Who is in charge?

On the 18th October 2006 a question was asked of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in the House of Commons (Hansard - 18 Oct 2006 : Column 1283W), "how many statements of community involvement the Planning Inspectorate has rejected because they had procedural or other flaws; which planning authorities submitted each one; and if she will make a statement".

Yvette Cooper replied "a total of 307 Statements of Community Involvement (SCIs) have been submitted to the Secretary of State for examination. Of the 214 SCIs which have commenced the examination stage, inspectors have issued 208 binding reports and a total of 121 SCIs have been adopted.

Only one SCI that has been examined has been found to be unsound and has been recommended to be withdrawn by the Planning Inspectorate. This is the Bristol SCI."

Referring directly to Bristol City Council's Statement of Community Involvement, since October 2006 a new draft of the SCI has been produced followed by public consultation, further amendments made and again examined by the Planning Inspectorate in public (22nd July 2008).

In August 2008 the Planning Inspectorate produced a binding report stating that the revised SCI, subject to some amendments, was found sound and Bristol City Council adopted the revised SCI on the 14th October 2008.

Over the same time period a large, highly contentious, stadium redevelopment (with attached enabling development) located in a high density residential area of North Bristol has been under consideration, and planning permission given (twice, applications 06/03850/F and 08/00061/F) by Bristol City Council. The stadium is home to Bristol Rovers Football Club and Bristol Rugby Club.

In January 2007 planning approval was given for the stadium redevelopment on an on-balance basis taking into account adverse local impacts from the stadium and the enabling developments against strategic benefits of the stadium only. In December 2007 amendments to the development design were announced by the Stadium Company and this lead to a second planning application again approved (April 2008) on an on-balance basis, though it was acknowledged additional adverse local impacts would result.

Finally, on the 23rd October 2008, the Stadium Company announced their intention for both the Football and Rugby teams (sharing the existing stadium) to remain at the stadium during the build period, the build now being in phases over a longer period than originally intended. This contradicts the stated aim (in the Stadium Companies' own Statement of Community Involvement and at press conferences) of ground sharing elsewhere during the build.

Residents in the vicinity of the development site have communicated with Bristol City Council over the change in the way the redevelopment is to be built stating that this change must be subject to public scrutiny, all additional adverse impacts identified, and any necessary mitigation (through additional conditions or obligations) identified. Despite the concerns of residents Bristol City Council signed the associated S106 agreement on the 17th November 2008.

The change in the stadium build and the occupation during the build period will undoubtedly add additional hardship to the local communities over and above the level anticipated when the above two planning approvals were given.

The Council's newly adopted Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), section 6, states:

"6.21 In all cases where the applicant requests significant revisions after permission has been granted, a new planning application will be necessary which will be subject to a fresh round of consultation.

6.22 The only changes that could be considered as an amendment to an approved scheme are those that are so minor that they would not in effect need planning permission."

Also the premise behind section 6 of the SCI is that Developers will be expected to involve the local community and Local Councillors in early discussion of the implications of their proposals and how these might be dealt with. As stated above changes to the proposed build were announced through the press without discussion with Bristol City Council, local Councillors or any community groups.

At the present time Bristol City Council does not seem willing to pursue the matter of a new planning application with the Stadium Company. Certainly the Council has not stated a clear position on this matter, even though many requests have been made asking them to do so.

We therefore now have a situation where Bristol City Council is failing to ensure the involvement of the citizens of Bristol in a significant amendment to major planning development and as such they are failing to comply with section 6 of the newly adopted Statement of Community Involvement.

So it appears Bristol City Council, one of the last, if not the last, Authority to adopt a Statement of Community Involvement will be the first Authority to fail to uphold the requirements of the statement.

The main point is who is actually in charge of the planning process, the Developer who makes significant changes to the way a development is built but decides not to go through the planning application process again, or a Council that should insist on a new planning application if significant changes to a development are identified. This issue could have implications concerning Statements of Community Involvement across the Country, not just Bristol City Council.

Phased Development Changes Conditions

Yesterday we discovered that Rovers had signed the S106 agreement just prior to their announcements concerning a phased development of the residential and stadium development at the Memorial Ground. It also appears that members of the planning department responsible for the management and enforcement of the conditions attached to the plans were not aware of either the signing of the S106 or the announced changes to the plans.

Obviously the Rovers board decided that it would be to its advantage to have the planning permission signed and sealed before they announced changes that cast huge doubt on the validity of that permission due to changes in circumstances and the plans.

When planning permission is granted by the Development Control Committee, that permission has contractual conditions attached which specify limits and actions that must be complied with in order to make the permission acceptable to the committee (and to planning law). The S106, which is often referred to as “the community gain”, is similar to the conditions in that it stipulates things that the developer must do. These things are often tangential to the main development and involve improvements to the surrounding area. The idea is that the developer gains financially from being given permission and should therefore share some of that good fortune with the area around a development to compensate them for the negative impacts of the development. In this case Rovers get £30,000,000 the S106 stipulates pay back of around £250,000 (which is less than one percent). When the S106 is signed, the council can then give the final permission for the development.

