A plan to build 157 new homes on a hillside in South Bristol that has never been built on before has attracted an unprecedented 457 objections so far. And as well as hundreds of local residents objecting to the plans to build on the Western Slopes between Knowle West and Bedminster, the developers are also coming up against objections from environmentalists and experts within City Hall itself.
The plans from Lovell Homes have become among the most objected-to in recent years in South Bristol, but with continued wrangling between council planning officers and the developers over the impact on nature, and the plans for the narrow road the development is on, it could be months before the application is put before councillors to make a decision.
Lovell Homes want to build 157 new homes in what will effectively be two cul-de-sacs off Novers Lane, the narrow country lane that rises up from Bedminster to Knowle West and Inns Court.
Read more: The dilemma between the Bristol housing crisis and the ecological emergency
The land is known as the Western Slopes and has never been built on before - in fact one of the council ecological experts has reported to planners that the hedge between Novers Lane and the fields in question is so old, it has ‘been in existence prior to the Enclosures Act period’, centuries ago.
Lovell Homes’ application has been hugely controversial. When it was first unveiled by Bristol Live in early 2021, it sparked the formation of a campaign group called the Friends of the Western Slopes. The group won a partial victory last year, after persuading Bristol City Council to drop its plans to build hundreds more homes on the land on the rest of the slopes at the Inns Court end, and now, only around 70 new homes are earmarked for places along Novers Lane which have been built on before.
And last autumn, councillors adopted a new motion which said no new homes should be built on green field sites. This new policy is about to be tested against the 2014 Bristol Local Plan, which is still in force until the council can confirm a new one, and earmarks the site on the Western Slopes, and a similar site at Brislington Meadows, as places where new homes can be built.
The Lovell Homes’ application remains with the planners. The developers propose to create two roads in to the development, which will be split in two by leaving a strip of woodland where the land is at its steepest. Of the 157 new homes, 47 will be classed as ‘affordable’, almost all will be flats towards the bottom of the hill nearest the industrial estates off Hartcliffe Way in Bedminster.
The developers have been severely criticised for that plan - South Bristol MP Karin Smyth wrote to them outraged that the developers described the small blocks of affordable housing flats as a ‘noise buffer’ from the industrial units to the private development above.
A total of 457 objections have been submitted by local residents, many from nearby Knowle West, Bedminster and Headley Park.
But the planning documents being posted on the council’s website in the months since the application was first submitted suggest two strands of issues for the developer to deal with - alongside the hundreds of objections from residents themselves.
In January, the city council’s transport development manager effectively sent the proposals back, describing the plans as ‘struggling to meet’ the standards expected by local and national planning policies.
Lovell Homes is proposing to make Novers Lane one way, and construct a three-metre wide cycle path and footpath on the field side of that ancient hedge, because the lane up from Parson Street in Bedminster is so narrow.
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He said the proposed cycle path and footpath between the hedge and the new homes was not wide enough. “A three-metre shared-use walking and cycling path is an inadequate width and were this to be put forward by BCC as part of a bid to the Department for Transport, funding would be withheld,” he said. “A similar proposed width on a housing site nearby was rejected by planning committee.”
“Proposed cycle provision to the south of the site has not been provided. The on-road section is not considered acceptable. This results in a cycling ‘void’ between Novers Lane and the site boundary,” he added.
And the development’s impact on the environment is also concerning council experts, as they feed in their comments and objections to council planners.
There has been a big debate between local residents, environmental experts and developers about whether Lovell’s green fields are part of an SNCI - a Site of Nature Conservation Interest - which the fields next door owned by the city council are.
Even Lovell Homes’ own ecological impact assessments have outlined what campaigners say is a 34 per cent loss of habitats and biodiversity, and the developers are proposing to ‘off-set’ that loss with ‘off-site improvements’ to wildlife sites elsewhere, including on the opposite side of the valley at Crox Bottom, which is already a council-owned nature reserve.
The city council’s own nature experts have questioned this, saying it should ‘be seen as a last resort’, in one letter in late February. “It is a course of action that requires a reasoned justification - eg what alternatives were considered and why were they found to be unsatisfactory”, asked one council environmental expert.
The Bristol Tree Forum posted their objections to the plans to spend money improving Crox Bottom to mitigate the impact of building 157 homes on a wildlife haven a few hundred yards away.
“Crox Bottom is already a well-managed habitat,” they have told council planners. “Offsetting the habitat loss caused on the Western Slopes by ‘enhancing’ the Crox Bottom habitat’ is simply not an option. It is not viable, does not have permission from the landowner and the local community group that looks after the site opposes it.
“This latest proposal will further degrade what little is left of the Pigeonhouse stream and adjacent meadows SNCI habitats that justify its SNCI status. Grassland and tree habitats will be removed, some of it apparently, merely to create a ‘public open space’,” they added.
Councillors are expected to decide on the Novers Lane application in the summer.
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