#Bristol's South Liveable Neighbourhood: Because Air That Obeys Signs Wasn't Stupid Enough.
The Council That Thought It Could Make Air Respect Boundaries Now Thinks It Can Make Traffic Disappear too!
Bristol City Council - postcode BS, policy BS - has outdone itself. Not content with creating a Clean Air Zone where air magically respects boundary lines and stops polluting at arbitrary geographic coordinates, they’ve decided to repeat the trick with traffic.
Yesterday it was ‘air that reads signs’. Today, it’s cars that vanish into thin air. Tomorrow? Probably clouds that need passports.
The South Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood consultation runs until 30 October. That’s your last fortnight to tell the council what you think, or find 99 different ways to use the term ‘fuck off, you numpties,’ before they stop pretending your opinion matters and install bollards at 3 am with police escorts.
A Brief Recap: When Bristol Made Air Pay Rent.
For those who missed yesterday’s dissection of Bristol’s £9-per-day air subscription service, here’s what you need to know:
Bristol’s Clean Air Zone convinced air - previously thought to be a fluid governed by physics - to respect boundaries. Drive into the zone in your diesel? £9. Drive out? Free. The air inside is clean. The air outside is dirty. They’re six feet apart. The air knows the difference. Doesn’t mix. Stays put. Like good air should.
Two years later: 1.1% pollution reduction. £26 million raised. 570,000 fines issued. 250 fines written off daily because they can’t trace the drivers. 83% of appeals won by motorists because every single penalty notice contained references to non-existent legislation.
But don’t worry. The council assured us it wasn’t about revenue. It was about behaviour change. Making you buy a new car. A clean car. A £40,000 electric car. Can’t afford £40,000? Pay £9 daily forever. Eventually, you’ll have paid £43,800. Then you can afford the electric car. Economics.
That was yesterday’s stupidity. Today’s stupidity makes it look positively competent by comparison.
East Bristol: The Trial Run Nobody Wanted a Sequel To.
The East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood was so wildly popular that contractors had to install bus gates at 3 am in Barton Hill, flanked by police officers, before residents woke up and objected.
Nothing says “we’re confident in our democratic mandate” quite like sneaking around in the dead of night with armed protection to implement your policies. It’s the traffic management equivalent of a midnight flit. Or a burglary. Except the burglars are stealing your ability to drive down your own street, and they’ve got a council badge.
Council leader Tony Dyer now promises there “hopefully won’t” be another 3 am police operation. Hopefully. That’s the level of certainty we’re working with. “Hopefully, we won’t need to treat residents like potential terrorists for objecting to our genius traffic plan.”
The “Lessons Learned” Comedy Hour.
Green councillor L. Pondweed. Sorry, I meant chair of the transport policy committee has identified what went wrong with East Bristol. Like, his plan, for a start. Followed by:
They didn’t communicate clearly enough. The problem wasn’t that residents hated having their neighbourhood carved up like a Christmas turkey. The problem was that they didn’t understand the brilliance of the plan. If only the council had used “more accessible language” - presumably with smaller words and pictures - everyone would have welcomed the bollards with open arms and grateful tears.
It’s the political equivalent of assuming anyone who disagrees with you is just thick. Can’t understand why people oppose your policy? Must be because they’re stupid. Couldn’t possibly be that your policy is stupid and they’re smart enough to see it.
They installed the nice bits too late. Trees and cycle hangars only came after the trial succeeded, which Plowden found “heartbreaking.” You know what’s actually heartbreaking? A council that thinks residents can be bought off with a few saplings and some bike storage after you’ve turned their streets into a one-way maze that adds 20 minutes to their commute.
It’s like punching someone in the face, then offering them a plaster, and being confused why they’re still angry.
The area was too big. So instead of one massive car crash, they’re planning several smaller car crashes in Southville, East Bedminster, and Totterdown. It’s the Titanic approach to disaster management: if one big ship sinking is bad, surely four smaller ships sinking simultaneously is better.
