Plans to completely change the area around the Cumberland Basin and replace it with a development project called ‘Western Harbour’ will get a £2.5 million boost next week. But options appear to have narrowed after national heritage chiefs awarded listed status to a 118-year-old concrete substation.
And while the listing of the Avon Crescent Substation would appear to end any prospects of a new dual-carriageway through the heart of the Cumberland Basin area, the way council chiefs are handling the massive regeneration project to be changing - again.
The previous, and controversial, 'Western Harbour Advisory Group' has been disbanded, and an entirely new group is to be formed, with the council saying it will be a ‘refresh’ of the group meant to be the bridge between authority planners and the communities affected by the massive project.
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The listing of the Avon Crescent Substation is the latest and largest creation of a newly-listed building in the Cumberland Basin area, after Historic England and Bristol City Council agreed a review of the heritage assets locally in February this year, before more detailed plans were drawn up for the ‘Western Harbour’ regeneration.
The substation is a basic concrete block building opposite the homes on Avon Crescent, and was built in 1906 by LG Mouchel of the Hennebique Concrete Company, to provide electricity to the docks, to replace ageing steam-powered hydraulic system that lifted gates and powered pumps up and down the Floating Harbour.
Historic England said the building itself should be given Grade-II listed status, because it was a ‘rare example of the building type dating from an early period of municipal electricity supply’. Its new listing described it as: “One of the earliest examples in England of the technologically-innovative and highly influential Hennebique system of reinforced concrete construction, applying a classical architectural treatment to a modern new material, using concrete to mimic architectural devices such as keystones and architraves, and adopting classicism’s associations of tradition and reliability.”
Historic England said the building still retains “features from an extravagant scheme of internal fittings, intended to be visible externally and appropriate to accommodate modern electrical equipment,” and is a “rare example of the building type dating from an early period of municipal electricity supply”.
The Western Harbour project was created to see the 60-year-old flyover bridge that crosses both the River Avon and the Cumberland Basin locks from Ashton Gate to Hotwells demolished and replaced, with all the complex series of slip roads and ramps on the land around the basin cleared away too. That then would make space for substantial residential development, with early designs showing Wapping Wharf-style apartments in the spaces left behind.
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The project was immediately controversial, not least because two alternative new bridge crossings were proposed. The first idea was for a dual carriageway up the west bank of the river at Ashton Meadows and a new bridge across to the Portway, closer to the Suspension Bridge. The second idea was for the Brunel Way dual carriageway to be diverted east, through the Riverside Garden Centre site, across the New Cut, on to Avon Crescent and across a new bridge by the Nova Scotia pub.
That would have seen some of the homes on Ashton Avenue demolished and would also mean the Avon Crescent Substation would be demolished - something unlikely now, given its new listing status.
Those within Bristol City Council and its expensive consultants who are drawing up a masterplan went back to the drawing board after the Covid pandemic, and promised a new way of liaising with the local community in Hotwells, Spike Island and Ashton Gate, but the Western Harbour Advisory Group met infrequently over the past couple of years, and never saw more than half its members - all chosen by the council and the Mayor’s Office - actually attend the meetings.
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Now, the city council’s cabinet is to be asked to endorse a new approach. In what is described as a ‘refresh of the Western Harbour Advisory Group’, with 16 new members recruited by the council, covering the four ‘values’ of the 2022 vision for the Western Harbour - culture, community, environment and economy.
The council has announced that John Savage, the original chair and the man who oversaw the creation of the Canons Marsh regeneration in the 1990s, will remain as chair.
Next week’s cabinet meeting will also rubber-stamp the spending of up to £2.5 million in grant money, awarded last month by the West of England Combined Authority, to draw up a masterplan for the ‘Western Harbour’ area, which will have to answer two fundamental questions: will the existing and ageing Plimsoll Bridge and Avon Bridge flyover be restored, and if not - where and how will this major road, which is the busiest non-motorway road in Bristol, cross the Avon and the Cumberland Basin?
The city council said in a statement: “The council is committed to make sure the voice of communities are heard throughout the project. To facilitate this, a new community working group will be established. The community working group would refresh and replace the Western Harbour Advisory Group and would create a communication channel between Bristol City Council’s project team and the city.”
