This week we welcome Paul Smith back to Unpacked . Last time we had him on the show, in 2020, he was in the local news every week as the councillor in charge of Bristol’s housing. For most of the last six years he’s been out of the public spotlight, but in the last few weeks has been selected to help locals decide how to spend millions of pounds of government money in the place he grew up – Hartcliffe.
While he’s not lived there for more than 25 years, it’s a place he remains passionate about – enough to have written a book, Hartcliffe Betrayed, about how the neighbourhood has been failed by people in power, ever since it was planned after the Second World War.
Paul, himself a former local Labour councillor for Hartcliffe, and more recently the CEO of a housing association, now finds himself trying to ensure Hartcliffe doesn’t get betrayed again.
The programme he’ll be leading, Pride in Place, will see £20m invested in the area over 10 years. It sounds a big amount but, as Paul readily admits, could easily spent without making any tangible changes for locals and their children.
So why is Paul the right man for the job? How will he ensure that local people get a proper say in how that money is put to work? And what would success look like?
Sit down and find out, in a hard-hitting and sometimes humorous edition of Bristol Unpacked…
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