Notice what’s NOT on the list of lessons learned? “Maybe residents have legitimate concerns.” “Perhaps the traffic doesn’t actually disappear; it just goes somewhere else.” “Could we possibly have got this fundamentally wrong?”
No. The problem is never the policy. The problem is always that the peasants are too stupid to understand what’s good for them.
South Bristol: The Greatest Hits Album Nobody Asked For.
Here’s what they’re planning. I’ll translate from bureaucratic bollocks into English as we go:
Modal filters - That’s bollards to you and me. Or planters. Or camera-enforced barriers that’ll fine you for driving down your own street. The council claims an £11 benefit for every £1 spent, based on a business case so creative it makes Enron’s accounting look conservative.
How do you value an £11 return? Easy. You assign enormous monetary values to “health benefits from three extra cyclists” and “reduced carbon emissions from cars that definitely disappeared and absolutely didn’t just drive down different streets.” You ignore the actual measurable costs like increased journey times, businesses reporting reduced footfall, and emergency services struggling to navigate your bollard paradise. Then you add it all up and - magic! - £11 return appears like a rabbit from a hat.
Residents’ parking zones - From Ashton Vale to Totterdown, you’ll need permits to park near your own home. Because nothing says “liveable neighbourhood” like monetising your driveway and charging you for the privilege of parking near the house you own on the street your council tax already pays for.
This is the cornerstone of their new plan. Residents’ parking. They asked people what they wanted, and people said, “We want to be able to park near our homes.” So the council said, “Brilliant! We’ll charge you for that.”
It’s perfect council logic. Take a problem (not enough parking), create a solution that makes you pay for the problem you already had, call it progress.
One-way systems in Totterdown - To prevent standoffs on narrow streets. The streets have been narrow since they were built in the 1800s. Somehow, for over a century, people managed. They waited. They reversed. They figured it out. Like adults.
But now - suddenly, urgently - this is a crisis requiring expensive intervention. The streets are the same width they’ve always been. The only thing that’s changed is the council’s discovered they can justify a budget by “solving” it.
Widened pavements on Cannon Street - Finally, something that might actually help. One genuinely useful proposal hidden among the ideological crusade. It’s like finding a single raisin in a pile of manure. Yes, technically, there’s a raisin. But you’re still standing in manure.
The Business Case: Where Air That Respects Boundaries Meets Traffic That Respects Bollards.
Remember the Clean Air Zone? Where air magically stayed inside the boundary being clean, despite wind existing and air being, you know, air - that stuff that moves constantly regardless of signage?
The Liveable Neighbourhood is the same magical thinking applied to traffic.
Traffic inside the zone will reduce. Traffic outside the zone will... well, it won’t increase. Obviously. Because traffic is like air - it respects boundaries. Obeys signs. Doesn’t displace to neighbouring streets. Just disappears. Evaporates. Ceases to exist.
City Road versus Ashley Road proved this beautifully in the CAZ. City Road inside the zone became “deserted and devoid of all traffic.” Ashley Road outside the zone filled with queues, creating “exhaust fumes forming white clouds.” A street cleaner observed the obvious: “They’re avoiding City Road because they know they’re going get zapped.”
So the traffic didn’t reduce. It just moved. From City Road to Ashley Road. From inside the boundary to outside. Creating MORE pollution in residential areas. Solving the problem by moving it six feet to the left and calling it progress.
But the council learned from this, right? They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, would they?
Of course they would. They’re making it right now. In South Bristol. With modal filters that’ll push traffic from Southville onto neighbouring streets. With one-way systems in Totterdown that’ll send cars on longer routes through residential areas. With parking restrictions that’ll displace commuters from one street to another.
The traffic doesn’t disappear. It displaces. Like air. Like water. Like literally every fluid substance in the known universe. It moves. That’s what it does.
But we’ve built an entire policy around pretending it doesn’t.
What Every Other English City Already Knows (And Bristol Refuses To Learn).
