The Living Heart for Bristol campaign (www.livingheart.org.uk) aims to create more public space and change travel behaviour by diverting through traffic away from the central areas of Bristol.

The campaign, supported by a growing list of local and national organisations, was started by Steve Melia, a Senior Lecturer at U.W.E., who has visited and researched cities across Europe which have been successful in shifting travel behaviour away from car use.

This talk will look at some of those examples from across Europe, and a few in Britain, and ask what lessons can be learned for Bristol.  It will explain the aims of the Living Heart campaign and the opportunities, starting later in February, for the public to influence the Council’s plans for central Bristol.

Steve Melia is a Senior Lecturer in Transport and Planning at the University of the West of England.  His research has focused particularly on carfree development and carfree living.  His PhD, completed in 2009, explored the Potential for Carfree Development in the UK.  During the three summers of 2006 to 2008 he cycled over 5,000 miles across seven countries visiting and studying European carfree developments and cities which have been successful in reducing car dependency.   He has advised UK Government departments on Eco-towns and the Olympic Park Legacy Company on the sustainable future development of the London Olympics site.

Steve is a founder member of Carfree UK (www.carfree.org.uk) and has worked as a freelance journalist, concentrating on transport and planning issues in recent years (see www.stevemelia.co.uk).

For more information about this lecture, please contact manager@bristolhub.org