A new café planned for the Downs in Bristol would likely be blocked by a 160-year-old Victorian law. The café has been planned for years to replace an old public toilet block off the Circular Road near the Sea Walls and ice cream van.
Last year planning permission was given by Bristol City Council for the café, which would also include replacing the existing toilets with newer, albeit smaller, toilets. But the Downs is protected from development by ancient legislation.
After a recent meeting with the government, it has emerged that the council must apply to Parliament for special permission before the café could be built. This would mean both the House of Commons and the House of Lords debating the café, costing a huge amount of time.
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Green Councillor Paula O’Rourke, lord mayor and chair of the Downs Committee, said: “They were very negative about it, they’re concerned about it being vexatious and using up a huge amount of parliamentary time. It would have to go to both houses [of Parliament] to be debated, just to extend the building by a few metres. They were very clear that if we want to make any changes, then we would have to change the act.”
The Downs are partly owned by the council and partly by the Society of Merchant Venturers. The park is overseen by the Downs Committee — made up of seven councillors and seven members of the Merchant Venturers — and Cllr O’Rourke was speaking during a committee meeting on Tuesday, February 28. The unique arrangement dates back to the Downs Act of 1861, a controversial law protecting the land.
Most parks elsewhere in Bristol are simply managed by the council, often with help from volunteer groups, and are less protected from development. For example, the council-owned Goram Homes is building hundreds of houses on a large part of Hengrove Park in the south of the city, with a running track and family cycling centre in the park due for demolition.
But the Downs Act has now again been questioned. The Downs Committee wants to build the café by the Sea Walls to raise income and help pay for the maintenance of the area. Representatives from the committee met with the Department for Levelling Up, who “discouraged” them from their plan to knock down the toilets and build the larger café.
It’s not clear when the public toilet block was built, either during the Second World War or shortly after. But it now appears that the Downs Committee did not get special permission — known as a ‘derogation’ — from Parliament to build the toilets, suggesting that the building should not legally be there at all.
Conservative Cllr Steve Smith said: “I didn’t think the issue was whether the new building had the same footprint as the old building — it’s simply the fact that you’re putting a building there at all. There was never any derogation done when the toilet block was built.”
Jonathon Baker, a business owner and Merchant Venturer, said: “Don’t go there. Just don’t go there.”
It’s also not clear what will happen to the toilet block, given the recent revelations that the café plans would be blocked by the ancient law. Cllr Smith asked if the committee could instead build a café which was the same size as the existing toilet building.
He said: “Are we saying without getting a derogation for a change of use we cannot build a café at all? Or are we saying we could do it as long as it’s on the same footprint of the existing toilet block?”
Again, Mr Baker said: “Don’t go there.”
Green Cllr Christine Townsend said: “Given that it shouldn’t be there in the first place, to then start saying we want to build something else could stir up things that you don’t want to stir up. That’s what I’m getting from this — you might stir things up that you would rather not stir up. Let’s stir it up, why not? I’m up for it.
“The act is not fit for purpose, and every day that goes past it becomes less and less fit for purpose. It’s not ever going to be any better than it is today, so it will be worse tomorrow and worse the day after. It’s something that we really need to consider. If the Downs Act is causing an issue then that needs to be looked at.”
Previous estimates have put the cost of changing the Downs Act at £500,000. In spring last year, the committee consulted the public on changing how the Downs are governed, and committed to become more transparent. But Mr Baker cautioned against changing the Victorian law and even discussing it further during the public meeting.
He said: “We are addressing a lot of the issues. But the value in the act for us is that parks are not generally paid for by the statutory authorities, and we have an underwriting situation that we would be very silly to let go without due care and attention. It would cost us a minimum of half a million pounds to change the act, if we can. So we have to be realistic.
“I really feel in this meeting we shouldn’t go any further with this. It’s very complicated and I could bore you for a very long time about it. It’s really important we do it at the right time and when we know we can afford to do it.”
