People living in a village just outside Bristol say they have been left feeling ‘appalled’ and ‘betrayed’ after councillors in Weston-super-Mare voted to allow an American medi-tech company to build a huge ‘office campus’ that would effectively join their village to the city.
There has been shock and dismay in the village of Long Ashton this week, after Wednesday’s bombshell council meeting, which villagers say will end up destroying the legal Green Belt between their North Somerset village and the edge of Bristol.
At the end of a turbulent week, which began with it being described as ‘the most important in Long Ashton’s modern history’ by the man who served as chairman of the parish council for years, in the shops, hairdressers and pubs of the village the subject of Epic and its campus is never far from people’s conversations.
Last Saturday, villagers gathered themselves at the community centre – leaving standing room only at a public meeting – to discuss how they could persuade councillors to vote against the project.
Epic, a US firm that supplies IT systems to a growing number of NHS trusts, have three different offices in Bristol but wants to merge them all and offices around the country to create a new European headquarters for its global company. The firm’s corporate vision is for a huge campus that would take 15 years to complete and include a 3,000-seater auditorium. Their choice of site for this is the wetlands of the Ashton Vale, on fields and woods that separate the south-western edge of Bristol and the village of Long Ashton.
It’s Green Belt, so in theory should never be built on. Bristol City Council told North Somerset they objected, pointing out there are sites with less impact all over Bristol itself, that Epic could have chosen – sites that would not impact the Green Belt.
But council planning officers came to the conclusion that, while it would irreversibly damage the Green Belt and the environment and shouldn’t be allowed, the positive impact on jobs and the economy of the region from such a big development and investment outweighed the negative impact on the environment, the Green Belt and Long Ashton. It was, the officers said, all about balancing the two things, and they recommended councillors should come down on the side of the US corporate tech giants.
At a tense and stormy meeting on Wednesday afternoon, councillors in North Somerset agreed, leaving Long Ashton villagers stunned and furious.
Local councillor Stuart McQuillan was on the committee, voted against, and said afterwards what upset him the most was that his fellow councillors didn’t appear to have read the reports or know what they were making a decision on.
“I have served on North Somerset’s planning committee for over five years,” he said. “I have won votes. I have lost votes. But yesterday, I was utterly appalled at the lack of debate and engagement with my motion to refuse the application. Some councillors asked questions so basic it implied they had not read, let alone analysed the officers’ report and the planning balance,” he fumed.
“Several members also did not attend the site visit. We have had longer debates over extending a bungalow. Many stated in the meeting and to residents that this was not going to be a foregone conclusion and waived through, but I find that hard to believe based on the quality of the debate.
“I cannot shake the impression many had made their minds up based on the many briefings on the economic benefits of the proposal they had received from officers. Many of these briefings barely mentioned other key issues such as Green Belt and heritage,” he added.
When Bristol Live featured life in Long Ashton – which locals cheekily call ‘LA’ – in late 2021, we found a village with a sense of community made stronger by Covid, and with an identity proudly and determinedly separate from Bristol. While many communities around the edge of Bristol will have some affiliation, the people of LA were resolutely separate – and the physical manifestation of that are the fields, rivers and woods that separate the village from the trading estates and suburban streets of Ashton Vale and Bishopsworth.
Now, outside of the council chamber, in the village itself, there is fear about the future. Housing developers have options on hundreds of acres of Green Belt land next to the Epic site, have been trying to get it included in North Somerset’s Local Plan, and are submitted planning applications for what will effectively be a new suburb of Bristol, which will include Long Ashton.
“My concerns are for Long Ashton as a village, but equally for the wider green belt. If this critically important piece can be sold for such a bizarre development, then no piece of green belt is safe,” said one villager, Alan.
“For the village, my primary concern is that we will be subsumed by Bristol, and we lose our identity as a village. But we will probably see a reduction in air quality due to the inevitable traffic problems, on an already congested road system, lose a valued green space, and so on. And for what? Some overly optimistic economic gain, very little if any of which will be seen by Long Ashton or North Somerset. Plus, there are so many alternative sites that should have been properly considered locally and nationally,” he added.
Amanda Barrett is a Long Ashton parish councillor and one of those who founded the Long Ashton Nature Community and Environment Trust. She said she was ‘deeply disillusioned and angry’, and the whole experience had left the village just as disillusioned. “We have absolutely no faith in consultations anymore,” she said. “They are just a tick box exercise. Why bother to write informed objections, emails or letters when few councillors can be bothered to read or engage with them?
“At a time when the adverse effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are increasing and should be blindingly obvious to members of this committee, they chose to ignore so many local and national policies to follow the scent of promised gold. I also really resented the use of the acronym NIMBY – it was used as a derisory slur by one of the Conservative members. Using language such as this is sinking to a new low. Local politics is becoming as divisive as national,” she added.
Another resident said the village felt betrayed by North Somerset Council. “Yesterday’s decision is a betrayal of the council’s previous declaration of climate and nature emergencies and runs counter to the current draft Local Plan.
“The claims by Epic in terms of job creation are overstated and the negative impact on the area either ignored or underplayed, whilst they wilfully reject the plethora of unfilled office space or brownfield land within just a few miles of the proposed site,” said Em.
“This decision fundamentally undermines the concept of green belt. We are being asked to compromise all of these things and more, whilst Epic concedes nothing,” she added.
Another resident, who declined to be named, had few words about the imminent new neighbours for Long Ashton. “When the diggers move in, Long Ashton will cease to be the haven that was the very reason for the diggers being summoned in the first place,” they said. “They will kill what they covet.”