Ashley was created as a 2-member ward in 1980.[3] The ward area was enlarged slightly in 2016, and it became a 3-member ward.[4]
Area profile
Ashley contains the neighbourhoods of Montpelier, St Andrews, St Paul's and St Werburgh's, along with parts of Baptist Mills and Stokes Croft. Its southern boundary is Bristol's inner ring road; the south-eastern boundary is the M32 motorway and its extension, Newfoundland Road; to the north-east it is Filton Bank railway; and to the west is the A38 road (Stokes Croft, Cheltenham Road and Gloucester Road); to the north, the boundary winds along residential streets including Sommerville Road, Sefton Park Road and Stoney Lane.[5]
The area is primarily older inner suburban residential neighbourhoods, with most households living in terraced housing (32.5%) or apartments (55%). Demographically, the ward is diverse. Residents are more likely to be BAME (30.2%) than the Bristol average (19.9%). The age profile of the ward has a larger proportion of young adults (20-39) than the Bristol age profile.[6]
On measures of relative deprivation, the is wide variation between areas in the ward, from St Pauls Grosvenor Road, which is in the most deprived decile of English areas, to Ashley Hill, which is in the least deprived quartile.[6][5] The area typically scores highly on indicators of quality of life, with 85.1% of residents saying that they are satisfied with their local area, compared to the Bristol average of 75.1%. The exceptions to this are crime, with 11.6% of residents satisfied with how crime is tackled locally, compared with a Bristol average of 22.3%; pollution, with 94.7% of residents feeling that air quality and traffic pollution is a problem in the ward, compared with a Bristol average of 70.1; and transport, with only 22.2% of residents satisfied with the bus service (37.5% Bristol average), and 84.7% feeling that traffic congestion is a problem (74.4% Bristol average).[6]
