Bristol 2006: The year in review

Ms Janke was told the Merchants' Quarter name was to be changed

Early in the year came news that the proposed Merchants' Quarter name for the £500m Broadmead redevelopment in Bristol was to be changed.

Some groups had complained the name was offensive because it glorified the city's slave-trading past.

Eventually it was decided the name of the great explorer John Cabot should be incorporated into the title.

In February, planning applications were submitted for a £100m scheme to replace the city's pre-fab bungalows.

Later, plans were revealed for a £140m ring road through the south of the city.

If built, the nine-mile dual carriageway will run from Hicks Gate on the A4 east of the city to the west linking up with the Long Ashton bypass.

Also this year came the news that a 20-year-old Polish care worker who had come to the city to seek work, had been murdered.

Ms Mikolajewska came to Britain in search of a better life

Karolina Mikolajewska was found dead in Clive Hayes's flat in January. She had been strangled and suffered a fractured skull.

A March inquest ruled she had been unlawfully killed by the convicted triple rapist who had been released from a life sentence.

Days after the discovery of her body, Hayes, 54, is believed to have died in a fireball in his car.

In February, a man who murdered a father, leaving his toddler son alone with the body, was jailed for life. Scott Marshall, 45, was beaten and strangled in his home in Kingsdown, Bristol in 2005.

James Long, 28, of Clifton, initially pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Marshall but changed his plea midway through the trial.

Gromit's creator Nick Park received the freedom of the city

Plans were unveiled this year, for a new £18m museum.

The Industrial Museum will be replaced, allowing more of its stock of exhibits to go on display.

In September it was announced that the Oscar-winning creators of Wallace and Gromit were to be awarded the freedom of the city.

Nick Park, Peter Lord and Dave Sproxton, of animation team Aardman all received the honour.

In August came the news that John Hogan, 32, had fallen from the balcony of a hotel in Crete with his two children.

Liam Hogan, six, died in the 50ft fall from the fourth-floor balcony. Mr Hogan remains in an Athens prison awaiting trial. His two-year-old daughter Mia survived the fall.

Plans were revealed to turn the tabernacle into a restaurant

Later in the year it was announced that developers planned to turn the Grade I listed Whitfield Tabernacle, in Kingswood, into a restaurant.

The building, one of the birthplaces of the Methodist movement in the 18th Century, was featured in the BBC's Restoration TV programme.

The year veered towards Christmas with news that visitors to Frenchay and Southmead hospitals would have to pay £2 for the cheapest parking ticket from 1 January.

North Bristol NHS Trust introduced the changes to "better reflect the amount of time patients and visitors spend at the hospitals".