When Green Councillors Discover That Walking Seven Minutes Is Actually Climate Destruction.
Green councillors rejected hundreds of homes near Temple Meads because walking seven minutes was "too far."
(Image: Rob Bryher)
Let me get this absolutely straight.
Bristol City Council’s Green-led planning committee has just rejected hundreds of homes near Temple Meads - the biggest transport hub in the Southwest - because residents would have to walk seven minutes to catch a bus.
Seven. Minutes.
Not seven miles. Not seven hours. Seven minutes.
And the person leading this charge? Green Councillor Rob Bryher (he/him) - like, who knew, has apparently measured the distance to the nearest bus stop with a stopwatch and determined that four minutes to Spring Street doesn’t count because it only serves one bus route.
This is the Green Party. The party of climate action. The party of sustainable transport, and pronoun fetish. The party that lectures everyone about car dependency.
Rejecting housing near major transport hubs because the walk is too long.
You genuinely couldn’t make this up.
The Five-Minute Fatwa.
Here’s the new Bristol standard: unless you can reach “major public transport” within a five-minute walk (400 metres), the site is unsuitable for intensive development.
Let’s map what’s actually near Princess Street:
Spring Street bus stop: 4 minutes (REJECTED - only one route)
Bedminster Station: 7 minutes walk (TOO FAR)
Temple Meads Station: 15 minutes walk (ABSOLUTELY TOO FAR)
Metrobus stops on Bedminster Parade: 7 minutes (TOO FAR)
Multiple other bus routes: Also around 7 minutes (STILL TOO FAR)
So we’ve got two train stations within easy walking distance, multiple bus routes within a short walk, and the region’s largest transport interchange 15 minutes away.
And the Green Party position is: Not good enough. Too far. Can’t walk that.
Guess what legs were made for? And I don’t think convenience entered the equation.
The Don Alexander Reality Check
Credit where it’s due: Labour’s Don Alexander actually talked sense.
“If this was in Lawrence Weston you would have a 20-minute walk to the flagpole bus stop. Either we can put the housing for people who haven’t got housing out in Lawrence Weston, and give them all a car. Or we can house them in an area like this... virtually ban them from having a car unless they have disabilities which warrant one. That’s the way towards sustainability.”
This is correct. This is literally the only sensible position if you claim to care about sustainable transport.
But apparently one Labour councillor understanding basic transport policy isn’t enough when you’ve got four Green councillors who’ve decided that walking more than five minutes violates some kind of sacred principle.
The Lawrence Weston Test.
Don Alexander’s Lawrence Weston comparison is devastating to the Green position.
If you reject this Princess Street development, those hundreds of people still need housing. So where do they go?
Option A: Near Temple Meads, seven minutes from multiple transport links, where car ownership is genuinely optional.
Option B: Lawrence Weston, 20 minutes from the nearest bus stop, where car ownership is essentially mandatory.
The Greens voted for Option B.
The party of climate action just voted to force people into car dependency.
Let that sink in.
The Green Party Position Decoded.
Let’s be crystal clear about what the Greens just voted for:
AGAINST:
Housing near major transport hubs
Reducing car dependency
Climate-friendly urban density
People living within walking distance of two train stations
FOR:
Continued housing crisis
Forcing people to live further out (where they’ll need cars)
Protecting “character” over actual climate action
Performative transport policy that achieves nothing
This is greenwashing as governance. The aesthetic of environmental concern without any of the actual substance.
The Stopwatch Socialist.
Let’s paint the scene:
Cllr Bryher, Green Party, standing at Princess Street with his clipboard, stopwatch, and the kind of self-important expression usually reserved for traffic wardens:
“Right team, I’ve measured it. Four minutes to the nearest bus stop. BUT - and this is crucial - it only serves one route. Therefore, by strict interpretation of policy guidance subsection 3.2.1(b), this cannot be classified as a major public transport corridor. The residents would face a SEVEN MINUTE walk to alternative options. SEVEN MINUTES! That’s 420 seconds of human suffering!”
Actual human beings: “Mate, it’s a 15-minute walk to Temple Meads. People do that for fun. It’s called exercise.”
