Funded through the GW4 Crucible programme, the Community resilience, place and wellbeing seed project has been conducting a scoping study of community resilience and wellbeing in Bristol, in collaboration with Bristol City Council.
The project team, including academics from Cardiff, Bristol and Exeter Universities, has been speaking with eighteen local residents and community-based workers in Hartcliffe, Hillfields and Knowle West, to understand the challenges and opportunities specific to each area, walking around the local areas and mapping community assets together.
To share initial findings from these walking tours, a workshop was held on Tuesday 21st May at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol to bring together Bristol City Council community development workers, community activists, local residents, public health professionals, voluntary sector workers, and interdisciplinary academics from across the GW4 universities.
A total of twenty-six people attended the packed workshop, where the project team shared their findings from the walking tours and asked workshop participants including local residents for feedback. Attendees then worked together in small groups, talking about key issues that came out of the walking tours as well as considering how they might build on community assets to support local communities.
Discussion topics included:
- Cultural diversity, connections and networks
- Under-used buildings and green spaces
- How to create more spaces and opportunities for people to set up and build community action
- How to provide more information and access to community activities, health and wellbeing resources
- Building the local economy
Feedback from workshop participants included that it was really informative, with participants keen to further develop opportunities that are emerging from this work. Moving forward, the GW4 project team will collate together all the ideas and feedback from the workshop and walking tours, and work with workshop participants and Bristol City Council to identify and put in place further action.
