Car parking on the Downs must end

Do you want the Downs to look like this every summer?

This part of the Downs by Ladies Mile Road is used by Zoo visitors as a car park.  It spoils the Downs - see picture - and is totally against local planning policy.  It is also against the law.

The 1861 Downs Act says the Downs should be "for ever open and unenclosed ... for the public resort and recreation of the citizens and inhabitants of Bristol ..."   

By no stretch of the imagination can car parking be termed "recreation"!  The Downs Committee has no power to allow car parking.

 

The Zoo has been using land off Ladies Mile as a car park for over 30 years.  There are up to 600 cars on the grass some days.  

The Zoo has had no less than seven "temporary" planning permissions!  Each time it says "this is the last time" and every time the Zoo has gone back on its promise. 

The Downs Committee in a secret meeting recently gave the Zoo another licence for 20 years for car parking.  If we do not act now car parking will go on until 2039. 

Downs for People has nothing against the Zoo and we wish it well but it is clear that the Zoo will not make proper provision for visitors by car until it is forced to do so.  Downs for People has taken advice from Counsel who tell us that the law is clear and that the Downs Act supports our view.