A plan to knock down the building housing Za Za Bazaar’s all-you-can-eat restaurant on Bristol’s harbourside and replace it with a much bigger building looks set to be refused by planners because the new building would be ‘oversized and incongruous’.
Councillors will meet next week to make a decision on the planning application submitted by the building’s owners, to redevelop the site and create a new building with four storeys and new bars and shops on the ground floor. But in a report to the councillors on the planning committee, Bristol City Council’s planning officers say they think proposal should be refused, because the size and scale of the new building would be out of place with the others on the harbourside.
The applicant is listed as BEGG (Nominees) Limited - although that pension fund and property investment company changed its name last November to DEFG instead. A company calling itself CBRE Investment Management launched a website when its plan to demolish the building that houses Za Za Bazaar was first revealed by Bristol Live in November 2021.
Read next: Za Za Bazaar fights to stop demolition of building and 'loss of over 230 jobs
Since then the plan has met opposition with hundreds objecting and signing a petition created by the restaurant, who told planners they hadn’t even been consulted about the idea. The plan is to knock down the building, which was created in 1993 as part of the regeneration of the harbourside and built to look like the old U Shed docks warehouse that once stood there.
The replacement building would be four storeys tall, with offices above and a ‘flexible active ground floor’, with a range of possible uses as shops, bars and restaurants. But a report to councillors noted that the city’s heritage experts and Historic England have objected to the idea, and the report concludes that the plans should be refused for a number of reasons.
The first is that the new building - because of its scale and size, would ‘interrupt, limit or remove key views within the Conservation Area', including ‘glimpsed’ views between Queen Square and College Green and Bristol Cathedral. “The development would be oversized and incongruous with its setting and would fail to reflect the special architecture and maritime heritage that forms the special interest in this part of the City Docks Conservation Area,” the report states.
“It would sit uncomfortably within its setting and dominate nearby buildings, including the adjacent Grade II-listed W-Shed, and would fail to respond to the historic proportions and materiality of development in this section of the Floating Harbour.
“The introduction of large-scale office building with leisure use at ground floor level in this important and prominent location would fail to enhance Harbourside's role as an informal leisure destination and the character and appearance of the office building would fail to preserve or enhance the setting of the Floating Harbour within the City Docks Conservation Area,” the report added.
Another reason would be that the new building would overhang the walkway along the western edge of the Floating Harbour at St Augustine’s Reach, like the current building does, but it will be much closer to people’s heads as they walk through.
“The proposed overhang of the upper floors over the Quayside Walkway would reduce the head-height unacceptably from the existing situation, resulting in a more oppressive and off-putting section of the route, harming the amenity and accessibility of a primary pedestrian route,” the report said.
“The proposed development would therefore fail to preserve or enhance the City Docks Conservation Area, pose unacceptable harm to the setting of nearby and adjacent Listed buildings and the setting of nearby Conservation Areas,” it added.
The plan is due to be discussed and decided on by councillors, next Tuesday, June 13. Councillors do not have to follow the recommendation of council officers, however, as shown last week with the Broadwalk redevelopment plan.
Read next:
- 'Dominating' Bristol harbourside redevelopment will block views, Historic England claim
South Bristol road near IKEA housing site reopens after closure complaints
New £25m Bristol school ordered to change controversial admissions policy
Bristol Bridge works start this month with council to spend £1.4m on changes
'Do more' to save Bristol's last farm demand councillors and residents
Follow the latest updates on this story and others like it here.
