Hotwells & Cliftonwood Community Association

Cumberland Basin 'piazza' questionnaire results

We assigned a score to each one of the 12 options described in our survey, based on the priority given to it in the questionnaire; ie. 12 points for the most favoured option and 1 for the least. Some people ticked options but didn’t indicate a priority. In this case, all the options they selected were given a score of 6. The pie chart below gives the results as a percentage of all responses.

As you can see, some kind of park/green space is almost twice as popular as the next highest scoring option (Heritage Exhibition). But 8 of the options all cluster around 7-9%, so no clear preference emerges for 2nd place.
The least favoured option is car-parking, which, possibly, doesn’t rule out some parking spaces in conjunction with other uses but suggests that a dedicated car park on the whole site would not be popular.
We also received a varied list of suggestions for other possible uses including:

Wood recycling
Climbing wall
Performance space
Graffiti area
Toddler play area
Open air market
Each of these scored less than 1% of the total but this is hardly surprising since the ideas had not been offered to all respondents. We intend to keep them alive for discussion by a steering group (see box below).
We also asked you to suggest a name for ‘the space under the flyover’. Lots of people had similar ideas with small variations in wording. Some of the more inspired were:

Hotwells Hub, Teen Space, Hotwells Flyunder,
HotSprings Island, The Pillars, Brunel Park, Hotwells Peoples Park, Hotwells Oasis, Hotwells Haven,
Lockgate Park, Under the Bridge, Plimsoll Circus

If you haven’t been in touch yet it’s not too late. The questionnaire form is still available for download.

The next step….
We want to set up a steering group to work on an outline plan for The ‘Piazza’ that we can put to local people and discuss with the City Council. If you are a representative of an organisation like a residents group, have relevant skills like planning or landscape architecture or just have a strong vision of what you would like to happen then please get in touch with the HCCA office.

Will development site money reach Hotwells?

The 32 new student dwellings approved for the site next to the Mardyke pub in Hotwell Road will contribute £19,000 of section 106 funding to be spent on ‘the provision/improvement/ maintenance of recreational space and facilities’. The original plan was to build 13 apartments and these would have contributed over £35,000 for community use. The BCC Planning Officer said “the reduced payment is due to the fact that contributions toward open space and recreation for student accommodation, are calculated under a different formula to those for standard residential accommodation”
However no work has resumed on site yet, following the failure of the previous scheme and even if this one succeeds, Hotwells may have a fight on its’ hands to ensure the money is used to improve open space in Hotwells. The Council has a habit of allocating Section 106 funds to other areas that actually have some parks to spend it on (as we revealed in our Autumn 2008 edition of Hotwells News). We have been promised an improved consultation process on how these funds are allocated but the new developers successfully argued that no further public consultation was necessary for the new planning application so we have not been given an opportunity to express a view on the revised Section 106 arrangements either.