A key development in South Bristol’s ‘high street’ has been saved and will now be built for people on the council house waiting list instead, after the project was rescued by a housing association.
Work to create 50 flats above a new shop on East Street in Bedminster had stalled this year, with developers Firmstone struggling with the soaring costs in the building industry. The firm began work last year to demolish the former Argos store on East Street and build a new development of retail units fronting onto East Street, with flats above and behind.
But now Firmstone has confirmed they have signed a deal with housing association Bromford to take on all the flats, guaranteeing a buyer and securing the future of the build. Bromford said that 30 of the new homes would be let at social rent levels - the most affordable of all the various definitions of ‘affordable housing’ in planning terms, with tenants coming from the council’s HomeChoice housing waiting list.
Read next: Argos building in East Street has gone - this is what will replace it
The other 20 flats would be up for sale under a shared ownership scheme with Bromford, with first-time buyers able to buy a share of the flat, and rent the rest from the housing association. “We’re delighted to be working with Firmstone on this exciting development to regenerate this part of the city and provide more affordable homes in Bedminster,” said Wyn Bevan, Bromford’s head of development.
“Thanks to the funding we’ve secured through our strategic partnership with Homes England, we’re able to provide all of the apartments for either social rent or low-cost home ownership. Work is already underway and we’re looking forward to welcoming customers into their new homes next summer.
"We’re already the biggest housing association in South Gloucestershire and know there’s a lot of demand for more affordable housing in Bristol so have been looking for more opportunities to develop homes in the city.
“We’ve recently completed 26 homes at Leicester Street and will shortly be finalising a contract for another site of 21 affordable homes, also in Bedminster,” he added.
Firmstone originally asked for planning permission five years ago to demolish the old Argos - which moved into the Sainsbury’s store in Ashton in 2018 - but it wasn’t until 2021 that it eventually got permission.
Read more: Everything you need to know about the Bedminster Green project
The project had been criticised because although it was deemed a ‘major application’ by council planning officers, they gave it planning permission under delegated powers without presenting it to councillors in a public committee.
The plan was approved even though none of the 50 new homes planned on the old Argos site were classed as ‘affordable’, and instead were going to be sold on the open market. Council planning officers agreed that only four of the flats should be affordable - less than a third of the amount required by council policy.
But the four planned ‘affordable’ flats in the development was such a small number that no housing association came forward to take them on and rent them out, and even the council’s own housing department turned down the chance to own and rent out the flats as council flats. Instead, the council agreed that instead of providing any affordable flats, the developers should pay £175,000 to the council to pay for social housing somewhere else.
Work eventually got underway in early 2022 to demolish the landmark Argos site in East Street, but slowed to a halt early this year as spiralling costs hit the construction industry. Those rising costs have prompted Firmstone to put plans on hold to build 120 flats and redevelop the St Catherine’s Place shopping centre - opposite the Argos site - and that centre now has just one open shop in it.
While the future of the shopping centre still remains uncertain, work has restarted on the Argos site and will continue this year and into the first half of next year. The former Argos site is not the first major housing development in South Bristol to be saved by a housing association stepping in, backed by Government money through Homes England.
At the Old Brewery site in Ashton Gate, a project to build 98 upmarket flats had stalled despite getting planning permission, until a deal was done with housing association Abri to build them as ‘affordable’ homes under a shared ownership scheme.
The same thing also happened with a development of 67 flats on the old Kellaways builders yard next to the Climbing Centre on Luckwell Road in Bedminster, the Leicester Street development behind East Street, and the huge Boatyard development of 152 flats on the Bath Road in Totterdown - all of which began as private developments with little or no affordable homes included, but could only be completed when they were converted to 100 per cent affordable homes either rented or offered for shared ownership by a housing association.
Read more:
- Inside the South Bristol shopping centre dubbed 'Britain's saddest'
- The developer that IS building affordable homes at Bedminster Green
- The Boat Yard - Bristol's unfinished landmark tower block - finally has new contractor
- Work finally underway on one of Bristol's biggest shared ownership flat developments
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