Why we object

Our interests

We want car parking to end on Ladies Mile and everywhere else on the Downs.  Car parking spoils the beauty and peace of the Downs, is contrary to numerous local and national policies and damages the environment. The Downs are public open space for recreation and enjoyment.  Not a car park. 

Background: protective policies and history of objection

1. The Downs are in theory well protected by legislation, national planning guidance and local planning policies. Under the Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act 1861 they should be protected for the inhabitants of Bristol and surrounding areas to enjoy. The National Planning Policy Framework 2012 makes clear that the natural environment and valued landscapes should be protected and enhanced. Bristol’s Local Plan policies and its Core Strategy contain more specific protective policies. Zoo parking on the Downs contravenes all of these.

2. Bristol's amenity organisations and many individuals have long objected to Zoo car parking on the Downs.  The chief reasons for objection are set out below.

Impact on recreation

3. The site of the Zoo car park is important for a range of recreational activities. It is on several routes across the Downs popular with walkers and joggers. The car park makes these routes unusable for long periods. If walkers or joggers do venture across, cars block their way, are visually intrusive when parked, and noisy and dangerous when moving. This matters because areas for carefree, uninterrupted walking and jogging are limited by other (legitimate and welcome) activities on the Downs. For example, the adjacent area across Ladies Mile has been made a wildflower reserve, reducing access.

4. When the site is not used as a car park, it is popular for picnics and ball games. It is flat, open and away from traffic. Until 2012 the grass was attractive, if of less ecological interest than surrounding areas. It now displays significant damage, but would probably recover if parking ceased.

5. The Zoo's use of the Downs coincides with when people most want to be there: weekends from Easter to September and the school holidays. Because the public is unclear about the Zoo’s pattern of use – which is anyway unpredictable - some avoid the site for more than 60 days and for longer hours than necessary.

Impact on views

6. The site occupies a high point on the Downs, with excellent views and away from traffic. Rows

of cars are visually intrusive, from close to and, because the site is high, from far away. When not

used for parking, the Zoo puts highly coloured tape around the site, which is also visually intrusive.

7. Parking has had a visible impact on the grass, making the site much less attractive even when without cars. The Zoo’s annual vegetation monitoring reports have always reported heavy wear in some areas, such as around the entrances and the start of the footpath to the Zoo. The latest report notes that in October 2012 “more wear was evident …than in previous years, probably a result of the exceptionally wet summer…Bare soil is generally limited to the area within 15 metres of the road but patches of bare ground mark the line of the westernmost, and most heavily used, track across the area.” The site did not recover over the winter: damage was still visible in March 2013. 

Impact on grass

8. As well as the visible damage to some areas (see above), annual surveys produced for the Zoo from 2006 to 2012 show the vegetation in the car park is less lush than in neighbouring areas. Further, there is an increased frequency of species associated with disturbance and a reduced frequency of many species associated with unimproved grassland. The consultants concluded:

“Unimproved grassland is the habitat of greatest nature conservation value on the Downs and is a Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) priority habitat. The decline in these species…therefore represents a minor adverse ecological impact. However…..the area continues to be of nature conservation value and …if car parking ceased then reinstatement of the grassland could be largely successful”

Impact on visitors

9. The Zoo is not making adequate travel provision for its visitors. It has produced a succession of travel plans since 1998 but these have done nothing to reduce the need for car parking.

10. There are problems with:

• Overall parking capacity. The Zoo’s permanent car parks have a total of only 340 spaces.. Hence the importance of the 600 spaces on the Downs. At peak times all of the car parks are full: the Zoo’s web-site advises visitors to arrive early. Surveys show about a quarter of visitors parking on streets in summer even when parking on the Downs is available . There are worse problems when it is not, because the ground is too soft or because of the 60 day limit. (In 1996 the Zoo sought permission to use the site on 102 days, an indication of the number of days when other capacity was exhausted. Visitor numbers have increased since then).

• Uncertainty of provision. The availability of the Downs site is unpredictable. On some days the Ladies Mile car park cannot be used because of the state of the ground. Visitors are left to search for spaces on residential streets.

• Location of the Downs site. A steep path down to a busy main road is difficult and dangerous for families with young children, and impossible for many disabled people.
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• Impact on traffic in Bristol
  11. The Zoo’s travel surveys over the years all show a high proportion of visitors arriving by
  
  car: 80% in 1998, 91% in 2009, 88% of members and 69% of non-members in 2012. The
  Zoo’s latest travel plan does not aim to reduce this proportion.
  
  
  12. Zoo traffic has undesirable impacts on:

• streets near the Zoo. Congestion and on-street parking. There are a range of significant problems in this area, now being reviewed.

• the Downs. Congestion, parking on the roads, and unauthorised parking on the Zoo’s parking site. This is another area with multiple traffic problems under review.

• Bristol as a whole. Adds to congestion. Meanwhile the Council is trying to reduce traffic.
  
  
  
  
  Impact on sustainability
  13. A 2009 travel survey showed that 90% of the Zoo’s visitors came from outside Bristol.
  The last travel survey showed non-members travelling increasingly long distances. Visitor
  travel accounts for most of the Zoo’s significant carbon footprint and its contribution is
  increasing. The Zoo’s travel surveys show that the carbon emissions associated with visitor
  trips to the Zoo increased from 949 tonnes of C02 in 2010 to 1477 tonnes in 2012.
  
  
  14. The Zoo has made little attempt to encourage more sustainable forms of transport.
  It claims that car travel is sustainable, despite the impacts described above.