It is the biggest regeneration project in South Bristol - replacing an ageing shopping centre with a massive residential and leisure development. But people in Knowle have voiced their concern at the plans to turn the Broadwalk Shopping Centre into the new ‘Redcatch Quarter’ - and say that while they want to see regeneration - the proposals for 800 new homes in three 12-storey buildings are just too much for the area.
People living in and around the Wells Road in Knowle have lived with the knowledge that the days are numbered for their shopping centre. But it is what replaces it that is the issue.
There are few people calling for the Broadwalk Shopping Centre to be preserved as it is now. Shopping habits have changed drastically with the dawn of the internet age and home delivery, and that process has only spiralled with the covid pandemic.
Read more: The Galleries to be demolished and replaced in huge new city centre for Bristol project
What was a shiny new future in the early 1970s when Broadwalk opened is now a quiet and out-of-date place. The way people live their lives has changed so much in 50 years, that shopping centres now increasingly seem anachronistic, replaced by the boom in out-of-town retail parks, the love of independent high streets and giant distribution warehouses.
Just this week, the end date was set for The Galleries - a place built 20 years after Broadwalk. If that can’t survive, what is the hope for Broadwalk....? So none of those Knowle residents, gathering in Redcatch Park this week to voice their concerns about what’s going to happen on the park’s eastern end, were calling for nothing to happen. It’s just that what is going to happen feels to them like too much.
“There’s a general consensus that everyone is keen to see Broadwalk developed, we realise it probably isn’t fit for purpose anymore, but it’s just what they’ve got planned for it,” said Laura Chapman, one of the organisers of a relatively new residents’ group set up to represent people in the area in response to the development.
“It’s not the principle of changing, it’s that the plan is far too big for the area. What’s been proposed is three blocks of 12-storeys - 800 flats, new to the area, and that will bring over 2,000 people to Knowle. That’s a 20 per cent increase in our population which will happen not far from completely overnight,” she added.
On a rainy evening in late June, dozens of people answered a call at short notice to come to Redcatch Park and air their views and just be present, to show the level of concern. These people weren’t, Laura and her co-spokesperson Helen Evans were quick to point out, NIMBYs who don’t want change.
“I think people are really worried about being able to get GP appointments, find school places for their children, and also just to be able to enjoy this park, on days that are nicer than today,” she said.
The issue of over-development is a very real one in Knowle and the neighbouring areas of South Bristol, where green spaces that define the area and give it space to breathe are being developed by everyone from the council to Ikea.
A Bristol Live investigation revealed more than 12,000 new homes are either being built, have permission or are being planned south of the river. But South Bristol’s MP Karin Smyth highlighted that there are already issues with a lack of school places and space for new patients in doctors’ surgeries across South Bristol - and there are issues with getting new schools and health service facilities on the back of piecemeal new developments.
One Knowle resident said she had turned out in the rain because her secondary-school age daughter has to go to school in Bath, because she was not given a place at any local schools at the age of 11.
“She has to get up at 6.30am every morning, she’s not home till gone 4.30pm,” she said. “They said we should try to appeal to get into the school in Hengrove, but that wasn’t even on our three choices in the first place. There’s already a massive problem here, and over-developments like this are just going to make it worse.”
When the redevelopment of Broadwalk Shopping Centre was first announced almost exactly four years ago, the original plan was for 400 new flats and a revamped shopping centre. The new flats were to be built on the bits of the site that weren't the shopping centre - the snooker hall and multi-storey car park, and the shopping centre itself would stay open and get a revamp.
That was awarded planning permission in 2019 but nothing happened, then the covid pandemic hit, and now new developers are back with new - much bigger plans, and a new name. These involve completely levelling the entire site and starting again from scratch with more than twice the number of flats, a cinema and no shopping centre at all, just new streets lined with shops, bars and restaurants. When it was first unveiled, the developers cited the Wapping Wharf development as its inspiration.
Since then, a very similar project has been announced, just this week, with The Galleries shopping centre - which will also be completely levelled, shopping centre, car park and all, with flats, a hotel, shops, bars and restaurants. The age of the post-war shopping centre, whether it was opened in the 1970s like Broadwalk, or the 1990s like The Galleries, appears over.
Faced with these new plans, the residents founded the Broadwalk Redevelopment Community Group, an off-shoot of the existing Knowle Neighbourhood Planning Group, to co-ordinate a response and express concern as one voice. A Facebook page was set up. Emails and letters began to be co-ordinated.
One of the organisers, Helen Evans, said they hope the council listens to the people of Knowle. “We want the council to show that they understand Knowle, and the needs of Knowle as a community, and that they take our worries and concerns into consideration,” she said.
