‘The entire appearance of Bristol is under threat’

The next two days will decide the future of Bristol.

I’m not kidding.

This is crunch-time for consultation on the Urban Living Supplementary Planning Document, which will determine what Bristol looks like for the next 50 years.

Mayor Marvin Rees is aggressively pushing a high rise agenda, which is destructive of the city’s heritage, and threatening to its economic future.

He wants high rises all over the centre of the city.  He believes they’ll solve the housing crisis.

They won’t. High rises are much more expensive to build than medium rise housing.  They’re more expensive to maintain. That’s why local governments have been knocking down tower blocks by the dozens since the late-1980s.

High rises are linked to depression, loneliness, less neighbourly behaviour, and higher suicide rates, according to research. Numerous studies suggest that children have problems in high-rises; none suggest that they benefit them.

High rises have a higher fire risk, too. High rises tend to damage the street fabric, producing large, windy, dead spaces with little to interest passers-by.

Marvin is trying to sell the idea that building tall means housing more people.  It sounds reasonable, but it is nonsense. The densest borough in the UK is South Kensington.

The mayor really thinks Bristol would be better, if it looked like Leeds. It ‘shows ambition’, apparently.  Remember that much of his education, and several jobs, have been in the US. His idea of what a prosperous city looks like is made in the USA.

Yet many charming historic cities on the continent like Vienna, Munich, Amsterdam, Toulouse, Lyon, Copenhagen, and many others, have chosen not to go high rise, typically building no higher than seven floors.

It’s no coincidence that these are the richest cities in Europe, attracting more and more people, expanding fast, partly because they offer attractive life-styles as shown by their positions on quality-of-life tables.

Quality of life, liveable 19th century streetscapes full of bars and shops, attract highly skilled professionals. Do we want to sabotage Bristol’s economic future?

Do we want Bristol to turn into Leeds, with its “ugly clusters of high-rises”? – photo by The Jaco on Flickr

It is completely wrong to launch such a major plan, which will fundamentally change our beautiful city’s appearance, without having mentioned it in his electoral campaign, and without ordinary people having been consulted during the long consultations on the future of the city which took place from 2015-2017.

There was simply no mention of tall buildings in his mayoral campaign.

Nor in the initial consultations which led to the ‘Urban Living’ document, as explained on a website I have set up.

Yet now the entire appearance of the city is under threat, starting with planning permission being given for a 26-floor skyscraper block of flats on the south east corner of Castle Park.

Which we are told is great – because the mayor’s planning team says it will ‘bring legibility’ to that corner of the park.  In what theory of urbanism do you need 26-floor skyscrapers at park corners in order to ‘bring legibility’ to them?

All this is wrong. It is immoral.  It is undemocratic.

Unless we act now, the city will be studded with second-rate tall buildings, which in turn will set precedents for further tall buildings. There will be no going back.

The nightmare of the 1970s will be repeated. Already the mayor is rushing, head-on, in the direction of making the city like Leeds – ugly clusters of high-rises, overwhelming the charm of our much-loved city.

Building high produces a generic landscape. Is this what we want?

Bristol has a growing tourist trade and attracts professionals partly because it is historic, different, and largely low or medium-rise. We are sacrificing the city’s historic character and charm based on a mistaken diagnosis.

That’s why I have set up the Bristol Campaign Against High Rises.

As one councillor said to me:  “This is perhaps the biggest mistake the City will make in 20 years.”

You have a chance to tell the mayor he’s wrong on this.

There are three ongoing surveys.
They are easy to complete.
Fill them in – you could help save our city.

Urban Living Supplementary Planning Document (consultation closes April 13)
Bristol Local Plan Review (consultation closes April 13)
City Centre Framework (consultation closes May 14).

Matthew Montagu-Pollock

Matthew Montagu-Pollock is a Kingsdown resident who has launched a campaign against high rises in Bristol

Read more: ‘New tall buildings should not harm the character of an area’