A new student accommodation block which would be 22 storeys high and provide rooms for 531 students close to Temple Meads station looks set to get the go-ahead next week.
City council planning officers are recommending the scheme from Cubex be given permission, despite their own reservations and concerns about how the development will look.
Councillors will meet next Wednesday (January 22) to decide on the scheme on Albert Road, which would bring the total amount of student accommodation given planning approval in the area around Temple Meads station to 4,739 in the past couple of years.
Planners will tell councillors the location of the new student block couldn’t be better for students attending the new Bristol University Temple Quarter campus – the site is right next to the eastern end of one of the two bridges constructed over the smaller of the new pedestrian bridges constructed over the River Avon connecting St Philips with ‘Temple Island’, and just around the corner from the new Temple Quarter campus.
A waste transfer company, PMG, which is located there, will move out if the plans are approved next week.
Planning officers will tell councillors the developers will install their own flood defences for the site, which is seen as ‘a significant benefit’, and create access for the public to go from Albert Road in St Philips through to the bridge, the riverside path and over to Temple Island, which Bristol Live revealed last week is now the subject of new plans for hundreds of new homes and offices.
“The location of the site is highly sustainable and is therefore able to absorb a high level of urban density,” the planning officers’ report said. “This is consistent with adopted and emerging policy which encourages higher density and more efficient use of land in the city centre and Temple Quarter. The development of the site for purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) will directly support the University of Bristol campus, and the wider Temple Quarter area, by providing 531 bed spaces in close proximity to the campus.
“The scheme would also connect to the Council’s district heat network, trigger improved public realm that would be delivered and facilitated around the site, result in a biodiversity net gain through enabling additional planting and habitat creation, and would bring about regeneration benefits to the area in general.
“The less desirable aspects of the scheme are considered to be the low proportion of employment floorspace, not offering a true mixed-use development, design and elevation issues and liveability issues in terms of amenity space provision,” he added.
Historic England said that even though the idea of a 22-storey modern building close to the protected and listed historic buildings like Temple Meads station would have an impact, they wouldn’t be objecting, because it won’t look out of place when it surrounded by all the other tall buildings being built in the Temple Quarter area, including the university’s own student accommodation.
But Historic England did point out Bristol City Council has so far not come up with a design strategy for the area. “With other neighbouring sites coming forward, we anticipate that the St Phillip’s Marsh area is about to undergo significant change and offers an opportunity for positive placemaking,” a spokesperson for Historic England said.
“However, there is presently no masterplan for the area and Historic England continues to encourage your authority to consider undertaking such an exercise. This would steer new development in a more holistic way and provide design parameters to deliver contextual design, drawing on the former industrial aesthetic and character of the area,” they added.
Councillors meet next Wednesday to decide on the scheme.