SMALL STEPS TO BUILDING A BETTER COMMUNITY

I’m not what you would call a ‘career politician’ – in fact I wasn’t even been a member of a political party until 2015. I joined up because I felt I wanted to make a difference, and when the opportunity to stand to be a Councillor came up, it took a lot of soul searching before I decided to go for it. Once I did, it felt like one of the longest job-interviews in history!

I don’t really like doing self-publicity either, which makes it a hard job to do because if you don’t tell people what you are doing, everyone assumes you are doing nothing. That’s why I started to write regular updates for people when I became a Councillor, and I’ve tried to keep them up through thick and thin because I think it’s an important part of what we do, to communicate with people and let them know that we are asking questions, we are representing, even if at times it can seem like no progress is being made.

Often you end up asking yourself whether it is all worth it? – whether you are making any difference whatsoever. Which is why it’s a really good feeling when something major comes off, like our recent bid to the Restoring Your Railways fund for St Anne’s station, which we heard on Thursday had been successful. People have talked about re-opening the station for many years, but it just so happened that the opportunity to achieve some concrete progress came around just months after I was elected. Deadlines were tight, and local MP Kerry McCarthy and myself had to persuade the Council that it was worth putting resources in to work up a bid, and then get the full application sorted in just over a month. Having done that, we were told to expect an answer in July – and it finally came at the end of November!

This is only a first step on a journey to try to get St Anne’s re-opened – but it is a vital first step and without it, there would be no progress whatsoever. It’s hard to explain that you are doing something now that might not benefit people for 5-10 years – and it’s hard to explain that to yourself sometimes, given you may not be around to see the final results!

On top of the news of the St Anne’s bid, we do now seem to be making some real progress with re-opening Jubilee Pool and hopefully there will be some news to announce on that before long. In my ward, getting community use for St Anne’s House instead of letting it stand idle is also something I’m hoping we will hear about soon. And then there are the really small things like the re-painting of the road markings at the bottom of Newbridge Hill, so that people coming down Arlington Road can actually see that they need to look for the traffic lights rather than just pulling out.

It is a truism that nothing happens quickly in the Council. I’ve been asking for months now about new trees to replace the ones taken down in Nightingale Valley by the Environment Agency. I’ve been pushing for a report to be finalised on traffic calming measures for Newbridge Road since practically the day I was sworn in. Ideas like Liveable Neighbourhoods could take years to come to full fruition – but the point is, I guess, that unless you take these first steps, get conversations off the ground, ask your questions in Council and push officers behind the scenes to meet with you and discuss your ideas, nothing would ever happen.

So, when a victory comes along, no matter how small, I think it’s fair to take a minute to appreciate it for what it is, before moving on to the next intractable problem. Right now I’m dreaming of the day when I can just walk up the road and jump onto a train which whisks me off to my destination instead of lugging it down to the bus stop to wait in the rain or taking out the car.

By Tim Rippington, Labour Councillor for Brislington East

E-mail Cllr.Tim.Rippington@bristol.gov.uk