Cllr Bryher: “POLICY SAYS FIVE MINUTES. Do we have rules or don’t we?!”
This is Clipboard Man. The bureaucratic zealot who’s found a rulebook and by God, he’s going to enforce it - even when the rulebook contradicts every other policy he claims to support. This is the guy who’d measure the distance between deck chairs on the Titanic while it’s sinking.
“Sorry Captain, but according to maritime safety regulations section 12.4, these chairs need to be precisely 1.2 metres apart. I’m afraid we can’t evacuate until this is rectified.”
The Credentialed Clown
And here’s the best bit: Cllr Rob Bryher has an MSc in Urban Planning. With Distinction, no less. From UWE.
Let that sink in.
This man studied urban planning at postgraduate level. He worked in “local authority highways and transport development control.” He campaigned for “low-car cities for a climate charity.” Suggests to me that maybe those childhood Dinky cars came in useful after all. Of course, I could be entirely incorrect. In which case, I stand corrected.
Oh, And he just rejected housing near two train stations because people might have to walk seven minutes.
This is what happens when someone gets so deep into theory they forget how legs work.
You know what they don’t teach you in Urban Planning MSc programs apparantly? That humans can walk more than 400 metres without medical intervention.
Bryher literally has professional qualifications in exactly the thing he’s catastrophically failing at. It’s like watching a Formula 1 driver crash into a parked car. In a car park. At 5mph.
He campaigned for “low-car cities” and then voted to force hundreds of people to live somewhere they’ll need cars.
That’s not policy failure. That’s performance art that takes a special kind of thinking, isn’t it?
The One Bus Rule (Or: How Bryher Discovered Arithmetic).
Let’s dwell on this absolute gem:
“Spring Street only serves one bus route so I don’t think you could call that a major public transport route.”
ONE BUS ROUTE ISN’T ENOUGH.
Right. So the metric isn’t “how many transport options exist nearby” - it’s “how many routes service each individual stop.”
This is like saying a restaurant isn’t proper dining because they only serve food, not food AND entertainment AND a massage.
By this logic:
Temple Meads (15 minutes away): Dozens of routes = STILL TOO FAR
Bedminster Station (7 minutes away): Direct rail connection = TOO FAR
Spring Street (4 minutes away): One bus route = DOESN’T COUNT
The only acceptable solution: A bus stop four minutes away that serves at least two routes, possibly three if there’s a light drizzle, four if it’s a Tuesday.
Failing that: REJECT HOUSING.
Cllr Bryher has essentially invented a new unit of measurement: the Bryher Standard. One Bryher = the exact distance at which housing becomes morally unacceptable, which changes depending on how many buses he can count.
This really is policy pedantry elevated to performance art. This is a man who would reject the Last Supper planning application because there’s no disabled access and the occupancy exceeds fire safety limits. Two short planks, anyone?
The Exercise Paradox (Or: How The Greens Discovered Legs Are Hard).
Here’s what kills me about this:
The same council that:
Campaigns for “active travel”
Promotes “walking and cycling”
Removes parking to “encourage healthier transport choices”
Declares Bristol a “walking and cycling city”
Probably has posters saying “Every Journey Starts With A Single Step…back to your front door. Unless a bus is available.”
...has just decided that walking seven minutes is too much physical exertion for humans to reasonably manage.
Guess what legs were made for? Walking. Moving. Getting from A to B under your own power. And I don’t think convenience entered the equation when evolution was sorting out bipedal locomotion.
The Green Party has somehow positioned basic human locomotion as an unreasonable burden.
Think about that. The people who want you to cycle everywhere, who remove car parking spaces to force you onto buses, who lecture you about your carbon footprint if you drive to Tesco - these same people have decided that seven minutes of walking is beyond human capability.
What’s next? Escalators between rooms in your house? A little train to take you from the sofa to the fridge?
“Sorry love, can’t make dinner tonight. The kitchen’s a full three-minute walk from the living room. Health and safety says that’s too intensive. We’ll have to order in. Again.”
You can’t have a “walking and cycling city” where walking is considered impossibly difficult. Unless the plan is to create a city where everyone just stands very still and hopes things come to them.
Maybe the solution is simple: every new home must have a bus stop embedded in the front door, train platform in the living room, Metrobus tunnel under the bedroom, and a helicopter pad on the roof just in case stairs prove too challenging.
Walking distance to public transport: ZERO METRES.
Problem solved! Nobody ever has to use their legs again. Perfect for the Green vision where walking seven minutes is considered cruel and unusual punishment, right up there with waterboarding and karaoke.
Bryher’s Bizarre Transport Calculator.
I’m starting to think Cllr Bryher has invented his own transport accessibility formula:
(Number of bus routes × 400 metres) ÷ (How much we like the developer + Building height in storeys) = Whether housing is acceptable
According to the Bryher Calculator:
1 bus route 4 minutes away = NOT TRANSPORT
2 train stations within 15 minutes = NOT TRANSPORT
Multiple bus routes within 7 minutes = NOT TRANSPORT
The biggest transport hub in the Southwest = STILL NOT CLOSE ENOUGH
But here’s the fascinating bit: Lawrence Weston, 20 minutes from the nearest bus stop = Perfectly fine!
The Bryher Logic: It’s better to have NO nearby transport than to have INADEQUATE nearby transport. Like saying it’s better to be starving than to eat a meal that’s only four courses instead of five.
This man has found a way to make housing LESS accessible while claiming to care about accessibility. It’s almost impressive. Like watching someone dig a hole upwards, and then decorate it with modal filters.
The Local Plan Contradiction (Or: When Rules Eat Themselves).
The council’s own Local Plan says intensive development should be “close to major public transport routes and corridors.”
So they wrote a policy saying development should be near transport.
Then a developer proposes development next to the region’s biggest transport hub.
And they reject it because it’s not close enough to transport.
This is the bureaucratic equivalent of that Escher painting where the water flows uphill.
This is policy incoherence elevated to performance art. It’s like watching someone follow a recipe so precisely that they end up making something completely different from what the recipe describes.
“Yes, the cookbook says ‘bake a cake,’ but according to my interpretation of ingredient proximity guidelines, flour and eggs being more than five minutes apart in the cupboard means we have to reject this cake and order pizza from Lawrence Weston instead.”
The Voting Breakdown (Or: Meet The Magnificent Seven... Minutes).
Let’s name names:
VOTED AGAINST HOUSING (The Seven-Minute Resistance):
Green Cllr Rob Bryher (Chair) - The Stopwatch Socialist himself
Green Cllr Ellie Freeman
Green Cllr Serena Ralston
Green Cllr Shona Jemphrey
Labour Cllr Katja Hornchen - The Labour councillor who forgot which party she’s in
VOTED FOR HOUSING (The Sensible Three):
Labour Cllr Don Alexander - The only person in the room with a functioning brain
Liberal Democrat Cllr Andrew Varney
Conservative Cllr Richard Eddy
ABSTAINED (The Political Coward Award):
Labour Cllr Kye Dudd - Couldn’t decide if housing was good or bad during a housing crisis
Notice the pattern? Four Greens in lockstep against housing near transport. The party that claims to care most about climate action just blocked the most climate-friendly development possible.
It’s like watching firefighters vote against water.
And special mention to Katja Hornchen, the Labour councillor who heard Don Alexander’s perfectly logical argument, understood it, and then voted the opposite way anyway. That takes a special kind of commitment to being wrong. Doesn’t it?
The “Over-Intensive” Smokescreen (Or: Too Many Homes, Too Much Housing, Too Much Solution).
The official reason for rejection was the development being “over-intensive.”
Translation: “It’s too tall and there are too many homes.”
Right. So during a housing crisis, with thousands on waiting lists and young people unable to afford rent, the council’s position is “we’d love to help, but not if it means building upwards or fitting more than a handful of homes per hectare.”
“Sorry Bristol, we know you need housing, but this developer wants to put TOO MUCH housing in one place. It’s obscene. It’s indecent. It’s... efficient. And we can’t have that.”
If the real objection is building height or design quality, say that. Don’t hide behind “the bus stop is seven minutes away.”
Have the courage of your NIMBYism, Bryher. Just say “I don’t like tall buildings” instead of pretending you’re worried about people’s cardiovascular fitness.
