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Edward Colston: Bristol traders aim to change street names

Google Colston Street signGoogle
Colston Street should be changed to its former medieval name, campaigners say

Campaigners have called for the name of slave trader Edward Colston to be removed from city centre streets in favour of their former medieval names.

Bristol traders and residents want Colston Street and Colston Avenue changed as they were named after the 17th Century merchant.

Organiser Simon Stafford-Townsend said there was "an obvious strength of feeling" and appetite for change.

The decision to change street names rests with Bristol City Council.

Labour councillor for Central Ward Kye Dudd has also backed the campaign.

Mr Dudd has handed a petition to the council's History Commission, which was set up in the wake of the toppling of the Colston statue in the summer.

Although it has no power to change street names, the council said the commission does "provide the vehicle for us to consider how city landmarks and street names reflect our understanding of the past and their meaning today".

Reuters Colston thrown into the harbourReuters
The Colston statue was toppled and thrown into Bristol harbour in the summer

More than half the number of both traders and residents in Colston Street back the proposal, with 24 signatures being gathered so far, organisers have said.

Mr Dudd supports suggestions that Colston Street is changed to Steep Street and Colston Avenue to one of its former names such as St Augustine's Bank.

The petition is now being opened up for more Bristolians to sign rather than just those in the locality.

'Symbolic act'

"Changing street names is a really surface level symbolic act and if all we do is change street names then we've failed to learn the lessons of slavery and those issues," said Mr Stafford-Townsend.

"So as long as changing street names raises awareness about our colonial past and leads to efforts to tackle that, like paying reparations for people living with the impact of enslaved African, then we are doing good."

Since the Edward Colston statue was toppled and thrown into the harbour in June the slave trader's name has been removed from a school and buildings in Bristol.

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