A developer has submitted a planning application for 432 new student flats on the same road where it is already building accommodation for 819 students.
Watkin Jones, which specialises in PBSA - purpose-built student accommodation - has finally submitted a planning application to Bristol City Council for the site on Malago Road in Bedminster, most recently used as a car wash and before the Covid pandemic, a location for Jasper Thompson’s Help Bristol’s Homeless shipping container project.
The developer wants to build three tower blocks of student units, on the land between the A38 Malago Road and the main south west railway line.
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The plans were first revealed by Bristol Live last year, with the developer launching a pre-application consultation exercise last July.
Now, the planning application has been formally submitted by Watkin Jones, with three blocks of seven, eight and nine-storey buildings, accommodating a total of 432 students. In the summer, development director Tony Garner said the company had learned from previous attempts to build tower blocks on that site, and had scaled back the plans from previous plans.
In 2018 and 2019, a developer called a2Dominion applied to build purpose-built student accommodation for 550 students, as well as 40 separate affordable homes. That plan, the first of the five Bedminster Green regeneration sites to go through the planning process, was rejected by local councillors for being too big for the site - and a2Dominion lost again when they appealed to a government planning inspector.
The land then changed hands, with Watkin Jones coming in with a plan for a slightly smaller-scale development of 432 student units in three, rather than four accommodation blocks.
“This is an opportunity to transform a disused brownfield site to support lowering student demand for local housing, as well as boost the wider investment in Bedminster,” said Mr Garner in July. “We estimate that this development would generate up to £2.4 million a year in student spending that could reinvigorate and support local businesses on East Street and across the rest of Bedminster.
“We’ve chosen to give a significant part of the site to open up access to the river Malago for the local community and create new public spaces that everyone could enjoy, as well as paying for improvements to local roads.
“We have really listened to, and acted on, what people said during previous consultation exercises and public meetings. This is why we’re proposing a much smaller scheme with a look and feel that will match the wider Bedminster Green regeneration site. This is a new beginning for the site, and we will keep listening, which is why we want to hear people’s views before submitting a planning application,” he added.
Watkin Jones is already well established building a bigger block of purpose-built student accommodation 200 yards further to the north east, on the site of a former NCP car park.
The developer has taken over a plan to build 819 student flats, first proposed by Bristol-based Deeley Freed. Work got under way a year ago, and already the builders are well on their way to reaching the nine storeys the buildings will go up to.
Watkin Jones’ plans for Malago Road will now be processed by the council planning officers, and city councillors on the planning committee could be asked to make a decision on the plans by the end of this year.
Read more on Bedminster Green:
Two and a half years of road disruption begins for Bedminster Green project
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Plot 3 - What 837 student flats will look like when seen from all over BS3
Plot 4 - Little Paradise plan for high-rise housing first to win permission
Plot 5 - Businesses being evicted ahead of big Bedminster Green development
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