{"id":971252,"date":"2026-05-19T15:11:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/971252\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:11:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:11:24","slug":"its-your-job-to-find-reasons-to-refuse-controversial-meadows-housing-plan-officers-tell-councillors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/971252\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s your job to find reasons to refuse controversial meadows housing plan’ officers tell councillors"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘It is for members to outline reasons for refusal’\"bristolpost\"<\/p>\n

15:57, 19 May 2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

150 residents gathered at Victory Park adjacent to Brislington Meadows in February (Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach Plc)<\/p>\n

Councillors who want to refuse permission for Bristol\u2019s most controversial housing development plan are set on a collision course with their own planning officers this week.<\/p>\n

Councillors on the planning committee last month said they wanted to refuse permission for 260 new homes on the Brislington<\/a> Meadows site in South Bristol, and told their council planning officers to come back<\/a> with the proper \u2018defendable\u2019 reasons they could give.<\/p>\n

But councillors will meet again this week and not only be told they are going to have to give the plan from Keepmoat Homes permission, but that it\u2019s not for the council\u2019s officers to come up with reasons to refuse it.<\/p>\n

In a strongly-worded report from the council\u2019s planning officers, elected councillors have been told the things they were concerned about – the impact of the development on biodiversity and wildlife, and the developer\u2019s plans to mitigate that – were not something that could stop the entire plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report addresses these issues\u2026\u201d the planning officers said. \u201cWhilst other issues were discussed at the meeting, it is for members to outline reasons for refusal that they wish officers to provide advice on. For clarity, officers do not consider there to be defensible objections on other matters,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

The controversial plan has been a saga ever since the last elected Mayor Marvin Rees<\/a> persuaded the Government land agency Homes England to spend \u00a315 million to buy the land in 2020<\/a> so that it could be developed for housing, only to change his mind just before the 2021 election, telling voters it would never be built on.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Major housing development left in limbo after row over destroying wildlife habitats<\/a><\/p>\n

Having spent \u00a315m, Homes England pressed on,<\/a> and in 2023 the agency won outline planning permission on appeal, establishing the principle that the fields between Broomhill and an industrial estate in Brislington can have hundreds of homes built on them.<\/p>\n

Now, Homes England\u2019s chosen developer Keepmoat<\/a> has returned with a detailed plan for the new housing development, and councillors have twice this year deferred the application<\/a>, challenging the developers and the council officers who have been recommending it be given permission, on a number of issues around the \u2018biodiversity net gain\u2019, and the impact building homes would have on the wildlife.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mayor Marvin Rees announced plans not to develop on the contested Brislington Meadows patch in Bristol in April 2021<\/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

But the council officers have told councillors that issues around ecology are something that were dealt with when the site was originally granted permission three years ago by a Government planning inspector.<\/p>\n

Brislington Meadows is a renowned wildlife habitat – it was one of the sites in Bristol identified five years ago by Avon Wildlife Trust as an important site<\/a> when they put together the council\u2019s response to the city\u2019s \u2018ecological emergency\u2019.<\/p>\n

That prompted Marvin Rees\u2019 infamous pre-election U-turn, but Natural England, Homes England – the Government owners of the site – and then the Government\u2019s planning inspectors disagreed.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Brislington Meadows blame game as councillor tells residents ‘many mistakes were made’<\/a>READ MORE: How Bristol has changed since declaring a ‘climate emergency’<\/a><\/p>\n

Local residents and environmentalists across the city have been fighting for years with a \u2018Save Brislington Meadows\u2019 campaign, and will be out in force again at City Hall when the application is discussed on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

Last month, after it was deferred for a second time, Keepmoat Homes submitted an entirely new application to detail where and how they intend to build 260 homes on the fields.<\/p>\n

\"Artists<\/p>\n

Artists impression images showing what the Brislington Meadows proposed development will look like. Keepmoat Homes plan 260 new homes on the land in South Bristol(Image: Keepmoat)<\/p>\n

The Brislington Meadows application report this week is the latest example of an increasingly controversial back-and-forth between councillors wanting reasons to refuse planning applications and planning officers telling them they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Already this year, similar rows have developed over plans for South Bristol\u2019s tallest-ever building – a 23-storey block of student flats next to Victoria Park in Bedminster<\/a>, which councillors initially refused but were then warned that would risk losing an appeal, with a hotly-disputed claim from council planning chiefs that this would cost taxpayers \u00a31 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘It is for members to outline reasons for refusal’ 15:57, 19 May 2026 150 residents gathered at Victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":971253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8818],"tags":[10139,9420,381,3893,748,393,728,4884,6334,13072,12717,285,10003,10002,16,15],"class_list":["post-971252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bristol","tag-bedminster","tag-brislington","tag-bristol","tag-bristol-city-council","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-environment","tag-great-britain","tag-housing-crisis","tag-marvin-rees","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-property-news","tag-south-bristol","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116601887963200727","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971252","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=971252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/971253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=971252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=971252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=971252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}