A landmark building backed by the mayor as a flagship housing development is delayed again, and reportedly won’t now be ready for people move into until at least 2025.
The Boatyard building on the banks of the River Avon in Totterdown was originally supposed to be finished by now, but following legal and construction issues, the latest update from the builders via a councillor is that it won’t now be completed until early 2025.
When Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer visited Bristol as part of the local and mayoral election campaign in the spring of 2021, the Boatyard building was the project Mayor Marvin Rees took him to visit to show how the ruling Labour group were ‘getting stuff done’.
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But since then, the Boatyard project has been hit by problems. After it was controversially given planning permission back in 2019, the developers, national construction firm Mid Group, went bust in July, and worked stopped for the whole of the summer of 2022 before its owners, the London-based housing association Clarion managed to find a new company to complete the project in September last year.
There have also been issues with the innovative building methods - which have seen the outer shell of the building completed first and the 152 residential flats constructed using a part-modular method and brought to the site. The most recent estimate for a completion date given by Clarion was late this year or early 2024, but now it seems there are even more issues.
An update shared by local councillor Andrew Varney (Lib Dem, Brislington West) said when he met with Clarion, they had a new estimated time for completion of early 2025. “As residents may know, not much has been happening on the site since the previous construction company, Mid Group, entered into administration last year,” he said. “Clarion has been dealing with legal issues since then but now has a new construction partner to finish the development.
“The good news is, while new designs for the interior of the building are being worked out, Clarion are offering to temporarily pull back the hoardings so that we can reopen the footpath, cycle path and bus lane, something we have been calling for several months. The recent removal of one of the cranes will also help facilitate this. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the building will be occupied anytime soon, and the latest forecast is a completion date of early 2025,” he added.
The Boatyard project has created a new landmark building for Bristol. The development consists of a number of blocks of flats on the Bath Road on the site of an old petrol station at the junction with Totterdown Bridge. From the road level, the tallest building is 15 storeys high, but 17 storeys from the riverbank level.
Earlier this year, local residents reported that erosion from the River Avon had undercut the building, but Clarion repeated previous reassurances given to Bristol Live that this was not an issue.
“Local people were also concerned about the recent collapse in the riverbank by the new development,” confirmed Cllr Varney. “We have been assured that the building is resting on dozens of piles and is sitting on a concrete ‘raft’ and is completely unaffected by the changing riverbank profile. However, Clarion will be reprofiling the riverbank to improve its appearance, perhaps with rock matting that will also allow for reed beds to grow. We also asked about litter on the riverbank and the developers have promised to make sure everything is kept clean and tidy,” he added.
When the building was originally planned, developers The Mid Group wanted to build flats for general sale, but soon after obtaining planning permission, they signed a deal with Clarion Housing Association to convert 112 of the flats to be sold under a shared ownership scheme through the London-based housing association, with the remaining 40 rented to people on the housing waiting list at social rent levels.
That meant all the homes were classed as ‘affordable’ under planning terms, and that in turn meant the Mid Group were no longer liable to pay £1.15 million to Bristol City Council as a Community Infrastructure Levy.
When Sir Keir Starmer visited Bristol in April 2021, he was taken to the Boatyard project by Marvin Rees, and later tweeted to praise "the biggest council house building programme in decades and cranes on the horizon across the city".
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