What's your view of Broad Meadow?

Thank you both, Brenda and Dave, very interesting to hear your views and experiences and always good to question. I like the idea of adding more ozone to the city (though I'm mostly homebound) and taking a, long term view, also encouraging outside arts events in that area. I found some local news articles that speak of plans for the furniture to be reused and recycled, which is heartening...

I have been involved in recent months on the Movement Focus Group that Broad Meadow come under.

I can certainly see what you are saying Brenda. I can agree also in part! My thoughts at the time I joined in was is this money being well spent! I remember many years ago when we lived at Northway there was a big landscaping scheme that was going ahead and many locals thought maybe money could be used elsewhere on better issues. I don't know if the system changed since then but know we were told that's a different budget, so we could afford to do the landscaping and things that had been planned. Granted it did indeed look very nice when completed.

For now I am open minded I guess on whether this is good spending of money. My thought was what is there down there to take us locals to that part of the city. Seems a lot of the shops in Cornmarket closed and some not being replaced with anything else. Of course the loss of Debenhams which am sure was a customer attraction was down there so would pull folk along. I know I am thinking what is there to take me down that end of town now!

I was in town last week with my son and like I often do plan my route to make it minimal walking these days for me as the legs not carrying me so well. I had said to my son, shall we go down there or not and agreed for us was nothing that we could think of to take us there. So dealt with what we had to, then had a coffee in Queens Street before managing to find the bus stop back home. I know for me I had enough by then and was grateful to get on the bus and get home to rest.

I think this is a temporary thing and a trial and if successful then may become more of a feature which may well help pull much needed business to that end of the city and by creating a tranquil inner city area it might get well used and help businesses on what has been a tough time for many this last 18 months.

I am keen to see the long range view of this and whether a hit or not and maybe when time allows as we get more tourists in Oxford and language students it may well be a boon bringing in much needed funds for businesses down that way. Personally, I can't see it pulling me that end of town as I seem to have no need to visit anything that is down that way. Better weather which we hopefully see may make the area worthwhile and well used by visitors as well as locals in the long term. I know a few people who share the same view there is nothing that end to take me down there but in the scheme of things I am guessing we are a minority.

I also guess can all link in to the wanting to make Oxford an ozone friendly area, pushing traffic out the city and promoting cycling and them escooters and such like. Don't get me started on scooters though!!

As always, I guess time is going to tell us on this. Yes is nice to see something different in the inner city but whether costs and usage balance out we shall see!

Olga I have only seen photos of it on Facebook (Oxford City Council. Oxford Mail and Oxford Info sites) but there is an image of it on the Oxford City Council website if you are not on Facebook.

Sounds interesting and a good question. I've seen similar done effectively and beautifully in other cities., I'm in favour of bringing more nature into urban spaces, both for people and pollinators. And if cities are greener, I feel how that's an attractor both for locals and visitors and brings fresh balance, which in turn perhaps helps stimulate well-being, community, nature as well as the economy. This is also a message of greater recognition and commitment-to nature, encouraging a sense of wonder and appreciation.

I can imagine that something like this is also easier to maintain than, say, more traditional hanging baskets. Do we have a photo by chance (as myself, still homebound, so haven't seen it, yet would love to and feel curious to see!