Residents in Knowle are well on their way to raising enough money to launch a judicial review to challenge a controversial decision to approve plans to knock down the Broadwalk Shopping Centre and build more than 800 flats in its place.
The Knowle Neighbourhood Planning Group fundraiser has been inundated with pledges since the shock U-turn by Labour councillors last week saw the plans to create a ‘Redcatch Quarter’ development on the corner of Wells Road and Broad Walk given planning permission.
In just three days since the fundraiser for the judicial review was launched, almost £5,000 has been donated - and those organising the group said they would ‘pursue every avenue of justice’ to challenge the decision.
Read next: ‘Stitch-up’ claim as U-turn on demolishing South Bristol shopping centre slammed
Laura Chapman, the chair of the KNPG, said they have now begun taking the legal action which they hope will lead to a ‘full judicial review into the total scandal that unfolded last week’.
“We will pursue this with every ounce of energy we can muster, and will pursue every avenue of justice. It goes far beyond the fact of whether Redcatch Quarter is built or not, we are now fighting to ensure that the council does not get away with such a blatant subversion of democracy, and that the flip-flop is not allowed to set a dangerous precedent for future planning decisions across the city,” she added.
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The group said they have ‘canvassed cross-party support from all four political parties’, and in just the first 48 hours the local community donated £3,000. A day later, by the middle of Monday, that had gone up to nearly £5,000 - enough to start the proceedings with the group talking to lawyers this week.
The plans for the Broadwalk Shopping Centre were already controversial before the events of last week. The owners of the 50-year-old shopping centre already have a planning permission to build around 420 new flats in 12-storey blocks, which dates from four years ago.
But the company said that wasn’t economically viable, and the only viable plan was to demolish and level the entire site - the shopping centre, the multi-storey car park and the snooker hall - and build a new development called ‘Redcatch Quarter’, which would see at least 819 densely-packed flats in blocks of up to 12-storeys high overlooking Redcatch Park, with shops and bars in a new pedestrian ‘High Street’, a cinema and community space, a library and a dentists.
The plans were recommended for approval by council planning officers, despite not reaching the council’s own policy of including at least 20 per cent ‘affordable’ homes. When it went before councillors in late May, they unanimously refused permission, saying that as well as not including enough ‘affordable’ homes, the large size and scale of the development was too much for Knowle.
A meeting was scheduled for last Wednesday to rubber-stamp that refusal by confirming the wording of the reasons for refusal, and planning chiefs told the jubilant local campaigners against the proposal that the meeting was a formality and they didn’t need to attend.
But while no residents were represented, the developers themselves did turn up, and told councillors that they had agreed to discuss increasing the number of ‘affordable’ homes in the development with financial help from Homes England.
That was enough to change the minds of three Labour councillors on the committee, and its Conservative chair Cllr Richard Eddy - and the plans were given permission, in a U-turn which shocked and outraged local residents.
Whether the residents have legal grounds to challenge that U-turn in the courts remains to be seen. Residents in Clifton did successfully mount a legal challenge against the awarding of planning permission for housing development on the car park next to Bristol Zoo last year - in a move which quashed the original planning permission.
Councillors had to meet again to decide on a revised plan, but gave it permission again, and the same residents’ group tried and failed to mount a second legal challenge this year, and the site has now been sold to a developer.
In Knowle meanwhile, one factor could be the message sent to campaigners that they did not need to attend the second meeting last week, although the message received from a senior planning officer did say it was possible ‘but very unlikely’ the refusal decision could be reversed.
It is not the first time a planning committee reversing an earlier refusal to grant planning permission - in fact, Bristol city councillors have plenty of recent history of doing just that. A plan to build flats on Gloucester Road was given permission by councillors at a meeting called to firm up the reasons to refuse it, and the same thing happened with a plan to build new toilets and a cafe on the Downs.
That was something Cllr Richard Eddy was keen to stress, when he defended last week’s events to Bristol Live. “Council planning protocol observes a clear and transparent process. This open procedure was followed to the letter,” he said.
“I must emphasise that the determination of Broadwalk Shopping Centre was effectively postponed on May 31 and re-started on July 5. All public forum views received at both meetings were taken into account — together with the evidence provided in relation to the planning application — before councillors came to make our final decision,” he added.
It was clear the ruling Labour group at City Hall were generally in favour of the development. As well as the recommendation for permission, the head of the Mayor’s Office Kevin Slocombe tweeted after Wednesday’s U-turn, confirming his support. Before the hashtag #gettingstuffdone, Mr Slocombe wrote: “On balance - the right decision. Not a perfect scheme but with opportunities clarified for additional affordable, an important investment in an area that needs homes and the right decision in a housing crisis.”
In a statement last week, a spokesperson for the Labour group described the May 30 vote by the committee to refuse the plan as the committee having ‘deferred the decision’.
“Residents made their views known in the first meeting and we can assure them these were fully taken into account. We appreciate their concerns, but having deferred the decision and seeing new information, we believed that on balance this regeneration project should be supported.
“The development is a £200 million investment in Knowle, providing space for thirty businesses, a new dentist and library, a new pedestrianised high street, and 800 new, low-carbon homes on brownfield land. Statements from the developers and three different housing associations, committing to bolster the number of affordable homes in the development, tipped the balance in favour of the application,” he added.
