Bristol City Council has lost a legal battle over plans to build 62 homes on the former Bristol Zoo car park site. Despite residents’ fears that the development would be a “major scar on the landscape”, councillors approved the plans last year.
But a judicial review has now said the council had not taken Historic England's advice and its plans were not legal. The review concluded that the plans failed to 'properly consider the level of heritage harm' and to 'accurately' 'take into account advice from Historic England'.
Bristol Zoological Society, which owns the West Car Park in College Road, Clifton, said it would submit plans for housing on the car park and the main zoo site when it announced last year it would sell the land and move the zoo into the Wild Place Project in South Gloucestershire.
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In addition, it promised local councillors those plans would meet the “highest conservation and sustainability standards” and would offer “policy compliant” levels of affordable housing. However, hundreds of residents objected when plans were approved last year.
Following the decision the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society (CHIS) launched a judicial review with the help of environmental lawyers at Leigh Day and barrister Leon Glenister at Landmark Chambers.
Bristol City Council has accepted the decision had been taken unlawfully and agreed to reverse it by consenting to judgement. The move was sealed with a court order this week.
The court order confirmed that the decision to grant planning permission was taken on the basis of recommendations in an officer’s report, which had failed properly to consider the level of heritage harm, failed properly to weigh up harm and public benefit, and which had not set out a clear and convincing justification for the heritage harm under the National Planning Policy Framework.
The council officer stated in their report to the planning committee that the council had fulfilled a legal obligation to consult Historic England on the application. However, the council then failed to accurately take into account Historic England’s advice, and as a result committed an error of law. For those reasons, the planning permission decision was declared unlawful and was quashed by the court.
The plans will now return to Bristol City Council's planning committee in September to be decided on by members.
A Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society spokesperson said: “We have fought and won our battle against Bristol City Council’s decision to grant planning permission for 62 homes on the site of the Bristol Zoo car park. The Council accepted that they acted unlawfully in the way they made the decision.”
Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society is represented by Leigh Day solicitor Rowan Smith, who said: “Our client’s main aim in bringing this legal challenge was to ensure that the best features of this much-cherished and historic part of Bristol were preserved.
“Important aspects of the potential heritage harm to the area by this proposed development were, as the Council conceded and the Court has now confirmed, unlawfully dealt with when planning permission was granted. Our client hopes that the Council will approach any new application on a lawful basis, and will be scrutinising that in detail as the plans emerge.”
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