![\"Communities](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_BRI_PG_091025Fahnbulleh-431.jpg\")
Communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh MP visits Hartcliffe to talk to the community about the \u00a320m Govt funding(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n“It’s over to you – Government has never done this before”Communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh MP visits Hartcliffe to talk to the community about the \u00a320m Govt funding(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n
A Government minister came to Hartcliffe today to call on everyone in the community to overcome their cynicism, and get involved in the decisions on how to spend \u00a320 million of Government investment over the next ten years<\/a>. Community leaders and councillors joined that appeal, and urged people to attend a public meeting next week.<\/p>\n The Government\u2019s new \u00a35 billion \u2018Pride in Place\u2019 scheme<\/a> will see 169 areas receive \u00a32 million every year for a decade, and 11 of those areas are in the South West, including the Bournville estate in Weston-super-Mare, Twerton in Bath<\/a>, two areas of Swindon and Hartcliffe<\/a> in South Bristol.<\/p>\n So Communities Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh came to Hartcliffe and said she was there not to tell people how the money would be spent, but to tell them they had to get organised and decide for themselves how that sort of long-term investment<\/a> would be best used in the community.<\/p>\n “Get involved. We saying ‘over to you’,” she told Bristol Live during a stop at Hartcliffe Community Centre. “This is a chance to get involved, to grip it, to decide the things that you want and fundamentally to have the money to make it happen.<\/p>\n “Government has never done this before at this scale like this. I think it’s a massive opportunity to prove the model right, because if we get it right here, we can do it in place after place after place,” she added.<\/p>\n A Pride in Place neighbourhood board is to be set up, and the minister held a round-table discussion with local councillors, organisations and community leaders to kick things off, but said everyone in Hartcliffe should get involved to make sure that the decisions aren\u2019t \u2018made for them but by them\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re bringing the community together to say: \u2018What’s the place that we want? What are the changes that we want in our area? And then we give them the resources, we give them the power, we give them the agency in order to be able to respond to that,\u201d Ms Fahnbulleh said.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople often feel that change is brought in from the outside, that projects are chosen by people outside the community,\u201d she added. \u201cAt the heart of this, is the community coming together as a neighbourhood board, as leaders in our community, the people who are the bread and butter of the community, the ones that will know all the neighbours, coming together and saying, what do we want?<\/p>\n READ MORE: Hartcliffe named as a \u00a320m ‘trailblazer’ neighbourhood in new Government project<\/a>READ MORE: Hartcliffe’s \u00a320m Government cash ‘has to create a legacy’<\/a><\/p>\n “And that conversation is really important. And then they decide, and then they make that investment, not just for one year, not for two years, but for over a ten-year period. And that, if we get it right, is an absolute game changer,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n “We’re trying to reach out to the community to ask who wants to get involved. And if we do that well, it’s not just the people who’ve always been involved, but reaching out into parts of the community for people who, candidly, they don’t believe that things will change.<\/p>\n “They’re quite cynical and sceptical about institutions and sceptical about politics. And actually, they’re the ones that we need around the table so that they can tell us: ‘This is what we want to see in this area, this is what’s working’. The scope is broad, and it is essentially economic, social assets that will improve the wellbeing of the area.<\/p>\n “So it will be anything like community buildings, some areas might decide that actually, you know, there’s a local social enterprise that they want to build up and set up, some areas might decide that they want to fix up their high streets.<\/p>\n “It’s for the community to decide. So we’ve set the scope really, really broad, because we want to create the space for people to figure out what works in our area, and then to be able to invest in that,” she added.<\/p>\n One of those championing more community involvement is local city councillor Kerry Bailes, who is Hartcliffe born-and-bred. She\u2019s been involved in a community survey that has taken a year, and got the views of more than 800 local residents, which are to be presented at a drop-in day at Merchants Academy next Saturday, October 18, between 10.45am and 4pm.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Excitement in ‘forgotten’ Bristol area as Government millions arrive<\/a>READ MORE: Bad buses and blas\u00e9 businesses blamed for Bristol teenagers not studying or working<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI really hope this will make some actual different in the community, but it has to come from the ground up,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need proper local decision making, so we need as many people as possible to get involved.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that more than 800 people took part in this survey shows how much people care about the community,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n![\"Communities](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_BRI_PG_091025Fahnbulleh-194.jpg\")
Communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh MP visits Hartcliffe to talk to the community about the \u00a320m Govt funding(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n![\"Cllr](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_TCB081025KerryBRIjpeg.jpg\")
Cllr Kerry Bailes (Lab, Hartcliffe & Withywood) has been heavily involved in a community survey on what is needed to improve Hartcliffe, which will be presented in October 2025. She is pictured here at the launch of the Pride In Place project which will decide how to invest \u00a320m of Government money in Hartcliffe over the next ten years(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n
![\"Communities](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760069121_776_0_BRI_PG_091025Fahnbulleh-431.jpg\")
Communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh MP visits Hartcliffe to talk to the community about the \u00a320m Govt funding(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n