Bristol community convinces council but now needs to get developers on board

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After more than seven years of pushing, a Bristol community group has finally forced the city council to look into redeveloping what they believe is the most important site in city. But they shouldn't celebrate too soon.

• Author: Richard Vaughan.

Redcliffe Futures, a group of 30 stakeholders co-founded by Bristol architect Keith Hallett of Hallett Pollard Hillier Architects, has hailed Bristol City Council's (BCC's) decision to redevelop Redcliffe Way – a 2km-long, four-lane dual carriageway that runs through the centre of the city – as a triumph of community vigilance.

'It's a gaping hole in the city, an arsehole of a place, thanks to post-war highway planning,' says Hallett. 'But it is the most important part of the city centre.'

The 4.5ha site links Temple Mead station with the historic core of Bristol. In the 1950s a dual carriageway was built right through the site, cutting off major assets to the city, such as the 12th-century St Mary Redcliffe Church.

'We want to create a density on a similar scale of Paternoster Square or Butler's Wharf in London,' says Hallett. 'We want to capture that kind of character, with the roads tightened up and the buildings crammed up against each other, the way we all love.'

But Katherine Clarke of muf, which is currently collaborating with Alec French Architects on Redcliffe Wharf, a mixed-use scheme adjacent to Redcliffe Way, believes that although the idea sounds perfect in theory, in reality such community projects are difficult to pull off.

'It's an amazing bit of the city,' says Clarke. 'But you will need development on a substantial scale to raise enough money to deliver the scheme.'

According to Clarke, this raises the question of whether the developers will produce the quality that will knit into the historic fabric. Ultimately, she says, this will fall to the council's planning department and 'that is where tensions can arise'.

Clarke says: 'Sometimes the masterplan for schemes like this can be done too far from reality, or without the full knowledge of the finances. And more often than not, when there is a group that has no financial or political input, just a moral input, they can swiftly find themselves sidelined.'

But Hallett remains undeterred. He believes that the masterplan he and his fellow stakeholders have produced has the support of David Bishop, the council's director of planning, transport and sustainable development.

'Community involvement has to be part of all planning policy,' says Hallett. 'We have produced a model that reaches right into the bowels of the community. Developers will have to buy into the masterplan – they will have to fall into line.'

Bishop refused to talk to the AJ, instead issuing a statement underlining his commitment to 'transforming' Redcliffe Way from a 'road-based "urban canyon" to a quality townscape'.

He adds: 'Developers who are attracted to schemes within the [Redcliffe Way] area must demonstrate that they have already signed up to the challenge before they submit proposals, which would certainly be measured against the supplementary guidance as part of the planning process.'

Mark Osborne, a director at Alec French Architects, believes the council has been holding back the redevelopment of the area, and says his own Redcliffe Wharf scheme has taken two years just to be submitted for planning.

'The problem is the property services department,' he says. 'They just seem to want lots of car parks. They need to bring private developers in, and the planning department needs to be more proactive. The council has been too slow.'

Osborne says the site is worthy of an international competition, and that the council should be employing a design competition to 'push these things through'.

But Bristol-based former RIBA president, George Ferguson, who supports the redevelopment of the site, says he is 'wary' of an international competition.

'It's not a place for Rem Koolhaas,' says Ferguson. 'It would be much better to work with a good sound architect. It doesn't need a gimmicky international competition. It already has its icons.'

The Redcliffe Futures masterplan for Redcliffe Way

St Mary Redcliffe Church as it is today

St Mary Redcliffe Church in the 1930s

The proposals for Redcliffe Wharf by Alec French Architects and muf