28-storey residential tower could be built overlooking Castle Park

Forty per cent of the current floorspace of the Galleries is car parking. If the current proposals for the site become a reality, this will be reduced to just one per cent – with up to 200 car parking spaces alongside 1,700 new bike spaces and a new public cycle hub.

The owners of the Galleries stress that it will remain as a shopping centre for the next two years.

But after that, it is set to be completely transformed, with more details now revealed about the proposals, including a 28-storey residential tower overlooking Castle Park.

View of proposed Galleries Street towards Castle Park – image: Deeley Freed

Developers Deeley Freed – whose director David Freed is currently the leader of the Merchant Venturers – hope that building high “can contribute to Bristol’s housing and affordable targets, take pressure of greener, more car reliant sites, support Bristol Shopping Quarter with greater footfall; and have a smaller footprint meaning more space for public realm”.

The proposed scheme will provide:

• 450 homes – of which at least 20 per cent will be affordable
• 32,500 sq m of office space with capacity for more than 2,800 workers
• up to 800 student beds
• a 300-room hotel/aparthotel
• 5,200 sq m of shops, cafes, restaurants, health services and community facilities

35% of the five-acre site is set to be public realm, with new links and opening up the area to Castle Park – image: Deeley Freed

Speaking on the ground floor of the Galleries as the consultation process began, architect Steve Taylor told Bristol24/7 that “it has been a real privilege to work on such an important and significant part of Bristol, and to be part of its reinvention”.

One of the numbers of challenges is that the River Frome flows underground beneath the site, directly following the route of Fairfax Street.

In Taylor’s words, the Galleries were designed for “mono use”: shopping and car parking, with the new development due to keep the basement and the sub-structure and its captured carbon, and building a completely new scheme above.

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Read more: The hidden river flowing underneath Bristol’s city centre

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So how does Taylor justify the 28-storey tower that will overlook Castle Park, just yards away from the ruins of Bristol Castle’s once formidable keep?

“We absolutely appreciate that the subject of height is a sensitive issue for Bristol and is a live debate at the moment,” said Taylor.

“I think the planning policies and other work that the local authority is doing are in the right direction of travel.

“Where we probably are is that the investment that is coming into Bristol – which is a really exciting and positive thing for the city – is probably one step ahead of a more citywide review or idea around where height is needed.”

Looking into the mixed-use development from Castle Park – image: Deeley Freed

Taylor said that current policy and advice from the council is that this part of Bristol is suitable for tower blocks.

“And then it’s about challenging ourselves on that,” Taylor added. “Working through the Urban Living SPD for example, which does challenge us to justify why a building of height is here.

“So it’s about sustainability, it’s about reducing the continuous sprawl of a city like Bristol into the green belt and to protect the green belt.

“The tallest building here has around 240 homes in it. One thought would be: imagine those 240 homes across the green belt in low level, low density.

“Some of that still needs to exist of course but we’re trying to reverse a bit of that, bring it back into the city centre, to allow people to live, work, travel around the city more sustainably; and in doing so at height and density, we’re releasing more of a public realm for public use as well.

“So that is a big opportunity for us as designers. The Galleries is very inward looking, with very little public realm, certainly outside the hours of shopping when it closes down and becomes a fortress to the city and the park; we have the opportunity now to open that up.”

Main image: Deeley Freed

Read more: ‘Once-in-a-generation’ opportunity to redevelop Galleries’

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