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Bid to clean up Knowle Eyesore

5th March 2007

For immediate release

A Knowle resident and Green party activist is helping put the pressure on developers to clean up a notorious eyesore on Wells Road.

Glenn Vowles, pictured here, reckons the former Texaco Petrol Station at Wells Rd in Knowle has been abandoned and left to gradually decay for 18 months, possibly longer.

After contacting the Bristol City Council Clean and Green Team Glenn has enlisted the help of the Evening Post in its campaign to get the city's "Grot Spots" cleaned up

Glenn says:

"Its now covered in graffiti and strewn with litter. Its possible that people have been tipping their rubbish on the more out of sight parts of the area too. There is evidence that drinking and goodness knows what else has been taking place on the site, inside the fencing."

"I've grown more and more concerned about this increasing eyesore as its been left to get worse. It's a possible health risk and obviously encourages a growing rat population. Why does it have to take so long before a valuable piece of land can be put to good use? Why are an irresponsible minority of people intent on ruining the way this bit of Knowle looks? Why are the land owners allowed to be so irresponsible in allowing the site to decay and become vandalised?"

Glenn has discovered from the planning department that a planning application was finally put in for the site on 29 Jan (13 1-bed and 10 2-bed apartments plus a ground floor retail outlet - application number 07/00377). He says:

"When open, green spaces are threatened with mass house building its very important to make the very best use of sites like this former petrol station, and so subject to the nature and quality of the application, this development is welcome news.

"I very much hope that a clean-up can be done by those responsible, with help from the council as needed. What I'd really like to see is a change in the law to give councils much greater powers to ensure that owners of land and property cant abandon areas to rot for months and years unused. This would stop such eyesores developing in the first place. I shall be following up on this as part of my work within Bristol South Green Party. "

The site's owners, the Pantheon Group, have several similar sites around the city and admit that some are in a worse state than the Wells Road property.

Note

Evening Post news story (5th March) here

Contact:

Peter Goodwin (Green Party Press Officer) 01275 543280

See also...

• Flying in the face of Reality (press release, 6/11/2006)
• Council dodges Challenge to Airport Expansion (press release, 11/9/2006)
• No more night flights! (press release, 18/6/2006)
• Airport to undermine Bristol's Climate Change efforts (press release, 9/3/2006)