Bristol’s stalled housing developments with 14,000 homes waiting to be built

There’s a housing crisis in Bristol, with something near 20,000 people on the waiting list and the number of homeless families being put up in expensive temporary accommodation often exceeding 1,500.

The last eight years have regularly seen battles over large-scale plans to build new homes as council chiefs relaxed planning rules and encouraged high-rise developments in a bid to get homes built as quickly as possible. But there are a number of major projects that have already been given planning permission by the city council but still do not have anyone living in the new homes promised by developers.

Back in January, the Green Party set their stall out on what they would do differently to tackle Bristol’s housing crisis, in time for the upcoming May elections, and a lot of the focus was on bringing empty homes back into use, converting empty shops and offices but also put pressure on developers to actually build the homes they have been given permission for.

Read next: Use empty homes and shops to solve Bristol’s housing crisis say Greens

Read more: Planners refuse bid for 221 new flats – because none will be for families

In Bristol, despite the previous Labour administration’s proclamations of success in getting new homes built, the high water mark of Marvin Rees ’ reign as mayor saw 2,563 new homes actually completed in one year – in 2021-22 – which still wasn’t higher than the number built just before the global financial crash began to take hold in 2008-09.

And granting a developer planning permission doesn’t automatically mean those desperately-needed new homes will actually get built. The latest figures show that the number of homes with planning permission but not even started has almost doubled in the time Labour was in charge since 2016.

In 2015-16, there were a total of 5,968 homes with planning permission that hadn’t been started, and that rose quickly from around 2019, reaching 10,270 this time last year.

That might be because council planners are awarding more planning permission, but doing that hasn’t necessarily translated to seeing a rise in the number of new homes built.

When the Greens mapped out their strategy and got it approved by the council earlier this year, the man who proposed that Golden Motion, Cllr Tony Dyer – who is now the leader of the city council – said getting homes actually built was a priority.

“Where the submitted Local Plan identifies the best locations for new developments to meet the city’s future housing needs, this motion looks to maximise existing opportunities to deliver homes without starting from scratch,” he said at the time.

“This includes bringing empty homes back into occupation, making positive use of redundant buildings such as empty office and retail space, and ensuring that permissions for homes that have been through the planning process are actually delivered. The council must also make sure it is delivering the highest levels of social housing from council-owned land, and that communities are involved at every step of the process,” he added.

This time last year, the figures revealed that of the 14,058 homes with planning permission that hadn’t been completed and the keys given to their new residents, in the vast majority of cases – 10,270 – work hadn’t even started. A sizeable proportion – 3,040 – construction was underway, and 748 were still waiting for all the agreements to be put in place. Of those 10,270, most are small to medium-sized developments, but there are a number of high profile cases where developers have got permission but not – yet – been able to deliver.

The Boatyard – 152 apartments

The most high profile one of all – this controversial tower block development on the banks of the River Avon on the Bath Road in Totterdown was such a flagship of Mayor Marvin Rees’ time in office that it was chosen as the location he took Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to visit during the 2021 mayoral election campaign, to showcase how he was #GettingStuffDone.

It had been given planning permission way back in June 2019, then switched to 100 per cent affordable but the developer went bust, there was a problem with the pioneering construction methods and even though the main structure of the buildings has been completed, it could be later this year before work starts up again, and could even be into 2026 before anyone finally moves in.

The BART Spices site – 221 homes

It will soon be two years since developers Donard controversially obtained planning permission to build 221 new homes in two tall tower blocks on the banks of the River Avon beneath Totterdown’s famous hilltop coloured-houses.

Work was soon completed to demolish the old spices factory on the site – the firm had moved to Avonmouth – but no building work has happened since. Changes to building regulations in the wake of the Grenfell scandal that now require two staircases for residents were given as a factor in why Donard have been asking to change the plans, dropping the number of affordable homes and family apartments. Council planning officers have been refusing the changes, leading to something of an impasse.

Shipyard – 154 homes

Another riverside development that was given planning permission but has seen no building work as yet. The site is known as the Former Payne’s Shipyard, and is one of the industrial sites at the western end of Coronation Road.

Councillors gave developers planning permission in September 2021, and the site is seen as a major gateway or ‘trigger’ sites for the Western Harbour development further along and on the other side of the river.

Like the Boatyard in Totterdown, this one was sold to a housing association, but Sovereign have struggled to get started – mainly because of the complexities of clearing the very polluted site without allowing some of the heavy metals and chemicals in the soil to end up in the river.

There has been recent movement from Sovereign since Bristol Live revealed in October last year the issues with clearing up such a polluted site – since December the developers have submitted a series of fresh applications to ask the council’s planning team to approve how they are going to get started, but in the planning backlog at City Hall, they haven’t been signed off yet.

Longmoor Village & Sporting Quarter – 635 homes

A plan for a large new housing estate on the edge of Bristol, on half the land Steve Lansdown originally proposed to build a new stadium for Bristol City back 15 years ago. He still owns that land and got permission from the councillors back in October 2022 to build 510 new homes – including around 100 affordable ones – there instead.

This application was linked by Mr Lansdown’s company to a second application for a Sporting Quarter at Ashton Gate, which will see a new convention centre and basketball arena, hotel, multi-storey car park, offices and another 125 apartments, with the developers saying the homes on the edge of Ashton Vale at Longmoor Village would help pay for the Sporting Quarter transformation.

However, the plans are in limbo, despite getting outline planning permission nearly two years ago. A neighbouring business, waste firm ETM, has begun legal action against Bristol City Council claiming the development would threaten their business as their noise levels would be too high for the people living in the new homes.

St Catherine’s Place – 180 homes

The first of the five ‘ Bedminster Green plots’ to be given planning permission – back in October 2021 – this is supposed to see the revamp of the now-closed St Catherine’s Place shopping centre on East Street and 180 new homes built around it.

But the developers never went through with it and recently admitted they were very unlikely to. Instead, after the last shop left the shopping centre, they have been converting the shops into flats.