BRISTOL — The leader of a community choir for new mothers has described herself as “completely baffled” by a fee structure introduced by the local parks authority that she says makes it financially impossible for her group to continue using public green space, drawing attention to a wider pattern of small community organisations being priced out of public amenities by tiered commercial charging frameworks. The dispute has ignited a debate in the city about the purpose of public parks and who they are ultimately designed to serve.
Sandra Whitmore, who founded the Harbourside Mums Choir seven years ago in a Bristol park following her own experience of postnatal isolation, said she received a letter earlier this month from Avonside Parks Management informing her that her group’s weekly sessions would henceforth be classified as “organised recreational activity” and subject to a permitting fee of £180 per session. The classification, she said, placed her free-to-attend choir in the same pricing bracket as commercial fitness bootcamps and paid yoga retreats.
“We are mothers with babies and toddlers who meet in a park to sing together once a week,” Whitmore told reporters outside the park on Thursday. “There is no ticket, no profit, no stage, no amplification. We stand in a circle and we sing. How that is equivalent to a commercial enterprise in the eyes of the council, I genuinely cannot explain.” Whitmore said the fee would amount to more than £9,000 per year, a figure the volunteer-run group has no means of meeting.
Avonside Parks Management, a not-for-profit trust that took over management of the city’s parks network from the local authority three years ago under a contracted arrangement, defended its fee structure in a statement issued Wednesday. The organisation said the tiered system was introduced to generate revenue for park maintenance at a time when central government funding for public green space had been cut by nearly a third since 2019. It added that groups meeting certain social welfare criteria could apply for a fee waiver but acknowledged the application process could take up to 12 weeks to complete.
Local councillor Desmond Achterberg, who chairs the city’s parks and open spaces committee, said he had raised the issue directly with the trust after being contacted by Whitmore and several other community group leaders facing similar situations. “The intentions behind the tiered framework may have been reasonable, but the implementation has clearly not distinguished adequately between commercial users and genuine community benefit activities,” Achterberg said. “A choir for new mothers addressing postnatal wellbeing is not a fitness business. The categorisation needs to be looked at urgently.”
The Harbourside Mums Choir is not the only group affected. A disability walking group, a community gardening collective, and a free children’s drama workshop have all contacted Achterberg’s office in recent weeks with similar concerns. Representatives from two other parks trusts operating in neighbouring authorities confirmed they had introduced comparable fee structures in the past 18 months, suggesting the pattern extends beyond Bristol.
Experts in community health have weighed in on the wider implications. Dr. Felicity Crane, a researcher in social prescribing at the University of the West of England, said that groups like the mums choir provide measurable benefits that reduce downstream pressure on health and social care systems. “Singing groups for new mothers are among the most evidence-based low-cost interventions we have for postnatal depression and social isolation,” Crane said. “If fee structures push them out of public space, the cost to the NHS will far exceed any income the parks authority generates.”
Whitmore has started an online petition calling for a blanket exemption for non-commercial community health and welfare groups, which had gathered more than 4,000 signatures within 48 hours of being posted. She said she had been offered a temporary continuation of the group’s activities while the waiver application is processed, but expressed concern about what happens to similar groups that are less visible or less able to mount a public campaign.
The parks trust said it would review the classification criteria for community benefit activities and expected to publish revised guidelines before the end of the summer. In the meantime, Whitmore said the choir would continue to meet, adding that the experience had underscored for her how fragile informal community infrastructure can be when it has no formal protection or funding base.