Bedminster and Windmill Hill is being ruined by a planning system that won't allow our democratically elected Councillors to refuse planning permission for huge towerblocks which will destroy our community and be awful to live in. Donate £20 to help our brilliant Barrister stop them.

*Update: 18th March. We’re overwhelmed by the support so far, south Bristol is just the best! Because its going so well, we’ve increased our target to £4,500 so that our barrister can do a deeper level of research & prep than we originally opted for. We didn’t think we’d be able to afford it, but so far you’re proving us wrong so let’s be ambitious and get the best legal defense possible!*

In January, Councillors from across Bristol were asked if they believed that planning permission should be granted to the proposed development of Princess Street, which includes a 23 story block of student flats. They voted it down, because it was too tall, too dense, and would cause harm to views of views of the Bristol Skyline and Totterdown Escarpment. The Council's planning team were supposed to write a new report which formalised these reasons, but instead their new report told Councillors that they COULDN'T refuse the planning permission because they were scared about the Developers taking them to court if they didn't get their own way.

This is not democracy, and we cannot allow our community to be destroyed because the Council's planning Officers are too weak to stand up to greedy developers. We agree that more housing is needed, but this is not the way to do it. We are a democratic country, and local Councillors were asked to make the decision to ensure democracy was upheld. If they think it's too big, the Council should be able to tell the Developers to go back to the drawing board without fear of being sued.

So if our civil servants are not going to stand up to Developers, we will. It is unlawful for planning decisions to be made based on the threat of legal action, so we think we have a really strong case to get the decision overturned. But to do that, we need to raise approx £4,500 to hire a Barrister to begin working on our case. The Barrister we want to use has already proved that he can successfully stand up to the Council and Developers, as he led the Broadwalk legal action and negotiated the deal which dramatically reduced the height of the buildings.

So our potential Barrister knows his stuff and he's all lined up and ready to get started. We are confident that we can turn this around - we just need the money to make it happen!

We just need 200 people to show they also believe we can do it by donating £20 each... are you with us???

If we find that we cannot raise enough to begin a legal challenge, you will be given the option to have your donation refunded.