Redcliffe: The future is in our hands

If you don’t live or go to school in Redcliffe, it is unlikely you will have seen past the tarmac of its inner bypasses or the tips of the high-rise blocks which tower above them.

Granted, besides the church, there may not be a lot to pull you in for an afternoon stroll, but there is more to the area than meets the eye.

At least that’s the view of one architecture student, who has developed a new app to lure people to the area in anticipation of the launch of one the city’s most ambitious redevelopment projects ever.

In what is being touted as a huge test case for localism, this worn down and worn out post-war Bristol planning disaster could be given a radical and modern facelift which would turn it from a pair of through roads to a destination.

“I’m trying to allow people to explore Redcliffe in a way that they normally wouldn’t,” says Toby Smith, 25, developer of Redcliffe Future Way. “It’s an awareness of the area which we need to build ahead of what’s going to happen here.” 

Redcliffe Future Way is a collection of short stories whose chapters are only accessible by walking around the area and scanning QR codes with your mobile phone.

The trails take you from Wapping Wharf, alongside the Floating Harbour, to the blocks behind the church, and from the serene Quaker’s Burial Ground below the Colosseum pub to the squeezed pavements of the dated, grey bypasses of Redcliffe Way and Redcliffe Hill.

“This is an area with great potential,” Toby says, phone in hand below the tower of St Mary Redcliffe – once described by Elizabeth I as “’the fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England”.

“But currently it’s not living up to it. It would be one of the best areas in Bristol – if the development just gets the backing.”

Under draft plans drawn up by the neighbourhood development forum, in a decade’s time the area could be home to a grand European-style boulevard from Temple Meads to St Mary Redcliffe Church, acting as a “gateway” to Bristol taking visitors to the centre via a grand plaza.

The neighbourhood’s dream is an area no longer used as a vehicle through route – and not a very good one at that – but as a pleasant link for pedestrians and cyclists between north and south Bristol with a thriving public square at its heart.

The forum wants to turn the area on its head – from a 12-acre site dominated by 10 acres of roads and car parks to a place where cars and traffic are sidelined in favour of leafy public spaces, ripe for outdoor markets and cafes.

“The big idea is to reconnect north and south Redcliffe,” says Melissa Mean, a local resident who works at Knowle West Media Centre, and is one of the members of the Neighbourhood Development Forum which has just published its draft plan.

“At the moment it is sliced in half by Redcliffe Way and that not only divides north and south Redcliffe but the severance is so severe that it creates the start of north and south Bristol – and in terms of economic and social disadvantage, it all sort of starts there.”

The plans would “reclaim” Redcliffe Way, shrink it, and flip the ratio of concrete to green space while freeing up council-owned land for more housing in one of the most deprived wards in the country.

The £65 million project would see the population increase by a thousand with housing developments made up of 40 per cent family housing, 30 per cent affordable housing and at least 10 per cent custom or self-built housing.

They would be served by the new MetroBus – for which work is already underway reducing the size of Redcliffe roundabout – and cycle lanes in every direction, including running through a new “linear park” on Redcliffe Hill.

And this will all made possible through the 2012 Localism Act. Probably. The forum and Melissa see this as a chance to test the “realities” of the laws which promised to hand more planning power to local communities. Except they want to go even further.

“I think what we are doing is pushing it a little bit further, because what it allows you to do is just produce a plan, and essentially that’s just a piece of paper – it doesn’t bring you a development. We are not interested in a bit of paper, we want to see great development happening in our neighbourhood.”

And the reason she thinks it will work is because of a long process – already stretching back to the group’s formation in 2011 – of working closely with the city council (the land-owners) and the development industry.

And so, we come to the all important figures. The forum’s plans may look a little ambitious, but they are profitable too, insists Melissa. She estimates there is around £15 million to be made for any developer who is willing to commit to the 10-year build.

And it is all looking ever more likely as the forum is already in conversation with favoured developers, and the city council – including George Ferguson – are backing them.

However, standing on the steps of the church looking over the packed “temporary” car park, the lush green linear parks and grand plazas which will turn this place into a destination seem a distant dream still.

But perhaps the first steps have been taken, with visitors already arriving to take Toby’s Future Way trail around the area.

“In contemporary life we are so distracted all the time, sometimes we don’t really notice where we are,” Toby says, marching to the next QR code where the Redcliffe story continues as the drills on the roundabout almost drown him out.

“It’s a nice thing to be able to experience something in a new way.”  Especially, he adds, if that thing could be set to change beyond recognition.