![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0_View-of-new-public-open-space-and-apartments-along-central-green-spine.jpg\")
View of the new public open space and apartments<\/p>\nOn top of the 34,650 already proposedView of the new public open space and apartments<\/p>\n
Bristol will have to find sites for 5,265 more homes than the tens of thousands already pencilled in over the next 15 years, a Government-appointed inspector has told city planners in a damning review of its Local Plan.<\/p>\n
The review means Bristol City Council<\/a> will have to go back to the drawing board and find even more places to build new homes, all within the city and county boundary, or ultimately face uncontrolled development on controversial sites as house-builders will be able to show city leaders have failed to plan its growth in the years to come.<\/p>\n The Local Plan has been drawn up for the past three years by councillors and officers initially under the previous Labour<\/a> mayor administration, and now since May 2024 by the Green-led strategic planning committee.<\/p>\n The plan indicates where new homes should be built – both on \u2018brownfield\u2019 industrial sites in places like Bedminster<\/a>, St Philips, Fishponds and St Judes – and also on the last remaining bits of Green Belt land within Bristol\u2019s boundaries. But now even the land which council planners said should not be built on could be under threat, because three Government planning inspectors asked to review Bristol\u2019s plan have said it does not go far enough.<\/p>\n At the start of 2025, City Hall sent its proposed Local Plan to the Government\u2019s Planning Inspectorate to be given approval, after a public inquiry<\/a> which saw developers call for more new homes to be included<\/a>. And now, the experts asked by the Government to review it said there were \u2018significant issues\u2019 with it.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Inquiry into plans for 35k homes for Bristol starts today<\/a>READ MORE: Developers slam Bristol City Council\u2019s plan for 35,000 homes as marathon inquiry begins<\/a><\/p>\n The Government initially gave Bristol a target of finding places to build more than 39,000 new homes, but councillors and council officers said they could only find places to build 34,650<\/a> by the year 2040.<\/p>\n The trio of inspectors said they acknowledge Bristol is running out of space within its boundaries to build that many, but it still wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n \u201cWe acknowledge that there is insufficient capacity to meet the council\u2019s objectively assessed housing need, as calculated by the standard method,\u201d the three inspectors said. \u201cNevertheless, we do not consider the figure of 34,650 dwellings over the Plan period to be positively prepared or justified.<\/p>\n From left: Tim Rippington (cllr for Brislington East), Kerry McCarthy (MP for Bristol East), Mayor Marvin Rees and Katja Hornchen (candidate for Brislington East).(Image: James Beck\/BristolLive)<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the significant shortfall in meeting overall needs, and the current lack of agreement between Bristol and any neighbouring authorities to provide assistance, we consider it imperative that the council seeks to maximise housing delivery.<\/p>\n \u201cInherent uncertainties in housing delivery in the longer period do not justify setting a housing requirement substantially below the overall housing capacity figure identified at submission. The evidence submitted since the end of the hearing sessions has not persuaded us that a lower figure is justified,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore, the council should draft MMs which set the housing requirement to be the 39,915 dwellings\u2019 capacity that was identified at submission,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Developers say Bristol should build 60,000 homes and remove cap on student flats<\/a>READ MORE: Plans for new East Bristol neighbourhood with shops, 1,600 homes and wildlife areas<\/a><\/p>\n The impact won\u2019t be immediate, however. The inspectors acknowledge that Bristol has enough sites right now to be able to meet a five-year-supply of new homes, so won\u2019t need to find any new sites straight away, but in the long term, council chiefs will have to find places for another 5,265 new homes.<\/p>\n The three inspectors also ordered the council to \u2018delete\u2019 its proposed policy on making sure developers provide infrastructure and community facilities, saying it was \u2018not clear, unambiguous\u2019, and said it wouldn\u2019t work and was not needed.<\/p>\n The inspectors also dealt a blow to those campaigning for more affordable homes to be included in every development. Councillors had written in a requirement of 35 per cent of all new homes to be classed as \u2018affordable\u2019, but the three Government inspectors said that would not be viable, and the way the council was going to try to make developers provide that was not clear.<\/p>\n The three inspectors were also damning about the council\u2019s proposal to encourage more student housing, but also try to cap the levels of student housing built in particular areas. They said that \u2018conflicted\u2019 with itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On top of the 34,650 already proposedView of the new public open space and apartments Bristol will have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[10139,381,3893,748,393,12716,4884,6334,528,12717,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-669257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bedminster","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-bristol-city-council","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-fishponds","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-housing-crisis","16":"tag-labour-party","17":"tag-planning","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115826291229779087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3_JB_BRI_160421MarvinNature-04JPG.jpg\")
Mayor Marvin Rees announced plans not to develop on the contested Brislington Meadows patch in Bristol in April 2021<\/p>\n