Kingsdown Conservation Group

We’ve been asked to publicise the following.  There are now only a few days left to respond:

https://bristol.citizenspace.com/growth-regeneration/western-harbour/

Two of the three proposals will do irreparable damage to the setting of the suspension bridge, by putting a four-lane bridge across the Avon.  The other is flawed in other ways.  As summarised by Dr Suzanne Audrey:

The three ‘chosen’ options all have serious implications including: environmental harm to the river and riverbank, community severance, harm to historic assets and iconic views of Brunel’s Suspension Bridge, changing the cycle route from a rural to a heavily-trafficked area, increased heavy traffic (a new 4-lane road) alongside the Nova Scotia and Pump House pubs, and increased air pollution. Local residents and businesses (including Riverside Garden Centre) are also fearful about the future of their homes and premises. Dr Suzanne Audrey

There is also a petition to get the council to release other options:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/publish-full-feasibility-report-on-cumberland-basin-road-options

The Christchurch Quarterjacks need replacing and Bristol Museums and Gallery have an Appeal to raise £125,000. See http://www.christchurchquarterjacks.org/

It was very satisfying to see that our AGM in April at St James’ Priory was very well attended. The audience might have been drawn down the hill by our local speaker but they then heard that we had had a busy year in and around Kingsdown. Our chairman, David Winter summed-up for us the myriad of building applications we have commented upon. Amongst these have been several applications by both the Hospital and the University which impact greatly upon Kingsdown.

There followed a discussion about the state of the defunct launderette on the Cotham Road South / Portland Street and the application by the owner to turn it into flats. His application has been turned down twice and lost in appeal.  It’s such a pity this important corner site on our local run of shops looks so derelict. New ideas are needed on how to get it back into use.

Also discussed was the possibility of losing the ‘Hare on the Hill’ if it were ever to be changed into accommodation  It was suggested that there was a case for it being listed as an ‘Asset of Community Value’.

And St Michael’s Church has a new owner with possible new plans for making it into ’events space’. 

It was with huge sadness that in March we lost one of our long standing residents, Ben Hamilton Baillie. Once a chair of the KCG, a leading figure at Sustrans and an influential promoter for ‘Shared Space, he will be sorely missed.

Then we had an excellent talk on ‘Bristol and the Civil War’ by Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at University of Bristol. We will never look at Fremantle Square again without thinking of the 300 soldiers ( slaughtered in the attack by Cromwell on Prior’s Hill Fort)  buried beneath the Square.

This is our response to the proposed UHB multi-storey carpark. We hope that as many residents as possible write in and express their opinion on this planning application.  This is a link to the relevant on line comment page.

https://planningonline.bristol.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=PFCEQKDN06900

18/04977/P  Outline application to block up Eugene Street, to demolish all 36 purpose-built flats on Eugene Street, and to demolish the existing serviceable c.150 bay multi-storey car park, in order to build an 8-storey 820 bay multi-storey car park on the cleared area of ground between Eugene Street and Montague Hill South

Kingsdown Conservation Group is aware of the difficulties faced by those who need easy access to the wide range of buildings administered by UHB. However, it regards the proposed solution as obsolete.

Times have changed. Local roads are highly congested and pollution levels are excessive. Smarter solutions must be found and the city is concentrating on developing new ways for people to travel. The proposed multi-storey car park would conflict with the joint transport plan. In the context of its agenda to keep expanding clinical provision annually by between four and five per cent, the Trust should integrate its thinking and decision making with existing parking provision and emerging modes of transport. The Trust cannot remain trapped on a treadmill of attempting to accommodate an ever increasing numbers of patients’ cars.

In addition to the above aspect of the proposals, the Group is shocked to see that the brief has remained effectively unchanged since the idea was floated several years ago. The idea of demolishing 36 fundamentally sound, purpose-built flats is repugnant. The idea of demolishing a functioning c.160 bay multi-storey car park, in order to build another multi-storey car park alongside, is wholly offensive. All the proposed demolition is unsustainable.

The Planning Statement raises The Bristol Core Strategy, as if to imply accordance, yet the proposals conflict with it, including elements of BCS5, BCS10, BCS15, BCS20, BCS21 and BCS22.

The proposal’s conceptual approach of wholesale demolition, clearance and re-building would repeat town planning errors made across the nation and notoriously on the slopes of Kingsdown, when Bristol’s most important early Georgian suburb was ransacked in the 1950s and 60s. The mass, height and length of the multi-storey car park would assault Kingsdown’s surviving historic townscape by being built to an entirely different scale and, unforgivably, at a low level of the escarpment. Views in and out of the Kingsdown Conservation Area would be obstructed.

Both the Grade II Listed Montague Court and the Locally Listed King Edward VII Memorial Hospital building are immediately adjacent to the proposed eight-storey car park and the setting of other heritage assets that are in The Stokes Croft Conservation Area and The St James’s Parade Conservation Area would be substantially harmed by the brash new building.

The Group profoundly objects to the proposals and intends to lodge further comment elaborating on certain aspects.