Council ploughs ahead with Temple Quarter regeneration

Civic leaders are pressing ahead with one of Europe’s biggest city centre regeneration schemes despite no guarantee over a vital bid for £96m of government cash.

Bristol City Council’s cabinet has agreed a series of decisions to plough on with the Temple Quarter revamp because of concerns that the massive project will stall if they keep waiting for Whitehall’s long-delayed funding decision.

Developers are also showing growing interest in making piecemeal planning applications which could scupper the overall ambitions to create 10,000 homes and 22,000 jobs in the area around Temple Meads and St Philip’s Marsh over the next 25 years.

But opposition councillors urged caution and demanded greater scrutiny after members gave senior officers authority to buy “strategic land”, as well as secure high-value contracts to prepare Temple Island for redevelopment over the £500,000 threshold for deals that would usually require cabinet approval.

Bristol mayor Marvin Rees insisted the rejuvenation scheme was a “symbol of the city getting stuff done” that would ultimately add £1.6bn a year to the local economy.

Cabinet members were told the council had received “assurances” but not “absolute surety” of an “eventual favourable funding decision” over the £95.8m bid for government housing infrastructure money.

The University of Bristol is building a new campus on the former sorting office site on Cattle Market Road – photo: Martin Booth

However, Green group leader Paula O’Rourke said: “The report delegates a tremendous amount of decision-making to a small minority of individuals and bypasses both cabinet and councillors.

“A lot of the funding is still tentative. It’s predicated on getting the money from the government, and the report talks about all the ambition of keeping many plates spinning at once.”

She said there was “concern” about the viability of a proposed office block as part of the £350m deal the council signed in June with Legal & General to develop Temple Island, formerly earmarked for an arena, because of the rise in home-working during the pandemic.

Rees replied: “I’m always wary of language. ‘There is a concern about…’ That could be two people, it could be 20,000.

“Floating around ‘concerns’, which we do a lot in the chamber, are vague terms.”

The mayor said that all information that could be shared had already been put in the public domain but that lawyers were still finalising the Temple Island agreements, so not everything could be disclosed for now because of commercial sensitivities and the need to protect taxpayers’ money.

……………………………….

Read more: Landmark Bristol building to be sold

……………………………….

Rees said the decision to ask for another £7.9m from the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) –  agreed on Tuesday by cabinet – would keep the momentum going ahead of the government announcement on the much larger bid.

“Temple Quarter is an enormous project for Bristol, making Temple Meads a major transport hub for the city, the region and the country,” he said.

“It brings with it a £300m new university campus, it helps us tackle the housing crisis in a sustainable area, along with the environment and ecological emergency and economic recovery from the pandemic.”

As part of the Temple Island deal the council is spending £32m getting the site ready to hand over to Legal & General in a lease agreement which will see the asset management company build a large conference centre and exhibition space, 345-room hotel, 550 new homes, of which 220 will be affordable, and two “major” office buildings.

Legal & General’s ‘vision’ for Temple Island – image: L&G

Main photo: Martin Booth

Read more: Businesses old and new celebrated in unique handprinted billboard

Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast: