Unpacked – Paul Smith: spending £20m and not betraying Hartcliffe

About this episode

Paul Smith discusses his role in managing a £20m investment in Hartcliffe and ensuring local community involvement.

This week we welcome back to Unpacked Paul Smith. Last time we had him on the show, in 2020, he was in the local news every week as the councillor in charge of Bristol's housing. For most of the last six years he's been out of the public spotlight, but in the last few weeks has been selected to help locals decide how to spend millions of pounds of government money in the place he grew up – Hartcliffe. While he's not lived there for more than 25 years, it’s a place he remains passionate about – enough to have written a book, Hartcliffe Betrayed , about how the neighbourhood has been failed by people in power, ever since it was planned after the Second World War. Paul, himself a former local Labour councillor for Hartcliffe, and more recently the CEO of a housing association, now finds himself trying to ensure Hartcliffe doesn’t get betrayed again. The programme he'll be leading, Pride in Place , will see £20m invested in the area over 10 years. So why is Paul the right man for the job? How will he ensure that local people get a proper say in how that money – less than it sounds – is put to work? And what would success look like? Sit down and find out, in a hard-hitting and…

People in this episode

Host: The Bristol Cable

Guest: Paul Smith

Topics covered

• local government
• community investment
• housing
• Bristol
• public engagement
• social justice

Keywords

• Hartcliffe
• Paul Smith
• community investment
• Bristol housing
• local government
• Pride in Place
• social justice
• Hartcliffe Betrayed

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Bristol Cable, Pride in Place

Books & works: Hartcliffe Betrayed

Places: Hartcliffe

More episodes of The Bristol Cable

• Unpacked – Ben Carpenter: what should youth services look like? · June 8, 2026 · 60 min
• Unpacked – Yassin Mohamud: Bristol's first Somali lord mayor · May 11, 2026 · 50 min
• Lewis Wedlock: towards a positive masculinity · April 13, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Unpacked – Kerri Matthews: what happens when parents go to prison? · March 30, 2026 · 60 min
• Unpacked – Heather Williams: trauma, community and healing in south Bristol · March 16, 2026 · 1h 3m
• Unpacked – Edson Burton: what is culture and who does it belong to? · March 2, 2026 · 1h 4m