The owners of Bristol's newest tower block have moved to reassure local residents its foundations aren't being undermined by erosion on the River Avon, after a landslip last week.
Engineers for both Clarion House and Bristol City Council are checking out the situation on the south bank of the River Avon, where the riverbank showed signs of collapsing - right next to the site of the Boat Yard, a huge and still not finished tower block development currently taking shape on the Bath Road in Totterdown.
Clarion said its engineers had attended the site after the landslip, and Bristol City Council said it would be sending an engineer to check there were no issues for the nearby Totterdown Bridge.
Read next: Huge 'Boat Yard' development on Bath Road won't be finished until end of next year
Pictures by Bristol Live photographer Paul Gillis taken on Wednesday (February 1) morning show the landslip on the south bank of the River Avon took small trees and bushes down towards the river, and exposed cables that had been underground right next to The Boat Yard.
The development has seen a main tower block that’s 15 storeys high from road level and 17 storeys high from the level of the bank of the River Avon, but the images appear to show the river bank has eroded and is now beginning to erode under the building itself. Temporary fencing along that river bank has also fallen with the erosion, and in other parts of the river bank, a large crack has appeared around a bush that seems to indicate more of the river bank could erode soon.
But a spokesperson for Clarion Housing Association, the London-based housing association which took over the site in 2020, said there was nothing to worry about. “We are aware of the issue at Totterdown Bridge and have taken prompt action to investigate further, with an engineer having already attended the site as a precaution. The building is not reliant on the river bank for any of its stability, and the engineer has confirmed that our site is not affected by the bank’s recent movement,” they added.
Local residents reported the landslip to Bristol City Council, who confirmed they would be inspecting the site today, although a tweet response from the council appeared to suggest its only concern was the nearby Totterdown Bridge. “We are aware of the situation and are sending a bridge inspector to the site today to carry out an inspection and assess any risk to the highway,” the tweet said.
The original developers, the Hadley Property Group, obtained planning permission and then sold the site as it was being constructed to London-based housing association Clarion, who will be turning it into a development that’s classified as 100 per cent ‘affordable housing’ in planning terms.
That means the developers no longer had to pay a £1.15 million Community Infrastructure Levy bill to Bristol Council to help fund facilities and public projects locally. Of the 152 flats, it is expected that 40 will be available for 'affordable rent', while 112 will be sold under a shared ownership scheme.
Construction of the development of 152 flats has been hit by delays. Work building the tower block complex stopped last summer when the original construction company The Mid Group went bust last summer, and there were months with no activity until a new firm was found to finish the building.
New construction firm the Hill Group took on the site in October 2022, but Clarion confirmed the flats would not be available to move into until at least the end of 2023, possibly into 2024 because, while the buildings themselves appear finished, the innovative construction method means there is still a lot of work to do inside.
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