Flooding fears for plan to build flats on caravan park by harbour

Flooding fears could scupper plans to build 166 apartments by the harbour on the site of a caravan park.

A council-owned developer is planning to build the flats on the site of the Baltic Wharf Caravan and Motorhome Club, next to the Cottage Inn pub.

Bristol City Council’s development control committee is expected to decide soon on whether to grant planning permission for the plans, put forward by council-owned developer Goram Homes and house builder Hill. But the high risk of flooding could prove a key obstacle.

The planned 166 apartments would be spread over six blocks, from four to six storeys tall. The apartments will mostly have two bedrooms, while some will have one or three bedrooms. Plans to develop the site stretch back decades, but could soon go ahead.

However, the controversial development could suffer from damaging floods, and also increase the risk of flooding by chopping down 82 of the 101 trees in the area. Developers said they would plant 65 new trees on site and 10 nearby, and pay the council for 152 new trees to be planted elsewhere.

The Caravan Club has been operating their Baltic Wharf campsite for several years on a renewable, short term lease while Bristol City Council plan to redevelop the prime dockside site – photo: Betty Woolerton

Writing to the council, one resident said: “Though the area might be fit for housing development, architectural and landscaping plans should at least incorporate the trees in the plan, not fell them. It’s backwards to apply a green air tax for the central areas of Bristol, and then actively destroy trees.”

The Environment Agency is objecting to the plans due to the flood risk. The regulator warned the council the plan would pose “a significant hazard”, the site has a high probability of flooding, and proposed mitigation measures were inadequate.

Writing to the council last November, Mark Willitts, planning specialist at the Environment Agency, said: “The developer’s updated flood risk assessment fails to demonstrate that the development is safe for its lifetime without increasing flood risk elsewhere.

“We note the proposal includes lowering existing ground levels to incorporate a lower ground floor. This will significantly increase the level of flood hazard posed in these areas, and is not acceptable.”

It’s unclear where the Caravan Club would relocate to. Initially the club planned to move to a nearby site formerly home to Avon and Somerset Police dog and horse training centre, on Clanage Road. But this plan was scrapped early last year, also due to flooding fears.

Avon & Somerset police’s former dog and horse training centre on Clang Road has been unused for more than five years – photo: Martin Booth

Legal advice sought by Goram compared the development to similar ones at St Phillip’s Marsh, for hundreds of new apartments and a high school in an area also at risk of flooding. The Environment Agency also objected to plans to build there, but the plans eventually went ahead anyway.

On the development’s website, developers said: “At the moment in Bristol there are over 13,000 families on the affordable housing register and a further 500 on waiting lists, not to mention countless people unable to buy their home and stuck in ‘generation rent’.

“The simple truth is that we don’t have enough homes in the city centre and we need to do more to address affordability both in house and rental prices, rough sleeping, lack of social housing and young people living with their parents who can’t afford to move out.

“Delivering homes on the outskirts of Bristol increases dependency on cars and puts more pressure on sensitive green spaces by delivering homes at lower density over more land. Therefore, we want to champion the use of sustainable brownfield city centre sites as a better location for new homes than greenfield land.”

Main photo: Betty Woolerton

Read next:

• Moving caravan park closer to river would be ‘putting lives at risk’
• Plans revealed for £55m housing development on Bristol’s Floating Harbour
• Dozens of women marry trees under threat from new development

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