‘An alternative vision for the Brabazon hangars’

This week, Bristol City Council’s most senior scrutiny committee will hold a series of meetings to discuss whether the city should invest in an indoor arena near Temple Meads or whether to support a private sector proposal to build an arena in the Brabazon hangars near Filton airfield.

At the end of their deliberations a report will go to cabinet (alongside an officer’s report) where the mayor and his cabinet will decide on what course of action to take.

To help the councillors make their decision, value for money reports setting out the costs and benefits of using each site as an arena have been produced by consultants KPMG. In addition, a third report, based on officers’ deskbound proposals for a mixed used development at the Temple Meads site, has also been produced by KPMG.

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Read all three of KPMG’s value for money reports here

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The third report seems designed to convince councillors that there is an alternative, potentially even better, option for the Temple Meads site and that Bristol might miss out on this tremendous opportunity if they build an arena at Temple Meads. And it would all be the councillors’ fault.

What is missing of course is the alternative proposal for the Brabazon hangars. The outline proposal which illustrates what Bristol might miss out on if we decide to turn one of Bristol’s most important industrial legacies into a concert hall.

For those not familiar with the Brabazon hangars, it is one of the largest buildings ever constructed in the UK with an enclosed volume of some one million cubic metres divided up into three separate aircraft hangars. It was built in 1946 to allow for the construction of the Bristol Type 167 Brabazon airliner but has since been used for the construction of multiple other types of aircraft including Concorde.

The Brabazon hangars in 1947. Brabazon Type I was to be the largest civil airliner in the world, providing a luxury service between London and New York. Production began in the Aircraft Assembly Hall – later known as the Brabazon hangars – in March 1947. The building consisted of three bays and was originally designed to house the fabrication, assembly and testing of the aircraft.

The idea of this important and historical part of Bristol’s heritage being abandoned to manufacturing forever feels me with concern. Not just for the further blow to Bristol’s history as a centre of industrial innovation but for the lack of vision of the need to prepare for a future where UK manufacturing is set to increase rather than decline.

We are facing a period in history where, for various reasons, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to revitalise investment in manufacturing. That is not to say that we should be looking to repeat the past but recognises the need to invest in the future, in the technologies that we will need in order to deliver, for example, a zero carbon city by 2050 but also to replace those manufacturing jobs that may be lost due to rapidly changing international relationships.

It is no coincidence that both the Labour and Conservative parties, after years of neglect of the UK manufacturing sector, are both now developing industrial strategies to attempt, amongst other ambitions, to address the decline that has seen manufacturing reduced to just 10 per cent of our GDP (compared to over 20 per cent in Germany).

Both parties are looking at plans for multi-billionaire investment strategies and this will almost certainly include high tech manufacturing technologies such as sustainable construction, energy demand management, renewable energy components, composite materials, energy storage including hydrogen, robotics and AI, and so on.

In addition, as Centre for Cities has pointed out, if any industrial strategy is to improve the performance of the national economy, then it needs to focus on exporting business – and despite only accounting for 10% of our GDP, manufacturing accounts for some 44 per cent of our exports.

Despite the Brabazon Mark I achieving its aim of being the largest civil aeroplane in the world, with a wingspan of 230ft, it did not find commercial success, and no orders were received. The last flight of the Brabazon was on the 20 September 1952. Its design, however, led to a number of innovations within the aviation industry

Bristol is already performing well in what I like to call the “software” side of the new industrial revolution, being recognised far and wide as one of the world’s smartest cities, with a world leading business incubator, top ranked universities and a strong knowledge based sector. But whereas “software” tends to locate in city centre, the manufacturing “hardware” side of the equation tends to locate in the suburbs.

This is where a site like the Brabazon hangars could prove invaluable, offering the potential to create not just flexible manufacturing workspaces but also a major manufacturing-based exhibition and conference centre, collaborative working across multiple manufacturing sectors, and a hands-on skills and technical development college.

Above all, it offers the potential to reuse a landmark building to send a message that Bristol is not just an attractive city for those who are smart with their minds but also for those who are smart with their hands as well.

I grew up in south Bristol, a part of the city where the loss of major manufacturing struck a damaging blow from which we are still trying to recover. I fear the same may be about to happen in north Bristol as jobs are lost at GKN, Airbus and Rolls Royce.

I would not want north Bristol to suffer what we in south Bristol had to suffer. There is an opportunity at Brabazon hangars. Let’s not throw it away.

Tony Dyer is a Green Party activist who was the party’s mayoral candidate in the 2016 elections

All photos courtesy of Know Your Place