The Character Argument (Or: Protecting The View From Change).
Bristol Live mentions concerns about “changing the character of an area” and people feeling “hemmed in and overshadowed.”
Translation: “We don’t like tall buildings and we’re going to dress up NIMBYism as transport policy.”
“Character.” That magical word that means “we don’t want anything to change, ever, because change is scary and makes us feel old.”
You know what else changes the character of an area? A housing crisis. Empty shops because nobody can afford rent. Young people leaving because they can’t buy homes. Communities fragmenting because people are forced to live miles away from where they work.
But sure, let’s protect the “character” of South Bristol by ensuring it remains exactly as character-free as it currently is.
Because if you genuinely cared about the transport aspect, you’d be celebrating this development. It’s in one of the most transport-accessible locations in South Bristol. But that was never the real objection, was it?
The real objection is height, density, and change. The transport argument is just the politically acceptable wrapper. Like putting a “Save the Environment” sticker on your SUV.
The Three Questions (Which Bryher Didn’t Ask).
Is it practical? Building hundreds of homes within walking distance of Temple Meads is literally one of the most practical housing locations in Bristol. Dense urban development near transport hubs is textbook sustainable planning. It’s so obviously practical that rejecting it requires active mental gymnastics.
Is it logical? Only if you start from “we don’t want this development” and work backwards to find a justification. The transport argument is post-hoc rationalisation for aesthetic objections. It’s the policy equivalent of deciding you don’t like someone and then convincing yourself it’s because of their shoes.
What’s the likely outcome? Fewer homes get built. Housing crisis continues. People live further out. More cars on roads. Greens congratulate themselves on “protecting the area.” Nobody notices the gap between rhetoric and reality. And Cllr Bryher gets to feel important for enforcing his Five-Minute Rule while Bristol burns.
The Anarch Observation (Or: Watching The Circus From Outside The Tent).
From outside tribal capture, the pattern is obvious:
The Greens talk sustainability but govern like NIMBYs. They’ve adopted the language of climate action while implementing the policies of development obstruction.
This is what happens when ideology meets reality and ideology says “Nah, I’m alright thanks.”
Result: Less housing. More sprawl. More car dependency. Same performative politics. And one very satisfied councillor who got to use his stopwatch in an official capacity.
The Green Party’s Climate Problem (Or: How To Save The Planet By Doing The Opposite).
This is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Bristol’s Green governance:
They want climate action without change.
They want sustainable transport without dense development near transport hubs. They want reduced car dependency while rejecting housing in walkable locations. They want to solve the housing crisis while blocking intensive development.
You cannot have all these things. Physics and logic don’t bend to accommodate political positioning. Unless you’re Cllr Bryher, in which case apparently reality is whatever your stopwatch says it is.
This is like wanting to lose weight while eating more cake. It’s like wanting to be taller while refusing to stand up. It’s like wanting to solve the housing crisis while rejecting housing because people might have to... walk a bit.
The cognitive dissonance required to maintain this position could power a small city. Ironically, that city would probably have better transport links than Princess Street, according to Bryher.
The Walking Distance Wars (Or: The Bryher Scale Of Acceptable Movement).
Bristol City Council has now established these walking distance standards:
4 minutes to one bus route: Not acceptable (Green position)
7 minutes to train station: Not acceptable (Green position)
7 minutes to Metrobus: Not acceptable (Green position)
15 minutes to Temple Meads: Not acceptable (Green position)
20 minutes to Lawrence Weston bus stop: Perfectly fine, apparently (implied by rejection)
The logic is impeccable. If you’re not looking for logic.
The Bryher Distance Scale:
0-4 minutes: Acceptable (but only if there are multiple bus routes)
5 minutes: Borderline (requires committee review)
6 minutes: Probably too far (check weather conditions)
7 minutes: Definitely too far (unless you’re going somewhere WE want you to go)
15 minutes: Impossibly far (may require medical intervention)
20 minutes: Fine if it means rejecting development we don’t like
The Accountability Demand (Or: Questions Bryher Won’t Answer).
