Imagine meeting your friends or family at Bristol Temple Meads, they’ve travelled far and can’t wait to explore the city of Bristol. Walking out of the main entrance, heading towards the city centre and Broadmead, there is plenty to see and point out to your loved ones.
Here is what I would be saying: “Here is Temple Meads, a historic station designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel himself. All this area will be developed as new housing and facilities are built. Oh yeah, and there’s the half-demolished eyesore hotel which had stood there for the best part of 2024.”
It’s so disgraceful. Everyone knows about the state of Grosvenor Hotel as what once was a grand Victorian hotel just sits there to rot away because why not. Since the fire of 2022, it has been a desolate waste of space, and the half-demolition in February compounded the misery.
It isn’t like this is a relatively new thing either. Take away the arson attack and look back a couple decades and the hotel closed in 1993 (although the building was rented out to homeless families since the late 1980s) due to safety issues. Are you meaning to tell the proud people of Bristol that absolutely nothing has happened in the 30-plus years since to make the site safer – it’s still a hazard today.
We can only speculate why the hotel remains today, but from what Bristol Live has reported it seems to stem from Bristol City Council ’s standoff with the owner of the hotel, Nimish Popat. The council wants the hotel demolished or made safe – which saw 20 yards of footpath reopened after two years, something which Cllr Ed Powden described as “complicated”.
Mr Popat bought the building in order to restore and reopen the hotel on the basis that the Bristol Arena would be built on Temple Island nearby, however the arena is now being built within the Brabazon development on the former Filton Airport. Mr Popat then allowed a businessman to market and sell student flats ahead of a redevelopment which never happened.
The initial demolition took down the fire-damaged part of the hotel, which is a start. But the 1930s curved rear extension remains standing and you can still see parts of the inside of the hotel. I love nothing more than to see the staircase with the now pointless bannister whilst passing Temple Meads station, a symbol of Bristol’s entrepreneurialism and history.
The council are not doing anything
The council said it intends to take out a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) to buy the hotel, indicating this since 2016. I went to the council and the Temple Quarter Regeneration Scheme about the hotel, the state of the CPO and the importance of the site to the regeneration scheme.
The reply I received was the following: “The Grosvenor Hotel is privately owned and remains the responsibility of the owner. There is a court order in place which is in the process of being complied with regarding the building posing a danger to the public.
“The former hotel sits within Temple Square. This area, excluding the Grosvenor Hotel, was acquired by Homes England in early 2024 to support Bristol’s plans for the regeneration of this important gateway into the city centre. Homes England is the national housing and regeneration agency and is working closely with Bristol City Council and the West of England Combined Authority to unlock and accelerate development within Bristol. ”
It is fantastic to know that on a scale of one to ten, nil is being done to move the development along. It’s almost as if the council are happy to show off the fact that it will not be doing anything, almost as if the shame of the derelict hotel is something to be proud of and that it is a pride of honour that we, as Bristolians, can look at the shambles of the half-demolition and think that this is what we deserve.
The people of Bristol are proud to be Bristolian and I’ve never been ashamed to admit that I come from this wonderful city. But the Grosvenor Hotel is a joke, it is an embarrassment and everyone thinks why and how has this been allowed to happen?
It feels like a long time ago now that the demolition began but it was only in February and the saga has just gone on and on. It’s time to stop the madness.
And it isn’t just the council to blame. Although its indecisiveness is alarming, Mr Popat needs to play his part to end the standoff. It’s like watching two people in a staring contest, and it’s sad.
Whatever the resolution is – whether it is Mr Popat finishing the demolition, the council actually submitting a CPO, or even the land being bought by a random third party, it has to happen. Like many Bristolians, I am sick and tired of waiting for something to happen when it could, and maybe should, have happened way before I was even born.
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