Proposals to create a new walking and cycle path in Bristol have taken a step back after the council announced its intention to instead build a ‘meanwhile site’ for van and caravan dwellers.

The disused railway line running under the Bath Road near Brislington has been abandoned for more than 25 years, but councillors from the ward have been campaigning to turn the space into a road-free active travel route.

However, Bristol’s Local Democracy Reporter says that the council believes a ‘meanwhile site’ would be safer than an active travel route, as it would be “permanently occupied” and provide “natural security” that a cycle path would not.

‘Meanwhile sites’ provide water, bins, chemical toilets and sewage disposal for dwellers, who pay the council for a licence to temporarily stay at these locations. The council estimate that the abandoned railway site could provide up to 30 spaces for dwellers.

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In recent months, Bristol City Council has also been engaged in legal action to evict dwellers who have settled on the Downs and in the north of the city. And in a recent public forum, around 30 statements and questions were submitted to the council seeking to address the presence of van dwellers either on roads or in the city’s public parks.

But the Liberal Democrats, who run the council in coalition with the Green Party, have criticised the proposal to use the Brislington railway, with Cllr Jos Clark asking the housing committee chair, “Can you tell me why a cycle path will be more dangerous than people living on the same stretch of land?”

In response, Cllr Barry Parsons said, “The difference between a cycle path and the meanwhile site is that the meanwhile site will be permanently occupied. So there will be people there all the time and because they’ll be living there, that will provide the natural surveillance that will help to keep the area safe.

“Also, it’ll be fenced as well, so there’ll be security for the residents. So there’s going to be additional safety and security while the meanwhile site is there, and also our officers are going to be visiting regularly, they’re going to be monitoring and making sure that it’s safe.”

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Parsons wasn’t the only critic of the active travel proposal within the Green Party, with transport committee chair Ed Plowden warning in March that the greenway would be “dark and inaccessible.”

“We need to be putting, as far as possible, active travel routes in front of people’s front doors — not in a dark valley where it’s inaccessible and behind people’s back doors.

Mangotsfield Old Railway Station on Bristol and Bath Railway Path
Mangotsfield Old Railway Station on Bristol and Bath Railway Path (Image Credit: Matt Buck on Flickr Creative Commons)

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“[The Bristol to Bath Railway Path] is a very good success story but an exception. There’s an awful lot of places where women don’t feel safe. In that cutting we would want to see as much through flow as possible.”

Another previous proposal to build a relief road in place of the disused railway, championed by the West of England Combined Authority, also appears to have been abandoned.