Plans to build hundreds of new homes on the former Bristol Zoo Gardens site look set to receive planning permission next week.
Under the proposals 196 new homes could be built at the Clifton site, with the former zoo entrance buildings converted into a conservation hub and cafe, and much of the gardens turned into a free public park. According to BristolLive, these are part of the key report by officers at City Hall being recommended for planning permission.
Bristol Zoological Society is looking to use money raised from the development to help fund the expansion of its 136-acre conservation site, Wild Place Project, on the edge of the city.
In November 2022 Bristol City Council officers recommended plans for 62 new homes to be built on a car park belonging to Bristol Zoological Society. The Clifton brownfield site was previously used by staff who worked at Bristol Zoo Gardens but is now unused after the attraction closed in September 2022 after 186 years.
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The new plans are set to go before councillors next week. Bristol Zoo's chief executive Dr Justin Moore has continued to defend this plan, after a series of 'Save Bristol Zoo' campaigns, and press ahead with the proposal for new homes.
The new homes would be built at the southern end of the zoo site and of those, 37 would be houses and 159 would be flats in apartment blocks. Of the 196, 40 would be designed as "affordable housing", including 30 let at social rent to people on the housing waiting list, and 10 which would b offered to first-time buyers at £250,000.
Dr Justin Morris told BristolLive that if the zoo secures planning permission for the redevelopment, it would then offer the site for sale to a house-building company. Although he insisted that they did not have anyone in mind, he expected a huge amount of interest in the development.
Despite the negative criticism from the Save Bristol Zoo campaign, Dr Morris dismissed the arguments and said the decision to close the zoo and concentrate on expanding Wild Place venue on the other side of Cribbs Causeway on the edge of the city was ‘a strategic one’. Dr Morris said none of the alternative ideas address the zoo’s need to raise money to create a new Bristol Zoo at the expanded Wild Place site.
“We have 12 acres here in Clifton in a residential area. The decision we made is a strategic one, looking at the long term, and it’s worth noting that every other leader of zoos across the country and in Europe has backed that decision, and understands why we’ve made it,” he said.
Dr Morris also defended a decision not to follow other iconic visitor attractions in bidding for Government funding, or launching appeals within Bristol to raise the money needed to keep the zoo in Clifton.
Twycross Zoo was awarded almost £20m in 2021, the Eden Project in Morecambe received £50m in Levelling Up funds, while the famous gardens at Kew received a £100m grant from Greensphere Capital.
“I think we’ve got to be really realistic with our situation. The South West is not being supported in terms of Levelling Up funding like other places further north, and while it is totally understandable that people have strong emotional ties to the Bristol Zoo site, we have to make decisions based on current and historic realities. Those who put forward alternative visions for the zoo site that will cost tens of millions to pull off are just naïve, they are not based in the reality of attracting inward investment for visitor attractions, or indeed about conservation and caring for animals - these are the things which we are experts in, and have based our decisions on our expert opinions,” he added.
If the plans get the green light, the remaining gardens will be secured as an accessible, free-to-the-public park through a legal agreement made as part of the sale.
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