Description: The HAA undertaken by Save Sea Mills Garden Suburb Group demonstrates the impact of a community-led area assessment which, whilst not achieving everything that it set out to do, delivered an effective evidence base for formal decision-making.

Issue: Save Sea Mills Garden Suburb Group (members of the local community rather than professional historic environment consultants) wished to persuade the local planning authority, Bristol City Council, to extend the conservation area and to extend the powers of Article 4.

Strategy: The first report by the group, The Definition and Characteristics of a Post-WW1 Garden Suburb, with particular reference to Sea Mills Garden Suburb, Bristol, demonstrated that the suburb displayed all the classic characteristics of an Unwin-inspired scheme and that it was of national interest.  A second report, Conserving Sea Mills Garden Suburb, made a case for the extension of the conservation area boundary to include the whole of the garden suburb.
Both documents were used to underpin a further report undertaken by the Conservation Studio for Bristol City Council, the Sea Mills Conservation Area Boundary Review (January 2008)

Outcome: The report’s recommendation to extend the boundary to include the whole suburb was accepted by Bristol City Council but no further work was undertaken on the Article 4 Direction.  The case demonstrates the impact of a community-led area assessment which, whilst not achieving everything that it set out to do, delivered an effective evidence base for formal decision-making.