About Kingsdown

 

The Kingsdown Conservation Group tries to protect, enhance and stimulate public interest in the Kingsdown area of Bristol. There are over 204 listed buildings in the area and there were a lot more, but in the 1960s, as the Civic Society put it, “The destruction of Bristol’s most important Georgian suburb was perhaps the worst of all the crimes committed in Bristol in the name of progress since the war.”

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Our website offers community discussions on many diverse topics. Here is the latest news post:

  • KCG’s response to the City Centre’s Tall Buildings

    Debenhams Site Application – 23/04490/F (Tower to the left)

    Premier Inn Application – 23/02827/F (Two towers to the right)

    The Kingsdown Conservation Group has objected to both applications and would encourage individuals to do the same.

    These applications are the first of an intended number of tall buildings encircling Broadmead.

    Grounds for objection include:
    Unsustainable design, particularly in light of the climate crisis
    Tall buildings embody far more embodied carbon that medium height buildings of the same size.
    The principle that existing buildings should be refurbished or repurposed rather than demolished

    Scale, height and bulk of the buildings
    Failure to respond to context, inhuman environment at ground level and overshadowing of nearby buildings

    Significant impact on the setting of historic buildings
    Grade 1 St James Priory, The New Rooms, Portland Square and other listed buildings in the centre of the city

    Impact on Conservation Areas (City and Queen Square, Kingsdown, St James Parade, Portland Square and Stokes Croft 

    Historic views across the city are embedded in Conservation Area Character Appraisals as being important and should be protected. Tall buildings will destroy these views and diminish historic buildings in the skyline.

    Over intense development and poor external provision

    Very high density housing, single aspect flats contrary to planning policy (Debenhams site) and inadequate external provision for residents

    Cumulative impact

    The negative effect on the city caused by cumulative tower blocks

    Housing targets

    These objections are not anti-housing but simply against the built form proposed. Other solutions, as for instance at Finzal’s Reach and early phases of Wapping Wharf, allow high density housing at a human scale that make a positive contribution to the city.

 Posted by on March 31, 2006