St Pauls exhibition highlights ‘horrendous’ streets littering

A team of residents is campaigning to clean up the streets in their local community.

Campaign group Better Streets said it will no longer accept or tolerate bins, waste and an “epidemic of fly tipping” on pavements in St Pauls, Bristol.

As part of the campaign, they launched an exhibition at the Vestibule, City Hall, which highlighted the impact of waste through a series of installations.

A spokesman for Bristol Waste said they “share the frustrations of residents” and “encourage the reporting of fly-tipping”.

The exhibition, called Better Streets St Pauls, ran from July 1 to 5.

It included installations such as a living room filled with fly tip waste and blown-up photographs of the area’s rubbish.

Campaign leader Tara Miran said the exhibition was built on the “passion and frustration” felt by the community.

She explained that the work on display was “a call to action” to address the “massive divide” faced by residents in different areas of the city.

Mrs Miran said: “I walk to Clifton every day and I can feel the change in me when I leave the area.

“I feel free, I just feel less stressed because your environment affects you like that – that shows the intensity of the problem.”

She described the problem as “broken window syndrome” – a metaphor for the messiness of neighborhoods.

She added: “Everybody’s used to it (litter) … people come flying.

“They know St Pauls is the place to go because you’re going to get away with it.”

Emma Reynolds, the artist and photographer behind the exhibition, has lived in the area for around 15 years and described the litter as “really bad”.

Explaining the motivation behind the artwork on display, she said: “We bring in a human element. We show that this is our home, we are human and this is our background.

“We brought in the words of the residents, interviewed them and took screenshots of the Facebook chats to show what people were feeling and put that together with the pictures.”

Dan Bourton, who works for the Bristol Disability Equality Forum in St Pauls, said it was generally “a nice area”.

But he added: “The streets are terrible.”

He described the exhibition as “fantastic” and pointed to the success of a previous campaign led by Ms Miran – Save the St Paul’s Dentist – as proof that “it can bring attention to the area”.

In a bid to tackle waste issues, the group invited Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste employees to engage with them.

A Bristol Waste spokesman said: “We share residents’ frustrations at this behaviour, which is both illegal and anti-social and is having such an impact on our city, neighborhoods and communities.

“We work with local communities to manage waste and recycling and keep Bristol clean and safe.”

The spokesman warned that anyone caught fly-tipping could be charged with an offense and fined up to £50,000. They also encouraged people to report.