Fiddlers Club Threatened by

Development Next door!

Bristol City Council have received an application

for 24 apartments in the adjoining building!

Click here to help us by signing the petition

Fiddlers,

A long established independent live music venue in Bristol is currently under threat from a planning application that has been submitted to Bristol City Council.

The proposal is for 24 Apartments in the adjoining building. The application has a few anomalies and states there is a warehouse next door. This is not true as it is used for customer toilets and the changing/rehearsal area for the bands. This means there is just one party wall between the venue and the proposed apartments.

This will put the venue into an unfair trading position due to noise complaints coming from the venue as well as customers leaving and bands loading out their equipment. Unless the Council reacts and helps to protect the venues, then Bristol’s world famous music scene may get squeezed so much that it will be lost. Just like over 50% of the Late night establishments in Soho London.

The venue has also been open on occasions until 6am the application states we are only open until 2am.

As a venue we are the largest in South Bristol, situated within an industrial estate and have benefited from no local residents to disturb. Fiddlers have had the most diverse genres of music in Bristol, en-richening the culture of the city. We need your help and have been put at risk like so many other venues in Bristol, The Fleece, The Thekla Jam Jar, The Surrey Vaults . Help to save us, as an important part of Bristol’s music culture, we have dedicated over 23 years to support the Bristol music scene.

We now need your support. Please sign our petition and raise your objections on the planning application on the link below.

http://planningonline.bristol.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=OZD81WDNMNA00

Thank you for your support

Daniel and Joe
Fiddlers

Previously

21 year old live music Venue & Club Fiddlers of Willway Street has been delivered an unwelcome birthday present from Bristol City Council.

James Dowling from the Highways Department of Bristol City Council, who is overseeing the Resident Parking Scheme, believes we have misunderstood the plan for the scheme that states “Days and times the scheme will be in operation”, “From 12 October 2015, the scheme will be active Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5pm”, (http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/transport-and-streets/bedminster-east-be-residents-parking-scheme) and that they only refer to the parking bays, not the plans
(http://www.bristol.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/transport_and_streets/parking/parking_restrictions/bedminster%20east.pdf) that are on display on the Bristol City Council website, which he claims refer to 24 hours.

In the 21 years from September 1994, we have operated within an industrial estate with a single yellow line on one side of the road, stating no parking 8am – 6pm Monday to Saturday. The plans have a red line on that area of the road and state on the legend ‘No waiting at any time’. We were lead to believe this was part of the parking scheme. However, they came to install the parking bays and then proceeded to change the single line to double, meaning no parking 24 hours a day, rather than within the scheme. ‘It beggars belief’ this will impact the customers, 15 staff, and the bands from parking there tour buses, and we will now have to review trading in Willway Street. There was no indication of the change of the yellow line, and the council have been very misleading in the wording used on the plan, it does not state “no waiting at any time 24 hours a day double yellow lines” as the single yellow line fell out of the scheme and therefore did not need to be changed, and takes care of the no waiting within the scheme times.

As part of the statement of the resident’s scheme, it states that businesses will benefit from the scheme as parking will be made easier for the customers, and we have been told that our customers can drive around until they find a space pushing them to park into residential areas that may lead to complaints about noise when it was all contained within the industrial estate. This is not an improvement on parking, or does it “contribute to the vision of a greener, healthier city”, and they comment “It is what it is”, despite the Council claiming on their website that they would work with businesses affected by the scheme to find a solution to any problems created.

We have had no traffic or parking issues. So what is the benefit of double yellow lines, apart from removing the use of approximately 73 spaces and trying to close the venue? We have been directly targeted as we are the only business trading in the estate that uses the on-street parking after 5.30pm. Our local councillor has said we have “been shafted”. He is sorry, he will do as much as he can, but cannot promise anything. The Mayor at this time has not commented.

Fiddlers has helped by contributing to the funding of the Bedminster Town Team improvement scheme, trying to regenerate the area and bring creative arts and entertainment, not drive it away. We have enjoyed contributing to Bristol, hosting to a huge variety of world famous acts, Robert Plant, KT Tunstall, Kate Nash, George Ezra to name a few.

In 2002 the third partner and Mother of the family who started the business along with her husband Joe Cleary and son Daniel Cleary were devastated by her death, but they worked through it doing their best to keep the business going, and then they continued trading through one of the worst recessions.

We ask residents and visitors of Bristol to please help us and petition the council to remove the double yellow lines and re-instate the single yellow line on Willway Street, helping us to keep a family business and keep music live.

We thank in advance everybody who wishes to support us during yet another hard time.

Daniel and Joe Cleary, Fiddlers Club.

Tel 0117 987 3403

Email SupportUs@fiddlers.co.uk

Fiddlers Club, Willway Street, Bristol, BS3 4BG