‘Quite simply we want our zoo not to be taken away from us’

Most Bristolians will know of the dismay that has greeted Bristol Zoo’s planning application for a luxury housing development on the site that has been our zoo for 186 years.

The community has been slow to wake up to the proposal; during and after Covid we simply weren’t fully engaged with the outside world. But there is now a dawning awareness.

The affection and respect in which the zoo is held are palpable, for it has grown into the very fabric of Bristol’s sense of self. So now that we are faced with the planned permanent removal of our zoo many of us look at its possible replacement with deep apprehension.

Small wonder that feelings are running high and that we think that every effort should be made to find another way, to ‘create a better future.’

The affection and respect in which the zoo is held are palpable, for it has grown into the very fabric of Bristol’s sense of self – photo: Barbara Evripidou/FirstAvenuePhotography.com

But all is not yet lost, according to a group gathered around a 50-page report to be published soon by Tom Jones, a local resident and parent.

Tom was so shocked by the zoo’s recent closure that he started doing some research and didn’t stop.

His report has startling revelations including: the decision-making was flawed, the zoo’s finances were stronger than we are led to believe, the public were misled into thinking that the zoo was moving in order to give the animals a better home, and that both zoos would co-exist.

It seems that the real story is that the plan has for years been to sell up to make as much money as possible to plough into the Wild Place Project. In other words, to leave Bristol without a zoo but with a posh housing estate.

The group is holding a public meeting on December 8. This will, perhaps, be the beginning of a long campaign, most importantly to oppose the new development and secondly to create the atmosphere in which the re-opening of the zoo can be contemplated.

For their ambition is for some way to be found for the zoo, however re-imagined, to remain in Bristol where it belongs – as its name implies.

‘The public were misled into thinking that the zoo was moving in order to give the animals a better home’ – photo: Bristol Zoological Gardens.

It would be heart-breaking to watch the Bristol Zoological Society pouring precious resources into promoting an urban development by which many of its closest admirers are saddened, and one of which nobody will be proud in 100 years.

All this just to make enough money to build out a zoo elsewhere. What is more, there is the real danger that the Wild Place may never fully get off the ground, such is the cost of a new zoo, and such is the danger of a recession.

Quite simply, we want our zoo – of which the Bristol Zoological Society has been an honourable and trusted custodian for almost 200 years – not to be taken away from us. And we don’t want its proposed replacement.

Bristolians perhaps feel a powerful moral ownership.  Do we not have a deep vested interest in what has been ‘ours’ for almost two centuries?

Alastair Sawday is a ‘Save Bristol Zoo Gardens’ campaigner, a publisher and long-standing campaigner for a greener Bristol. He was once the chair of Bristol’s Green Capital campaign.

‘Save Bristol Zoo Gardens’ campaigners are holding a public meeting on Thursday, December 8 at 7.30pm. 

Professor Alice Roberts will be speaking at the event, which is being held at 1532 Theatre, Bristol Grammar School, University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SR.

Main photo: ©Barbara Evripidou/FirstAvenuePhotography.com

Read next: 

• Plans approved for 62 new homes on former zoo car park 
• Visitors and staff reflect on “emotional” closure of Bristol Zoo
• ‘I feel a responsibility to defend Bristol Zoo Gardens against inappropriate development’ 
• In photos: Bristol Zoo’s last day after 186 years 

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