Your say / green space
‘Bristol’s green spaces are at risk – we need to speak up’
Bristol is known for its parks, nature spots and patches of greenery tucked into the urban fabric.
But a quiet change to the city’s planning rules could leave many of these spaces exposed to development – and the window to do something about it is closing fast.
Bristol City Council is updating its Local Plan, the rulebook that decides what gets built where across the city. As part of that process, planning inspectors have told the council to remove a proposed protection called Local Green Space (LGS) designation.
LGS designation is a powerful tool. It gives specific green spaces the same level of protection as Green Belt land, making it very hard for developers to build on them.
Bristol had put forward 175 sites for this status. Now, under pressure from the inspectors, they are all being dropped.
The Council is proposing replacing LGS protection with a new policy called GI2: Protected Open Space (POS). The problem is, say campaigners at Bristol Tree Forum, that this new policy has grown weaker and weaker with every new iteration.
Under the current Local Plan, development on an important open space was simply not allowed unless it was directly related to the space’s existing use — a café in a park, for example. The bar was high.
Under the proposed new rules, a green space can be built on if a developer can show that:
- the loss won’t create a ‘A deficiency of open space provision’, or
- an equivalent or better space will be provided somewhere else
The removal of the original proposed test: ‘The open space is no longer required for its open space function’ weakens the whole policy still further.
Originally, developers had to clear two hurdles: ‘the open space is no longer required and ‘the loss won’t create a ‘deficiency of open space provision’.
Now developers have a choice of the two above. This, together with the vague standard of ‘equivalent or better’ – without defining exactly what this means – will give them carte blanche to select the interpretation most beneficial to them.
What about Bristol’s ecological commitments?
In 2020, Bristol City Council declared an Ecological Emergency and committed to increasing the land managed for nature to at least 30 per cent of the city by 2030 – an extra 1,316 hectares.
This proposed new policy pulls in the opposite direction: weakening protections for existing green spaces rather than strengthening them.
The new policy also covers something called Incidental Open Space (IOS): those spaces that often arise as a ‘leftover’ in developments and are intended to be accessed by the public as an amenity area. These spaces contribute to the visual character of an area rather than being specifically designed for the primary development purpose.
The trouble is that, while what makes a site an Incidental Open Space is defined, these sites won’t appear on any official map.
We are told that this is because they are mostly too small even though they ‘often make important contribution to the visual amenity of the surrounding built environment’. That raises a serious question: if you can’t say whether a piece of land qualifies as an Incidental Open Space, how can you protect it?
There’s a further complication. Many of these spaces are privately owned, meaning the owner could restrict or remove public access at any time, with no planning protection to stop them.
A real-world example: the redevelopment of the former Bristol Zoo Gardens in Clifton will include a public-ish open space, but it won’t be mapped as a Protected Open Space. Would it be covered under the new policy? Nobody seems to know.
All this is legal, and that’s part of what makes this frustrating for campaigners. National planning rules (the National Planning Policy Framework, or NPPF) actually allow LGS designations.
Bristol Tree Forum argues there was no need to abandon the 175 sites entirely. A more measured approach – keeping the principle, gathering evidence, consulting communities, and only removing sites that clearly don’t qualify — would have been both permissible and proportionate. That suggestion was not taken up.
Even if the current Local Plan is approved, the Council will almost immediately have to begin drafting a new one, because planning law has changed so much since work on this version began in 2023. A future revision could give Bristol another chance to revisit LGS protections — but that’s not guaranteed.
What can you do?
If you care about Bristol’s green spaces, now is the time to act. The council’s public consultation closes on June 12.
Complete the consultation at smartsurvey.co.uk/s/BLP2026
Read the response by Bristol Tree Forum at bristoltreeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/btf-representations-on-the-proposed-main-modifications-of-chapter-9-may-2026.pdf
Contact your local councillor at bristol.gov.uk/council/councillors-and-the-lord-mayor/find-your-councillor
These spaces, once lost to development, are very rarely recovered. The time to speak up is now.
Mark Ashdown was until recently the chair of Bristol Tree Forum. This piece is based on a briefing paper by Bristol Tree Forum, produced in May 2026.
Main image: Betty Woolerton
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