Plans to name a new Bristol street after a cigarette brand have been scrapped after objections from health campaigners, reports the BBC.
Bristol mayor Marvin Rees has vetoed the city council’s proposals to call a development Navy Cut Road. The name relates to a product manufactured at the Imperial Group tobacco factory, which used to stand on the Bishopsworth site. Rees said the administration “will not name streets after tobacco brands”.
The council’s street naming team had originally proposed the name Crox View because the 70-home project is near the Crox Bottom wooded area. Conservative ward councillor Richard Eddy spoke out against the “ridiculous” idea, saying the view of the wooded area would be blocked by the Imperial Park shopping centre. The council then proposed four alternatives, all related to Imperial’s tobacco products, with Navy Cut Road accepted by all.
Cancer charities and activists, including Action on Smoking and Health, however, called the name “morally unacceptable,” and Rees has since stepped in to block it, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS). He stated that while naming streets after tobacco brands is “questionable,” all four suggestions – Strand Road, Passing Clouds Road, Gold Flake Road, and Navy Cut Road – would “contravene the street-naming policy due to ‘current commercial connections”.
The council said the new street name would be announced “in due course.”