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods have been tried across England. The pattern is so consistent you could set your watch by it:
Council announces scheme
Cycling advocates celebrate
Residents object
Council dismisses objections as “resistance to change”
Implementation happens (often at 3 am with police)
Traffic doesn’t evaporate, it displaces
Emergency services complain about access
Businesses report problems
Residents get angrier
Council either u-turns (rare) or digs in and declares victory (common)
Bristol watched this happen elsewhere and thought, “Yes, but we’ll do it differently.”
How differently? Exactly the same. But with better PR. And “more accessible language.” And trees installed earlier. And residents’ parking as a “cornerstone.”
It’s like watching someone set themselves on fire, then watching their mate say, “I’ve learned from their mistake - I’ll use a bigger can of petrol and stand closer to the explosives.”
Councillor Dyer’s Remarkable Definition of Democracy.
Tony Dyer, defending the 3 am Barton Hill installation with police protection, said: “We cannot simply allow those processes to be stopped by undemocratic means.”
He called residents protesting a policy “undemocratic means.”
Let’s examine what’s actually undemocratic here:
Democratic: Residents protesting policies they oppose. Turning up to object. Making their voices heard. You know, actual democracy.
Undemocratic: Ignoring the people who elected you. Dismissing their concerns as ignorance or “resistance to change.” Requiring police protection to implement policies in their own neighbourhood. Installing infrastructure at 3 am to avoid having to face the people it affects. Calling their protests “undemocratic means.”
But sure. The protesters are the undemocratic ones. The people objecting to having their streets redesigned without consent are the problem. Not the council sneaking around at 3 am with police escorts.
This is democracy, Bristol-style. Where your opinion matters (until it doesn’t). Where consultation means “we’ll tell you what we’re doing” not “we’ll listen to what you want.” Where democratic decisions are whatever the council decides, and opposing them is undemocratic.
It’s Orwellian. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Protest is undemocratic.
The Three Questions Nobody Will Answer.
Before October 30, demand clear answers:
If this scheme is so popular, why did East Bristol need police protection at 3 am?
If traffic displacement is real (see: City Road to Ashley Road), where exactly do you think the South Bristol traffic will go?
If residents overwhelmingly reject the scheme in consultation, will you actually listen, or is this just performative democracy before you do it anyway?
They won’t answer. They’ll talk about “difficult decisions” “long-term vision” and “evidence-based policy” - which is code for “we’re doing this regardless of what you think, and we’ll cherry-pick whatever evidence supports our predetermined conclusion.”
The Pattern: Air, Traffic, and What Comes Next.
Look at the progression:
Clean Air Zones: Air will respect boundaries. Result: Air didn’t respect boundaries. Pollution displaced to neighbouring streets. £26 million raised. 1.1% improvement.
Liveable Neighbourhoods: Traffic will respect bollards. Prediction: Traffic won’t respect bollards. Traffic will displace to neighbouring streets. Revenue will be raised. Small improvement will be claimed. Residents will be angrier.
What’s next? Probably clouds. When the Clean Air Zones inevitably fail to reduce pollution enough - because air moves and wind exists - someone will blame the wrong type of clouds. Foreign clouds. European clouds. Saharan dust clouds that don’t respect our frameworks.
It’s coming. £4.7 million Cloud Compliance Study. British Cloud Standards. Cloud Entry Points. Cloud Passport Scheme. Mark my words.
Because when physics defeats policy, we don’t admit the policy was stupid. We blame physics. Wrong type of leaves on the line. Wrong type of snow. Wrong type of air. Wrong type of clouds. Wrong type of residents who won’t accept our genius.
Who This Actually Benefits.
Not you. Not your neighbours. Not local businesses. Not emergency services trying to navigate one-way mazes and bollard forests.
This benefits:
Councillors who get to feel good about implementing “progressive” transport policy, regardless of whether it works
Contractors who get paid to install bollards, planters, cameras, signage, and charging infrastructure
Ideologues who’ve decided cars are evil and anyone who needs one is morally deficient
Transport planners who get to redesign neighbourhoods they don’t live in based on theories that don’t work
Green councillor Ed Plowden (aka L. Pondweed) talks about “people who recognise that things need to be a bit different in order to improve the area.”
