ePetition details

Council response

This petition along with 2,289 verified paper petition signatures (29th August 2019) for Live, Work and Study in Bristol have been received as part of this online petition.

Democratic Services verified both online and paper petition confirming 3,634 signatures are qualifying for Live, Work, Study in Bristol meeting the threshold for a petition debate.

The petition was debated at Full Council on the 10th September 2019.

Cllr Paul Smith - Formal response to debate.

Thank you to the petitioners for bringing this important petition.

We would rather this wasn't a problem that we had to solve.

Discussions have already started with the council as it is not just about the quantity of service but also the quality of what's available.

There is no point just getting people into a building if there isn't the correct type of support services there. One of the problems we've seen as an impact of central government’s austerity is the retention of services making it harder for a joined-up approach and the challenge to get that to work.

If we go back only eight years ago the number of people sleeping on our streets each night was a handful not the more than a hundred we are now seeing now.

Earlier in September Crisis published its report giving the reason for increasing homelessness as the changes in benefits, the welfare reforms. And this is not just in Bristol but also across the country. It is worth noting there was nothing on these in the Chancellor's autumn statement. This analysis was endorsed on the same day by Andy Street, the Conservative Metro Mayor for the West Midlands also calling for the government to reverse some of their welfare reforms which have forced so many people onto our streets and into temporary accommodation.

We should applaud and acknowledge the work that is done by volunteers in this city to provide day centre services. It is worth nothing there is the Methodist day centre is open four days a week, Monday through to Thursday. On Monday it only opens at 1o’clock but all the other days at 10 in the morning and it's open till 3:30 and of course the Wild Goose café which is open for lunch times Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as well as offering dinners.

So there are lots of Bristolians out there who are volunteer for no reward making sure that there are day centre services available. Our thanks go to them.

We acknowledge there is nothing at the moment at weekends and so we've agreed to make money available to commission a Saturday and Sunday daytime service to supplement what's already available at the week.

It doesn't go all the way to what the petitioners are asking. If we can get more money from Government we’ll do that but it's a start of that journey and I applaud and thank Paul in particular for the work that he’s done in getting us this far.

Watch the debate here : https://youtu.be/uF80vXEiaRU?t=1h15m26s

A link to the meeting papers can be found here:
https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=142&MId=3767