Work has begun to turn the roofs of the toilets at the Bearpit into wildflower meadows.
The Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees made the announcement on his blog today (January 29), saying the native flowers will "add to the biodiversity and attract pollinators in a space dominated by concrete and busy roads".
The news come after concerns were raised at the end of last year that the Bearpit had been left to "rack and ruin" in spite a pledge to turn it into a "haven for butterflies and bees".
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Mr Rees wrote that work to create green roofs on the former toilet blocks at St James Barton roundabout began this week, adding it is expected the work will take four weeks to be completed.
This is understood to be the first set of work to have taken place at the famous sunken roundabout in the city centre since Mr Rees re-election in May last year - despite enhancements of the area being one of his election pledges.
The mayor wrote: "This is round two in the fight to make the Bearpit a safe space for everyone and an area with pollinators, wildlife and colour." Mr Rees said Bristol has ambitious goals for ecology and wildlife, but that this can be challenging in urban settings.
He added that the council had been working to bring nature and green walls to as many places as possible and that he was now able to share more about the work being done to "wild the Bearpit".
"This week we commenced a four-week programme to create green roofs on the former toilet blocks, turning them into wildflower meadows," he continued. "The native flowers will add to the biodiversity and attract pollinators, in a space dominated by concrete and busy roads.
"They will have a waterproof layer, topped with a recycled stone substrate layer and then sown with a wildflower meadow seed.
"Once it grows, it will become a mix of colourful native wildflowers and grasses, which are low maintenance, and drought tolerant to minimise water consumption and be resilient to climate change."
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The mayor said that weeds, litter and graffiti had also been removed, adding that timber walls are being re-stained and timber seat tops replaced with sustainable oak timbers.
The existing pollinator-friendly planting along the walls has been retained and pruned, he continued, and a new wildflower meadow turf will be added in the retained existing soil.
Mr Rees said there will be new native trees planted, with spring-flowering bulbs planted into the meadow areas.
One of the mayor's election pledges was to create a haven for ‘bees and butterflies’ in the Bearpit, which the council "took back control of" in 2018 following the "failed experiment" of community and alternative use begun by previous mayor George Ferguson.
The council had previously cleaned up the Bearpit, installed better security and proclaimed the work to make the area safer had been a success.
In 2020, Edible Bristol were one of the groups told they could no longer work on projects in the Bearpit, and had to leave their planting areas where they were growing food and creating wildlife-friendly areas.
Edible Bristol founder Sara Venn said last November she had seen the Bearpit deteriorate and said it had been left to become an ‘overgrown mess’ by the council, with no work taking place there at all in 2021.
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