Developers want to build 260 homes on land the former Mayor of Bristol said would never be built on
An artists’ impression of what the proposed Brislington Meadows development would look like(Image: Keepmoat)
Developers looking to build 260 new homes on perhaps the most controversial green field site in Bristol have announced that they are pressing on with their plans. Keepmoat are to publish their plans for the new homes on Brislington Meadows next week, and are holding a ‘drop-in session’ for local residents to find out more the week after.
The site already has outline planning permission for the 260 new homes, controversially awarded by the Government’s planning inspector after the owners of the land – the Government’s housing agency Homes England – appealed a council decision to turn down the plans.
But now Homes England has selected a housebuilder – Keepmoat – and they are set to submit a more detailed planning application to Bristol City Council in the next couple of months, a move which will reignite a 12-year long battle over the future of the site, which was left as green fields and hedges when Brislington and Broomhill expanded around it in post-war South Bristol.
The new plans from Keepmoat will go live on the development’s website from midday next Wednesday, July 9, and the following Monday, July 14, Keepmoat are hosting an in-person drop-in event at St Luke’s Wigwam Scout Hut on Brookside Road in Brislington between 3pm and 7pm.
Keepmoat said 30 per cent of the new 260 homes they are planning – some 78 new homes – will be classed as ‘affordable’, and the development plans are ‘centred around the site’s natural features’.
“The proposals would create 260 new homes, including 30 per cent affordable housing, in a green landscape-led neighbourhood in keeping with the local landscape,” a spokesperson for Keepmoat said.
“The plans are centred around the site’s natural features, which will enhance existing local biodiversity and create and maintain green open spaces for current and future residents in Brislington. The site, set to be called ‘Brislington Meadows’ is well located, within walking distance of local schools, shops and bus stops and will deliver a network of new pedestrian and cycle routes,” they added.
“This is a thoughtfully designed, landscape-led proposal that places nature and community at its heart. We want to create a neighbourhood that respects Brislington Meadows’ natural assets, delivers real local benefits and helps meet the City of Bristol’s clear need for new homes,” they said.
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“At Keepmoat, we’re committed to creating high quality new homes and this development, in partnership with Homes England, is responding to an acute housing crisis in Bristol where local people are finding it increasingly difficult to get on the housing ladder.
“By shaping the development around the site’s natural features and investing in public green space, infrastructure and affordable homes, we can deliver a place that grows out of the landscape rather than imposing on it. We encourage everyone to explore the proposals and tell us what matters to them,” they said.
Brislington Meadows has been a controversial site to propose housing ever since the early 2010s, when a local campaign was unsuccessful in stopping the city council – then led by first Bristol mayor George Ferguson – including it as a potential housing site in the 2014 Local Plan.
Nothing happened until early 2020 when Mayor Marvin Rees’ administration successfully persuaded Homes England to spend around £15m of taxpayers’ money to buy all the land there, both from a London-based property company and Bristol City Council, with the aim of unlocking the logjam of ownership that had stalled any development plans.
Residents of Brislington march in protest of plans to build homes on Brislington Meadows(Image: Oren Taylor)
But less than a year later, Mr Rees and Bristol’s Labour councillors and a local MP announced a drastic U-turn. From encouraging Homes England to get involved and push development, they now announced they were opposed to building on Brislington Meadows, and would try to stop Homes England’s plans.
The issue went to the Planning Inspector who gave outline permission almost two years ago now, in August 2023. Since then, Homes England has resisted all calls for the site to be dropped as a housing development site, and found a willing housebuilder in Keepmoat to take on the scheme, despite the current Green Party-led administration taking the Brislington Meadows site back out of the emerging new Local Plan.