, people felt there were class divisions, with some seeing the scheme as benefiting middle-class residents around Beaufort Road, who may have more flexibility in their lives, but not people elsewhere in Redfield and Barton Hill. 

Melissa Topping, one campaigner, tells me: “We want the scheme halted for reassessment… We’d like the council to admit they’ve got things wrong and have meetings with people about what we want.”

The petition calling for the scheme to be halted has almost 5,000 signatures. Campaigners have submitted it to the council, but at the time only 3,250 signatures had Bristol postcodes – short of the level where a debate at a full council meeting is triggered. 

Campaigners have nonetheless submitted questions to the next meeting on 10 December and are considering a protest outside City Hall. They are also hoping to meet the chair of the transport committee, Green councillor Ed Plowden.

Melissa says complaints shared on the Facebook group, so far totalling nearly 200, are now being collected automatically. 

“I don’t feel very confident with this council, we’ve lost trust. At the end of the day they are going to do what they want, which would be a great shame. I hope it doesn’t come to a legal case. 

“Although I’m not confident about change, hope has to stay there, because I can’t lose my independence. We won’t stop fighting, at the end of the day it’s our lives, we’re not going to go away.”

Samira Musse, who runs Barton Hill Activity Club, is another resident involved in the campaign. Speaking to the Cable’s Bristol Unpacked podcast, she says the scheme has discrimination and inequality written all over it, and that it’s further dividing people. 

“They haven’t consulted the community properly,” she says, adding that the consultation focused on improvements to the area. “They never told us it would be road closures.”

She talks about the impact on disabled neighbours, a friend who lost an appointment with a midwife after being stuck in traffic – and the lack of local services. “Barton Hill is a deprived area, everyone is running on this treadmill, people have two or three jobs, they just have so much to deal with, overcrowding, bad services, bad green spaces.

“There is someone who is literally taking anti-depressants because of the road closures… That’s the impact of not listening to the people who live in the place, just imposing things and saying they know what’s best for us.”

Samira says the council needs to start again, do genuine co-production with local people and an equalities impact assessment. She adds that she recognises the liveable neighbourhood will benefit people living in some parts of the area, but believes too little work has been done to consider the needs of those whose lives it will make harder.

‘We need to give it time’

As Samira acknowledges, despite visible opposition rising recently, lots of people support the scheme. 

I’ve spoken to many over the years who are sick of cars driving down their narrow roads, dealing with pollution and feeling nervous walking or cycling. Now, some are enjoying the changes so far, including residents who don’t want to be quoted due to the heated online debate.

“The immediate experience is one of reduced anxiety going down Beaufort Road pretty much every day taking the kids to school and cycling into work,” says Pietro Herrera, who lives in St George. “People I know are generally supportive, but yes there are people who have questions and concerns.

“I can completely understand people who have lived here all their lives to see such drastic changes, how anxious they must be. It would be really nice to bridge those gaps.

Pietro says the focus on cyclists being prioritised misunderstands the scheme. “It’s about finding new habits, and routes and ways of getting where we need to go, so people who genuinely need the roads can have them.”

He says people with different opinions on the scheme need to talk more face to face to avoid falling into an us vs them mindset via social media. Another resident shows me a screenshot of somebody posting his address on Facebook and encouraging others to egg his house.

Pietro says patience is needed: “We need to monitor it, be fair and give the trial time. Hopefully they can make adjustments to make it work for everybody.”

Will the traffic jams settle down?

With the trial scheme not fully in place yet, the council says it’s too early to judge. Over the next few months, it will be collecting data on air pollution and traffic flows, as well as holding workshops where residents can feed back. 

But what does the evidence from elsewhere show what’s likely to happen in the coming months?

The Department for Transport published a review of all evidence around low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) earlier this year. One study across 46 LTNS in London found that overall, traffic inside scheme areas fell by nearly half on average. On boundary roads, there was less traffic on some and more on others, leading to the total number seeing little change. It’s also worth noting that London’s public transport alternatives are in a different league to Bristol’s.

On air pollution, evidence from London shows LTNs have successfully reduced nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels on both internal and boundary roads, but one study in Oxford found that despite falling pollution inside the LTN, there was little or no change on some boundary roads – and even an increase.

The review of published studies found no evidence of emergency service vehicles being delayed by LTNs, which is a common concern. Evidence also indicates LTNs have sometimes increased walking and cycling, but not in all schemes.

Rob Bryher, a transport campaigner and Green councillor for St George West who sits on the transport committee, says early data shows big reductions in traffic within the liveable neighbourhood area, with rises on Church Road and Blackswarth Road. 

“These schemes do lead to traffic disruption in the early stages, but we won’t really know until it’s fully implemented [in early 2025],” he says.

“I feel for people who are worried, but saying ‘let’s just stop it’ is not the best path because it means we’ve put a lot of money into it and not given it a chance.”

There are no specific timescales for the trial period, but Bryher says there could be data on pollution and traffic published by March, with the feedback and co-design process happening in the first half of the year. There are plans, he adds, to use money from the scheme to re-engineer the Blackswarth Road junction, which has long caused frustration. 

“If you want traffic to go down, you have to disencourage people from using cars, you can’t just increase the number of buses,” he says, adding that he is unsure when the promised increased frequency for the number 5 bus, which runs from the centre, through Barton Hill to St Annes, will come in. 

“I appreciate people feel it’s an imposition and inconvenient. I just want them to know we’re hopeful we’ll get to a point where the scheme works with fast-flowing traffic. We’ve seen it in other areas where people were initially very opposed and in the end it didn’t make a big difference.

“If it is genuinely affecting people’s ability to get to places, that needs to be attended to. We need to get more people out of cars so the people who need to use them can still. 

“Those opposed need to come up with alternatives,” he adds. “We’re not likely to throw the whole thing out.”

Bryher reaffirmed the Greens’ desire to expand liveable neighbourhoods across the city. The next one, across Bedminster, Southville and Windmill Hill is in the early stages of consultation.

LTNs have been scrapped in other cities following vocal campaigns, including in Exeter, Newcastle, Manchester and a handful of London boroughs. But elsewhere they have been popular, cutting traffic – and in one case in London residents are even taking the mayor to court for scrapping local LTNs. 

In east Bristol, there’s a growing group of angry people and an emerging campaign to have the scheme paused, while the council is calling for patience and promising chances to tweak it. But will the £6m-scheme survive this early bump in the road before it’s got into second gear?

For more on this topic, answer our survey on the EBLN, read our article about a similar scheme being planned in south Bristol and listen to the latest episode of Bristol Unpacked with Samira Musse, a community activist in Barton Hill, who is against the scheme.