Temporary traffic lights and delays will be a reality of life in the city for a while yet
A common sight in Bristol in 2026(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
Bristol is in the middle of another year when there are roadworks on ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’.
That is by design- Bristol City Council is undertaking a number of projects that it hopes will transform travel throughout the city and get people out of their cars and journeying instead by using the bus, cycling or walking.
Programmes are underway to transform the Portway and the length of the number 2 bus route, stretching from Henbury all the way down to Stockwood. Both of those projects are set to last well into 2027.
The council also wants to massively overhaul the way travel is made through the city centre, making it easier and safer to make journeys on foot, by bicycle or using public transport in anticipation of the population of central Bristol growing significantly over the coming decade due to the huge number of new developments planned for the area.
The city centre programme is split into five separate projects; Temple Way, Redcliffe Way, Bedminster Bridges, Broadmead and Bond Street.
Technically, only two of those are fully guaranteed to be going ahead – Temple Way and Redcliffe Way – with work having already started on the former. The rest are subject to approval from the West of England Combined Authority.
The projects are being funded through a mechanism called the City Regional Sustainable Transport Settlement, a £540m pot of money allocated to new projects from the central government which is administered by WECA. CRSTS funding can not be used to pay for everyday council services such as bin collection and road maintenance, including fixing potholes.
Essentially, the council presents business cases for projects to WECA, which then approves or rejects the use of CRSTS money to fund them. This is often a formality but mayor Helen Godwin has shown her willingness to vote down projects that have already been greenlit by Bristol City Council when she rejected the use of CRSTS funding for a project to largely ban personal motor vehicles from Park Street.
The council is ‘preparing business cases’ for the three projects yet to secure WECA approval; the authority is planning to submit the case for Bedminster Bridges first, in summer, followed by Bond Street in autumn. The council did not confirm when the case for Broadmead was due to be submitted.
If the Bedminster Bridges project is granted approval, work will start on that scheme in the ‘late autumn’, in conjunction with the already-approved Redcliffe Way project. Construction on the Bond Street project would begin either near the end of this year or at the start of 2027.
Although BCC says it expects a decision from WECA to take about one to two months after the submission of business cases, the Park Street verdict took considerably longer than that. According to a council spokesperson, no single city centre project is more urgent than the others; they are all considered essential to upgrading travel through the middle of Bristol.
If no funding is secured from WECA, the projects are not necessarily dead but it is difficult to know where funding would come from or if the council would approve using its own funds.
In January, metro mayor Helen Godwin rejected the idea of using CRSTS funding to pay for the plans to largely pedestrianise Park Street. The Green council leadership then had to go back to the transport committee to try to secure alternative funding for the scheme, through sources such as income from the Clean Air Zone.
Three Labour councillors, one Conservative and a Liberal Democrat outvoted the four Green councillors to scupper the plans for Park Street.
Bristol’s Green council leader Tony Dyer recently started his term as Helen Godwin’s deputy at WECA – which may help to prevent the outstanding City Centre projects going the same way as Park Street.
A substantial amount of money has already been committed to the projects. Preliminary works on the Bedminster Bridges project have already cost over £60,000, with the full project technically not even guaranteed to take place. Meanwhile, WECA has approved £2.15m for Temple Way and £5.38m for Redcliffe Way.
A WECA spokesperson said, “The authority assesses bids for funding on an ongoing basis, with timelines varying depending on the size and complexity of proposed projects.”