It’s time for a new perspective, believes group
IT is said that Bristol is the most diverse area in the South West, and many of the more than 90 languages spoken across the city can be heard in Barton Hill.
The idea that there are so many tongues being spoken across the area is mind-blowing, yet instead the focus is often on how Barton Hill is one of six neighbourhoods in the city where more than one in three children are living below the breadline.
The daily lives of many include the challenges of high unemployment, low educational achievement and poor health. But despite its perception as a deprived neighbourhood with widespread poverty, the area’s community organisations are keen to change that narrative.
They want Barton Hill to become known as a place where “skills, enthusiasm and expertise” thrive.
Last year’s merger of the Barton Hill Settlement and Wellspring Centre – two organisations that made a big impact in Barton Hill – into the Wellspring Settlement has brought with it the opportunity for wider representation reflecting the wants and needs of the community.
Newly-appointed deputy chief executives, Afzal Shah and Anya Mulcahy-Bowman, share goals to unite communities living there, with a focus on inclusivity, economic growth and social value at the forefront.
Anya, who has worked at the Settlement for over 13 years, managing key projects including economic inclusion, is keen to change the negative narrative and help people in the community to realise their full potential while creating a sense of belonging.
She said: “I think I am in a much more influential position to be able to promote all the needs of people and look at the multifaceted and multi-complex issues that people are facing, because it’s not just simply looking at one aspect of somebody’s life, it’s about the people as a whole, so we have to look at the community and individual strengths being brought.
“Being able to talk with the community across all spectrums really allows us to work for the greater good of the community rather than just a particular area.”
According to Anya, generalising about groups of people results in failing to see them as individuals with individual situations.
“There are subtexts within many groups of people within a community who all have individual stories, passions, feelings and thoughts, so this role enables me to truly embrace the differences without generalising people.”
She acknowledged that the area had challenges, including overcrowding, poverty and struggles within families, heightened due to the pandemic, but believed there was still a wealth of opportunities to be utilised.
According to Anya, recent research conducted in the area on employment indicated that people felt there were no opportunities in Lawrence Hill [the electoral ward that includes Barton Hill].
However, she said: “There are a lot of challenges for people who are really keen for people’s skills, enthusiasm and expertise to come to the fore and I think often that tends to be the second narrative as we tend to jump straight into the stories of deprivation and don’t see the skills that we should be optimising on.”
It is fair to say that some people arriving in Lawrence Hill and Barton Hill will consider parts to be eyesores. Whether it’s due to spraypainted walls, discarded billboards, run-down buildings or litter on the
footpaths, the area tends to be judged for how it looks in comparison with more affluent areas.
But for Anya, comparing different areas of Bristol is not helpful.
She said: “It buys into this idea that somehow one community is more needy than the other, or more aspiring or more creative, when actually it should be about us bringing communities together.
“It is more about bringing the voices together of people who are experiencing poverty and deprivation, and championing the needs that we all have as humans and that the resources are always there to accommodate and support people so that we can be more than just the surviving nature that some of us are trapped in.
“It isn’t about differences and similarities, it is about coming together.”
It is not hard to see how significantly diverse Barton Hill is – there is a large Somali, Roma and Polish demographic, as well as south Asian communities, including those from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
This not only creates an abundance of environmental influences but it also can help to shape the community, based on its differences and similarities.
❝ We tend to jump straight into the stories of deprivation and don’t see the skills that we should be optimising on
Anya Mulcahy-Bowman
In January 2000, the Government awarded Barton Hill £50 million to be spent over a 10-year period.
A sum of £6m went towards health improvements like the Wellspring Healthy Living Centre. More than £8.5m was spent on safety and security, £2.8m on arts and sports projects, £4.7m on housing, £4.3m on education and £5m on management and administration.
As the funding came to an end in 2010, much of the community felt that even though some things had improved, others remained a challenge. Barton Hill has since slipped back to being one of the most deprived areas as resources have been cut.
“There have unfortunately been several examples in the past where a lot of money has gone into areas that have not served this community, so people haven’t benefited, so part of my organisational role is to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself,” said Anya.
“With a lot of development and regeneration going on, it’s about how we capitalise on that and bring that resource into the city and how we make sure that those opportunities work for this community.”
With the gentrification of areas
The Wellspring Settlement wants Barton Hill to be viewed not as an area of deprivation, but one where skills, enthusiasm and expertise thrive like Easton now spreading to Barton Hill, there is an added challenge for residents.
“A large percentage of this community live in socially rented accommodation – that brings up questions about what power and what autonomy people have to be able to improve their immediate environment and if they are having issues with landlords who perhaps aren’t as eager to do repairs or spend money on properties – it could be very difficult for people,” said Anya.
For many areas of Bristol, the inequalities have become very apparent during the pandemic, and Barton Hill is no exception.
“The inequalities in education, health, housing or employment in our city have really been laid bare during Covid – it really is a tale of two cities,” said Afzal.
Many in Barton Hill are either in precarious employment or don’t see employment opportunities in the area. But Afzal said the community remained resilient through adversity.
“We’ve seen during the pandemic how the community actually came together,” he said.
“As an organisation, we were one of the hubs delivering emergency services during the pandemic and one of the services that I was involved in was the distribution of food and collection of prescription medication.”
Anya said food poverty was an issue in the area and it had always been that way.
“The solution isn’t as easy as just giving people food,” she said.
By partnering with other organisations, Wellspring’s emergency food provision can be transformed into a food club membership
model, which is a service run by the community for the community.
“It’s giving them a sense of ownership,” added Anya.
She said it was a more sustainable model that also involved working through partnerships with supermarkets and managing the distribution of good-quality food waste to community centres in Barton Hill.
“What we have progressed on is using a lot of sites for growing fruit and vegetables, where members of the community are able to come in and help themselves. It enables us through community action to meet needs and enables the people to feel a part of a club or membership,” she said.
There is often a stigma attached to these initiatives, but it is simply about reducing food waste and encouraging people to play their part.
According to Anya, by framing it in a way that is focused on community response, people in the community are able to access it without judgement and even share food recipes and personal stories.
“It’s about being accessible to people who perhaps might feel apprehensive about speaking out about needing help,” she added.
Discussing the future of the organisation, Afzal said: “We will be working to ensure that we help set the long term strategic direction of the organisation. We’re looking at the sustainability of the local area, the organisation and our priorities, whether that is economic regeneration (which I will be leading on) or looking at families and youth provision.”
There have been calls for a multipurpose space serving people of different generations in Barton Hill. The organisation has recently taken over ownership of the Swan pub, which could help to fill that gap and keep it in community ownership. It is now looking to raise funding to do it up, as well as carrying out consultation exercises with young people in the area.
According to Afzal, high street recovery funding will be coming for Church Road and Stapleton Road.
And both Anya and Afzal want to ensure people have the tools, the skills and the digital footprint to build successful small businesses in the area.
Barton Hill’s ageing population will not be forgotten and the pair are keen for their voices to be heard.
The key focus is to showcase people as individuals who are not to be overlooked based on economic circumstances, and to create a thriving community with a strong sense of belonging.
We will be working to ensure that we help set the long term strategic direction of the organisation. We’re looking at the sustainability of the local area, the organisation and our priorities