On Thursday afternoon Roy, who is caretaker of Elim’s sheltered housing on the corner of Hillgrove and Jamaica Street, alerted me to the fact that yet another fine specimen had been laid at his doorstep… A regular occurence. (See below).

The timing was perfect… Shortly afterwards I was due to meet with a group of the City’s “Movers and Shakers” down in the Bear Pit, to discuss how the area might be improved… I arrived at about 615pm, and wanted a piss: The toilets close at 6pm… Minutes later, two young men arrived, and pissed up the door of the Public Toilets in desperation… then Mark Wright, our Councillor for Cabot, arrived needing a piss… We both had to hold our bladders for the whole of the meeting… Ironic indeed.

The Bearpit loos are open from 8am-6pm Mon-Sat and for a few hours on Sunday…

Given that there are a high proportion of homeless, addicts and alcoholics in this area, it seems reasonable that provision of Public Toilets should have a greater priority than in other areas of the City.

Denise James, Project Managerof BCC Clean and Green was present, as was John Hirst of Destination Bristol, Mark Wright,  our Lib Dem Councillor. Cat Haigh of PRSC Planning Group, Damo, a homeless person, Pete Bullard of St. Paul’s Unlimited and a lovely lady from Green Spaces Strategy were there… By 7pm, we shared the space with no one else than a small group of street drinkers.

Much of the talk revolved around infrastructure.. It emerged that the Bear Pit cannot even be steam cleaned, because the drains are blocked, and there is nowhere for the water to run off… There is no money and we are facing spending cuts…

It seems to me that we must make the political case for more public spending in the areas that have been deprived of it for the longest time…

And it is also increasingly obvious that, while we can and will make cosmetic changes, if we are to make of Stokes Croft a positive and enriching experience for all, then we must find ways of engaging the homeless and the street drinkers, and offering routes out of their habits… It is no longer acceptable for us to have a policy of moving street drinkers and the homeless on without offering positive options. And it will never work to make our Public Spaces less inviting, as if this will act as some kind of  deterrent …

By following this path, we all lose…

As I left, one of the streetdrinkers offered me a fight, believing that I had betrayed him, believing that it was my intention to remove the chess table from Turbo Island…