Campaign group Save Bristol Gardens Alliance is behind the legal challenge
An artist’s impression of the Bristol Zoo Gardens, which will become a park after the area around is developed for housing.(Image: Bristol Zoological Society/Perkins & Will)
A judicial review into the decision to redevelop the former Bristol zoo site in Clifton and build 200 new homes in its place is due to start today (Wednesday, May 7).
Campaign group Save Bristol Gardens Alliance is behind the legal challenge against Bristol City Council, and its decision to approve planning permission for a mixed-use development at the historic Clifton site back in 2023.
Bristol Zoo first opened in Clifton back in 1836, and became famous around the world.
In 2020, the Bristol Zoological Society, a charity which runs the zoo, announced it would be closing the Clifton site in 2022, with the site partially redeveloped.
The focus and the name ‘Bristol Zoo’ was effectively moved to the out-of-town location near Cribbs Causeway, now known as Bristol Zoo Project, which the society originally opened to the public in 2013.
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More than six months after that closure, in the spring of 2023, the Society was awarded planning permission to build around 200 new homes, in blocks of flats, around the edge of the gardens, which would be a publicly-accessible park, with the zoo maintaining a ‘visitor hub’ in what was the offices and entrance building of the old zoo.
Since then campaigners have been fighting to overturn the planning decision and have crowd-funded thousands of pounds to mount a legal challenge .
Back in October last year a High Court judge agreed the case could move forward to a judicial review.
The hearing is due to be held at the High Court in Bristol from today (Wednesday) and may continue into Thursday (May 8). The High Court judge is then expected to announce a decision in the following weeks.
Campaigners to save Bristol Zoo Gardens march through Bristol calling for the development of flat on the zoo site to be stopped and for the iconic zoo to be saved. PHOTO:PAUL GILLIS / Reach Plc(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
A statement on the Alliance’s Facebook page on Sunday (May 4) said: “As we face the full hearing next week, we believe we could not have prepared a stronger case.
“But whether we win or lose next week, we will continue to challenge this development and to argue for a better alternative scheme that will benefit all Bristolians.”
The Bristol Zoological Society has said it needs the millions of pounds from the sale of the site to housing developers to help fund the expansion of its Bristol Zoo Project site on the edge of Bristol, but the sale – and the development itself – has had to be put on hold because of the Judicial Review proceedings.
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