“A lot of people have reluctantly accepted that the Zoo has gone for good, but this is simply not the case.”
Tom Jones from the Save Bristol Zoo campaign(Image: Bristol Post)
Campaigners calling for Bristol Zoo to reopen at its historic site in Clifton are finally holding a meeting to launch their alternative plan for the site – almost nine months after the original launch was controversially cancelled. The Save Bristol Zoo Gardens campaign are holding the meeting in Clifton on Wednesday evening (Jan 21), and say their alternative plan will be ‘a detailed proposal developed with industry experts for a reimagined Bristol Zoo’.
The public meeting, which the campaign leader described as ‘the event Bristol Zoo’s current leadership never wanted to happen’, will hear from former Bristol Zoo employees speaking publicly for the first time about the site’s closure and potential future. Bristol Zoo bosses said the continuing campaign to stop its plans to redevelop the Clifton site was costing jobs and delaying plans to expand the Bristol Zoo Project site on the edge of the city.
The campaign is led by local resident Tom Jones, who has raised thousands of pounds from public donations for the cause to save and reopen Bristol Zoo at its historic Clifton gardens site. Last April he announced the launch of his alternative vision with a public meeting at the Bristol Beacon, only for the concert venue to cancel the booking at short notice.
Bristol Live exclusively revealed last year that the chief executive of Bristol Zoo had contacted his counterpart at the Bristol Beacon – a publicly-owned venue – hours before the booking was cancelled, and the Beacon later tried to get Mr Jones to sign a gagging order about the scandal, before eventually agreeing to pay compensation.
That public meeting and campaign launch has now, finally, been rearranged. In the nine months, since, other local campaigners in Clifton lost their judicial review against Bristol City Council, which challenged the awarding of planning permission to redevelop the Bristol Zoo Gardens site.
That has now paved the way for the Bristol Zoological Society to sell the land to residential developers, who plan just under 200 new homes on the historic site. But Mr Jones and the Save Bristol Zoo Gardens campaign say it’s not too late, and they are hosting the public meeting this week to explain why.
(Image: Perkins & Will)
“This is the event that Bristol Zoological Society’s current leadership never wanted to happen,” he said. “I have spent three-and-a-half years campaigning to save Bristol Zoo Gardens. In that time, I have written a 100-page evidence-based report challenging the closure of Bristol Zoo.
“And with the help of industry experts, I have developed a professional alternative plan that would see the site reopened as a reimagined Bristol Zoo Gardens,” he added.
“Since April last year, I have been subjected to legal intimidation and threats from Bristol Zoological Society’s lawyers, who have tried to silence me to stop me exercising my democratic right to campaign and say things publicly about Bristol Zoological Society’s current leadership that they don’t like,” he added.
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“This work has been suppressed for too long. I understand that a lot of people have lost interest in the Bristol Zoo issue and have reluctantly accepted that the Zoo has gone for good, but this is simply not the case.
“At the very least, I would like people to know that all of this has happened, that it is still going on and that there is an alternative future. Everyone – public and media alike – deserve to hear another side of the story,” he added. The meeting is set to take place from 7pm on Wednesday, January 21, at the Bristol Improv Theatre in St Paul’s Road in Clifton.
Mr Jones said the event will present his report, which he described as ‘the culmination of thousands of hours of research and interviews with former zoo staff and international experts outlining why Bristol Zoo never needed to close and can reopen’.
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The public meeting will also see a ‘detailed proposal developed with industry experts for a reimagined Bristol Zoo’, and hear from guest speakers, including former Bristol Zoo employees, who will speak publicly for the first time about the site’s closure and potential future’.
Bristol Zoological Society announced the closure of the historic Bristol Zoo Gardens site in Clifton way back in 2020, and the site itself closed to the public as a zoo on September 3, 2022.
The Society’s plan has been to expand and improve the Bristol Zoo Project site close to junction 17 of the M5 near Cribbs Causeway on the edge of Bristol, using the proceeds from the sale of the Clifton Zoo Gardens site to a housing developer.
It wasn’t until last month, December 2025, that years of planning procedures, appeals and legal challenges by a different campaign group – Save Bristol Gardens Alliance – apparently came to an end when a judge dismissed their appeal against the council awarding planning permission.
After finally having the planning permission confirmed in early December, Society chief executive Justin Morris said the lengthy legal battles over their plans to move the zoo to the edge of Bristol had left them at ‘financial crisis point’ – although critics of the move say the zoological society has seen income drop since the closure of the Clifton site.
Bristol Zoo Gardens Aerial CGI(Image: Perkins & Will)
Mr Morris said the cost of the legal battles generally had delayed the expansion at Bristol Zoo Project. “We took the difficult decision to close Bristol Zoo Gardens as the Clifton site does not work as a modern conservation zoo. We believe zoos need to change, which is why we want to build a new zoo at Bristol Zoo Project, which is much larger, to provide excellent animal welfare in larger natural habitats.
“We want to focus on conservation and the threatened animals that most need our help. The campaigners are trying to stop this,” he added.
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“We cannot state clearly enough, the impact and financial toll of these legal challenges and campaigns. In recent years we have faced a concerted campaign by individuals who have purposefully delayed the sale of Bristol Zoo Gardens, preventing us from accessing the proceeds and harming our charity and work,” chief executive Justin Morris said.
“This means we have had to delay plans to construct new visitor infrastructure at our bigger site, Bristol Zoo Project, delaying new parking and access for cyclists and pedestrians. We have also had to cut costs dramatically and make roles redundant.
“Responding to the campaigners’ lawyers has cost our charity more than £300,000 – vital funds which could have been spent on conservation and education. This money could have paid for 35,000 disadvantaged children to visit the zoo for free as part of our Access to Nature Programme or funded six years of our field conservation work in Bristol and the West of England, protecting highly threatened native species,” he added.