Victoria Park Lodge Survey Results

12th august 2026

This year, Windmill Hill City Farm began work on a rejuvenation project for Victoria Park. Before pushing forward with our plans, we put out a survey, asking our community for their opinions about the park's current facilities and what they would like to see in the future plans. In this blog, we share the results of that survey.

Thanks to the more than 1000 people who took time to share their thoughts about the future of Victoria Park Lodge. We’ve heard what you’ve said and have updated our plans to try to meet your desires and mitigate your concerns.

Overall, there is widespread support for the draft plans, in particular providing toilets, improving accessibility and creating a permanent café in the park. There is a tangible sense of excitement about seeing this historic building brought back into use and many people (498) offered help with taking the project forward.

Three-quarters of respondents expressed no concern at all about the development. Of those that did, affordability of the cafe and ongoing financial sustainability of the project were the two highest concerns.

see the full report here

What’s in the updated plans

More than 50% of respondents said that decent, clean toilets are the one thing that would improve the park for them. Clearly the plans have toilets central to the design and the business plan has the upkeep and cleaning of them embedded in its workings.

The café was the next most wanted with 27% saying it would improve their park experience. Quite a few people said how much they like Feral Folk (the current coffee van on site), so you’ll be glad to hear we’re working with them to bring forward the café plans.

Lighting and safety in the park was high on your list of improvements. We’re aiming for a lighting scheme that will provide greater security around the building, make the landscaping an attractive feature in the darker months, and be mindful of the nocturnal wildlife and dark sky for star-gazing.

The wildlife friendly nature of the planting responds to those who want to boost our animal friends and includes a pond that will be both a habitat and a water source for many critters. The gardens are designed to encourage local people to be part of their maintenance and to make sure they’re as accessible as possible.

As a first draft we were pleased to find that 90% of people thought positively of the ground floor and landscaping. For the first floor 70% were approving with a significant minority (19%) not sure what we were proposing. To clarify, we are proposing a privately rented flat on the first floor. This ties in with the original residential use of the building (as a park keeper’s lodge) and, crucially, is the best way to bring a consist

Addressing Concerns

835 people (80% of respondents) had no concerns about the development.

The most frequent concern (70 people) was about inclusivity and affordability of the future offer at the lodge.

People expressed concern that redevelopment would commercialise the lodge and diminish the community feel of it. We can only reassure those people that this is a project led by two community organisations rooted for many years in this community and, if it succeeds, will have a community lease from Bristol City Council with conditions that it is for community use.

53 people were worried about the funding, viability, management or operation. This covered both a fear that the project wouldn’t happen (lack of capital funds) and ongoing sustainability of the operation. There is a risk that sufficient funds will not be raised to make the project happen. We believe there to be a reasonable prospect of success. The business planning is taking a realistic approach to ongoing financial sustainability, building in flexibility where it can and aiming to secure a balance of income generation (residential flat), with community facilities (toilets, activity room, outdoor space).

46 people were concerned about the food offer and the impact on the existing coffee van. This manifested as either as a general dislike of big chain companies, or positive feeling for the Feral Folk van currently on the pitch. We have already engaged Feral Folk who are keen to take on running the café and see it as a positive next step in the development of their business.

What comes next...

This is quite a complex project that is not certain to succeed. We have four main strands of activity to advance.

1. Design – thanks to your feedback we now have a final outline plan that we can get costed and take to planning. If all goes well that should get approval around the end of November 26.

2. Though considering operations may seem a way off, some elements will influence the design and capital costs (eg how power hungry the kitchen is). This is also about business planning to make sure if we get it ‘off the ground’ we can keep it ‘in the air’.

3. The city council are going through the process to pave the way for a Community Asset Transfer process later in the year. We have no influence on that time frame.

4. Once we have the cost estimate we can develop a capital fundraising approach. While this is never easy, there are some funds opening up that might be suitable to cover most of it. We might need a Crowdfunder for the icing on the cake. This work will take us into the spring of 2027.

If all goes well (fingers crossed!) then we could hope to see an opening in the late summer of 2027. While you may not see much changing on the surface, we’ll be busy in the background.

Thanks for your support and interest in the project. To keep up to date with this project and our other current projects join our newsletter.

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