Public participation

George,

You may or may not have gathered that Bristol Conservation Advisory Panel has of late itself become At Risk, first from disagreements over a revised constitution made at the request of BCC and second, internally as it were, possibly as no longer being fit for purpose. Members attempted to resist the new constitution, but it was passed anyway and at that time it was suggested that it may be necessary to convene a parallel, external Panel, which, were more successful, might become the new Panel. I don’t need to go further here into the detail of the performance of CAP in recent times.

My own remedy would be to look at this in the round, and achieve an improvement to public participation in the City, by creating a series of external voluntary committees, with or without BCC attendance and participation, on City-wide issues.

The system would be to establish voluntary groups called PATCH, standing for Public/professional Advice to City Hall. Each PATCH would be followed by its appropriate letter of the alphabet, denoting its subject.  I see these Patches as being independent of BCC influence, but set up with BCC support. One might readily see the following PATCHES as possible advisory groups:

PATCH –A        Archaeology

PATCH – C      Conservation (Built Environment)

PATCH - L        Libraries

PATCH – M      Museums

PATCH – P       Parks

PATCH – T       Transport

This is surely the way to obtain disinterested professional and lay advice, get public suppor tfor better ambitions across the subject areas that interest Bristolians and save money.

Yrs etc

JW