But residents already love these areas. They don’t need improving by people who don’t live there. They don’t need bollards. They don’t need camera enforcement. They don’t need to pay for parking near their own homes. They need to be left alone.
The Consultation: Theatre of Democracy.
The consultation runs until 30 October. You can fill out Bristol City Council’s survey and express your views.
Will they listen? Based on East Bristol - where police were needed at 3 am to force through the “democratic decision” - probably not.
But at least when they ignore you and do it anyway, you’ll have it on record that you objected.
When the bollards go up and your journey to work takes an extra 20 minutes because you’re routed around half of South Bristol to avoid modal filters, you can remember you completed the survey.
When traffic displaces from Southville onto your street, creating more pollution outside the “liveable neighbourhood,” you can reflect that you engaged meaningfully with the consultation process.
When emergency vehicles struggle to navigate the new one-way system in Totterdown and response times increase, you can take comfort that you participated in democracy.
When businesses on Cannon Street report fewer customers because parking is impossible within half a mile, you can marvel at how consultation functions in modern Bristol.
And when the council announces in 2027 that the scheme has been a tremendous success based on metrics they defined themselves - just like the Clean Air Zone’s impressive 1.1% improvement - you can remember that you tried to warn them.
Democracy. Bristol-style.
What Bristol Deserves vs What Bristol Gets.
Bristol deserves councillors who listen to residents instead of lecturing them. Who admit mistakes instead of doubling down. Who implements policies that actually work instead of forcing through ideological crusades that displace problems rather than solving them.
What Bristol gets is a council - postcode BS, policy BS - that thinks air respects boundaries, traffic evaporates at bollards, and democracy means doing whatever you want while calling objections “undemocratic.”
What Bristol gets is a council that raises £26 million from an air subscription service while achieving 1.1% pollution reduction, then decides the solution is to apply the same logic to traffic.
What Bristol gets is an entire timber yard of two short planks running transport policy, learning absolutely nothing from failure, treating physics as optional, and dismissing resident opposition as a communication problem rather than legitimate concern.
The Final Truth.
Right now, today, this very moment, you can still:
Drive down your own street without paying for residents’ parking you don’t have yet
Navigate Southville without dodging bollards and planters
Take the direct route through Totterdown instead of following one-way detours
Park near your home without a permit
Enjoy it while it lasts. Because after 30 October, after the consultation closes and the feedback gets “carefully considered” before being filed in the bin marked “residents who don’t understand what’s good for them,” the bollards will arrive.
Maybe at 3 am. Maybe with police. Definitely with promises that traffic will reduce (it won’t), pollution will drop (it’ll displace), and the neighbourhood will be more liveable (for people who don’t live there or drive cars).
And when you’re sitting in traffic on Ashley Road because City Road has bollards, or taking a 15-minute detour to avoid camera-enforced modal filters, or paying £9 daily for residents’ parking plus another £9 for the Clean Air Zone, you can remember:
The council warned you. They communicated clearly. They used accessible language. They installed the trees early. They learned all the lessons.
Just not the right ones.
Take Action Now
Visit Bristol City Council’s website before 30 October to complete the South Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood consultation survey.
Tell them exactly what you think about:
Air that respects boundaries
Traffic that evaporates at bollards
Democracy that requires police protection at 3 am
Consultation that’s ignored
Lessons that aren’t learned
Timber yards full of two short planks running your city
And when they ignore you and do it anyway - because they will - at least you’ll have the satisfaction of being right when it inevitably falls apart.
Bristol didn’t elect a council. It elected a live experiment in how many stupid policies you can force onto residents before they revolt. We’re currently testing the upper limit.
Place your bets now on what comes after Liveable Neighbourhoods fail. My money’s on Cloud Compliance Zones.
Related Reading: Bristol Clean Air Zones: Air That Respects Boundaries, Pays Taxes, and Obeys Immigration Law
Share this, and comment below with your own experiences of Bristol’s genius governance.
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