Every councillor who voted against this development needs to answer:
Where should these hundreds of homes go instead? (Lawrence Weston doesn’t count unless you’re admitting you lied about transport)
How is forcing people to live further out better for transport? (Show your working)
What distance from transport IS acceptable? (Be specific, and explain why 7 minutes isn’t but 20 minutes is)
How does this decision advance climate goals? (Use actual logic, not feelings)
How does this decision help the housing crisis? (Spoiler: it doesn’t)
No waffle. No rhetoric. Actual answers.
Because right now, the only answer that makes sense is: “We didn’t want the development and used transport as an excuse because it sounds better than ‘we just don’t like it.’”
Just say that, Bryher. At least it would be honest. And honesty is apparently the one thing further away than Temple Meads.
What This Means For Bristol (Or: How To Ensure Nothing Ever Gets Built).
If Princess Street - seven minutes from Bedminster Station, 15 minutes from Temple Meads, surrounded by bus routes - isn’t “close enough” to public transport for intensive development...
...then nowhere in Bristol is.
That’s the precedent being set. That’s the standard being established.
This is how you ensure housing never gets built. Set impossible standards. Enforce them selectively. Then congratulate yourself on high principles while the crisis worsens.
It’s brilliant, really. Why didn’t anyone think of this before? Oh wait, they did. It’s called NIMBYism. Bryher’s just found a way to make it sound progressive.
The Nuclear Question (Or: The Question Bryher Will Never Answer).
Here’s the question that should end this debate:
If housing seven minutes from a train station and fifteen minutes from Temple Meads isn’t suitable for intensive development, what is?
Give me one example of a location in South Bristol that meets the Green councillors’ standards.
I’ll wait.
(I’ll be waiting a while, because the point isn’t to find suitable locations - it’s to ensure no location is ever suitable enough. The goal isn’t standards, it’s obstruction. The stopwatch is just theatre.)
The Council Contradiction Collection (Or: Say One Thing, Do Another, Call It Governance).
WHAT BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL SAYS:
We support sustainable transport
We want reduced car dependency
We’re in a housing crisis
We support active travel
We want climate action
WHAT BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL DOES:
Rejects housing near transport hubs
Forces development to locations requiring cars
Blocks hundreds of homes during housing crisis
Decides walking 7 minutes is too far
Votes against climate-friendly density
GAP BETWEEN RHETORIC AND REALITY: Approximately 400 metres. Or five minutes walk. Or whatever arbitrary distance lets you reject this week’s development. Or the length of Bryher’s clipboard, whichever’s more convenient.
The Verdict (Or: What We’ve Learned About Cllr Bryher).
Bristol’s Green-led planning committee has just demonstrated that:
They don’t understand sustainable transport policy
They don’t care about the housing crisis
They prefer performative politics to practical solutions
They’ll use any excuse to block development
Walking seven minutes is apparently more difficult than solving Bristol’s housing shortage
Cllr Bryher has discovered that if you measure things precisely enough, you never have to admit you’re just making it up as you go along.
This is governance failure dressed as progressive principle.
This is a man with a stopwatch pretending to care about climate change while voting to increase car dependency.
This is what happens when bureaucrats confuse precision with competence.
And the gap between what they say and what they do?
Further than Princess Street to Temple Meads.
Further than Lawrence Weston to the nearest bus stop.
Further than Bristol residents can walk, apparently.
Further than Bryher’s stopwatch can measure.
The Almighty Gob’s Final Measurement:
Princess Street to Bedminster Station: 7 minutes.
Princess Street to Temple Meads: 15 minutes.
Distance between Green Party rhetoric and Green Party governance: Expanding rapidly.
Bristol Green Party’s credibility on climate policy: Unmeasurable, beyond the observable universe.
Distance between Cllr Bryher and common sense: Requires scientific notation.
The Almighty Gob - documenting the moment the Green Party decided walking seven minutes was climate destruction, one contradictory planning vote at a time. And documenting Cllr Bryher’s transformation from public servant to stopwatch enthusiast.
P.S. If anyone sees Cllr Bryher walking more than five minutes to anything, please time it and send me the evidence. I’ll be collecting data for my upcoming study: “The Bryher Paradox: How Far Can A Man Walk While Claiming Others Can’t?