“We realise that there is a housing crisis - we’re told all the time that people need homes in Bristol. We don’t want to be perceived or shown to be blocking that, we know that people need homes. But actually what they need is to be built in a way that allows for sustainable communities to thrive, not just putting up super-high-density buildings that overshadow people’s homes and actually tear communities apart, because they haven’t actually provided schools and the GPs and all of the other infrastructure that is important as well.
“You can’t just keep building homes and say ‘we’ve built this, tick the box here’, there has to be that holistic approach to housebuilding in Bristol,” she added.
Laura Chapman agreed, pointing to the wider issues in South Bristol, of which the ‘Redcatch Quarter’ proposal is one of the biggest, but still a small part of a huge number of new homes.
“There’s so much development happening all around the city, of course, and it feels like the majority of it is weighted in South Bristol, that South Bristol is almost carrying the burden,” Laura said.
Read next - ‘Redcatch Quarter’, the story so far:
July 2018 - First plans unveiled for 400 new homes and revamped Broadwalk shopping centre
March 2019 - Councillors give permission to 400 new homes plan
Sep 2019 - Wilko confirms it’s leaving Broadwalk
Dec 2019 - Knowle could become Bristol's next 'hotbed of regeneration' say property experts
July 2021 - What people want for future of 'run-down' Bristol shopping centre
Jan 2022 - Broadwalk to be renamed ‘Redcatch Quarter’, announce developers
Jan 2022 - New plans to demolish Broadwalk entirely and build 800 flats unveiled
May 2022 - South Bristol MP warns of shortage of schools and GPs with 12,000 new homes
June 2022 - Developers tweak plans for ‘Redcatch Quarter’ after consultation
“When they talk about solving the housing crisis, what they are really talking about here are over 400 of the units which are going to be ‘build-to-rent’, so they are going to be rented for probably over £800 or £900 a month for a one-bed flat. That’s nowhere near affordable, and it won’t cater to the people who are looking for homes and housing in Bristol now. It’s not affordable for Knowle locals at all. It’s just a tool of gentrification really,” she added.
The developers have spent the past six months or so involved in a consultation process with local residents and council planners, before they actually submit what they hope will be a successful planning application.
The omens are good for the developers - there’s already the precedent of big development for hundreds of new homes on the shopping centre, with the 2019 permission. All the debate will now be about is size and scale of the development.
The residents of Knowle have not been pleased with the way this consultation has gone. “The initial plan was for 400 homes,” said Helen Evans. “This is for 800, and apparently we’re not supposed to have had any changes in the opinion. What they term as consultation has really been a two-hour meeting at the beginning where they talked at us, cherry-picked questions, we couldn’t see who was asking what questions with transparency, and then them asking us to email the developers, which results in everyone getting a generic response, followed by ‘look at our FAQs’.
“Consultation, to us as a community, is about being treated as equals, having a genuine two-way conversation, and really just feeling like we’re being listened to properly, not just being given completely blanket answers every time,” she added.
Laura Chapman said the process has been frustrating. “We’ve not got experience of this - we’re lay people just getting to know the planning laws ourselves, but it’s been frustrating both in terms of the way the plans have been presented, there’s been a lack of clarity. There’s a lot of buzzwords and architect-speak, but nothing that actually tells us what will be happening here - the transparency is really really low,” she added.
The developers disagree, and point to the fact that they presented plans, have done a lot of consultation and changed those plans as a result of the feedback they’ve received.
“The proposals respond to the constructive feedback received from our nearest neighbours, stakeholders, our ward councillors, technical consultees, and the wider community,” a spokesperson for Redcatch Quarter said. “Following their feedback, the proposals now include a neighbourhood cinema, a comprehensively designed layout and more engaging and attractive entrance into Redcatch Park,” she added.
The updated proposals are now the subject of a second round of consultation, which ends on Friday, July 8, with an actual planning application then expected to be submitted.
Project manager Francis Hilton said listening to the residents has been valuable. “We are very grateful to local people for the feedback they have provided, which has been instrumental in informing the proposals,” he said.
“We look forward to continuing to work with local people, stakeholders, and Bristol City Council to help realise the potential to create a thriving and bustling heart for Knowle that improves the vitality of the town centre and celebrates the distinct identity of the local area,” he added.
But the residents say that while tweaks have been made the overall impact of the plan remains the same - 800+ new homes with 12-storey tower blocks is too many homes and too tall buildings.
As the rain intensified on Redcatch Park another resident had their say. “There’s old brownfields sites like this all over Bristol. There’s one in Clifton at the zoo, there’s another in Easton at the moment - you don’t see 12-storey tower blocks there?” she asked. “You don’t see 800 new homes crammed into a site this small there, do you? It’s just too much, and South Bristol can’t take it either.”
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