The conditions and S106 have both been drawn up assuming an intensive build during which the site will not be used for matches and at the end of construction the enabling developments (hotel, student accommodation, conference centre/restaurant, office space and retail outlet) will be completed at the same time as the full new stadium.

Many of the conditions stipulate that they must be acted upon “before the first match in the new stadium” (such as traffic management plans or safety plans) or that certain things cannot be done (e.g. use of the hotel or student accommodation) until the stadium is completed and ready for sporting events.

The first phase of these new plans would create the side of the stadium that contained the hotel and nearly half of the student accommodation along with around a third of the proposed stadium capacity. It is not hard to imagine, Rovers requesting that these enabling developments should be permitted to begin operation even though the stadium was not finished. It is also not hard to imagine the money running out during the project. If permission to “turn on” the enabling development had not be given already, this could tip the balance.

The stadium would then consist of only the East Stand and possibly the north which would act as a megaphone to blast the crowd noise southward across St Andrews and Bishopston. Part of the justification of the new plans were that an enclosed four sided stadium would better contain noise and light spillage. Both of these benefits would be lost.

The conditions attached to this planning permission were not arbitrary. Allowing development of a hotel, student accommodation, retail outlet and so on was only permissible on this site because it would deliver a full stadium. These conditions are there to safeguard this objective and to ensure that the impact of the development on the local community is not boundless.

To permit the changes announced this week without a complete revision of the contracts on which the permission was granted would be a farce.

Use these links to download draft copies of the conditions and s106.

The Latest Revision

Yesterday, Rovers announced yet more alterations to their stadium plans. The new idea is to develop the commercial, residential and stadium development in phases allowing the stadium to remain in use during the development.

This phased demolition and construction would inevitably take longer than an intensive development and will therefore extend the period where construction noise and muddied roads reduce the amenity of the area. It also removes one of the few consolations of the construction which was to be a respite from the matches for a a year and a half.

Having to vacate the ground was always a huge problem for Rovers and Bristol Rugby because fans would have to travel further, gate profits would be lower and the “home” match advantage would be reduced. So if this was really a practical possibility surely it would have been the plan from the outset and not now that money is tighter than ever.

The reason this has not be seriously considered before is that it probably cannot be done. Other grounds have certainly managed it but they have had direct road access and more room on their sites. The current plans will almost entirely fill the site leaving only enough room around the edge for a one way road between the building and the back gardens of the houses that surround the site on all four sides.

Phasing work will add complications to the construction and will increase costs. It sounds as if the plan is to build the “east” side of the new stadium first on what is currently the car park. This will require the demolition of the current tall east stand but the concrete terraces would remain during this first phase. The Trubshaw Gardens entrance would have to be closed as an entrance for fans. At the end of the season, phase two would begin with the demolition of the terraces on the east and north sides and the pitch moved northward and eastward. This is a massive undertaking involving the bulk of the excavations and for it to be completed within the three months between seasons is optimistic in the extreme. Construction of the north, south and west sides of the new building could then proceed during the season. This time the other two entrances would be closed to spectators who would only be able to enter via the Trubshaw Gardens entrance.

In order to host events the stadium is required to meet certain safety standards. Part of that is the ability for spectators to exit the site quickly and safely in the event of an emergency and for emergency services to gain access. The fact that the stadium site is not on a road and can only be accessed through the three alleyways between houses on Filton Avenue is already a safety issue. If one or more of these is closed due to construction work, the site may simply not be permitted to host events.

It is interesting that the negotiations for the S106 contract for the March 2008 planning decision has not progressed since the announcement that the backers of the scheme had pulled out. The S106 is the contract between the developers (in this case Rovers), and Bristol City Council which makes the planning permission official. Usually this contract would be signed within six months of the permission, but Rovers were granted an extra six months to sign the previous contract. Without this contract nothing can be built so it is odd that this has been left unattended.
Update: 24 Oct 2008, 17:48, We have just learned that the S106 was signed days in advance of yesterday's announcement. We are trying to get some more facts on this but it has significant implications and we will be making a posting within the next 24 hours to explain.

Even with legal planning permission, the developers are still required to submit plans for demoltion and construction process which have to be approved by the Council for compliance to regulations. It was conspicuous that no such plans had been submitted to the council in the run up the to most recently cancelled start date for the project. It will be interesting to see when and if such plans are submitted for this newest revision.

The announcement on the Rovers web site is at pains not to overstate the certainty of the scheme admitting it will need to pass many approvals, has not yet appointed a contractor, and does not have financing in place (or even a specific candidate backer).

"Needless to say we will still have to obtain a number of approvals to progress the regeneration of the Stadium in this manner. These include the Football League, Football Foundation, Football Licencing Authority, Bristol City Council, Statutory Services and the Safety Advisory Group.

“We hope to be in a position to appoint [the main contractor] in the coming weeks when we have finalised the lump sum price for the project

"Due to the current turmoil in the financial markets, it is not certain that we will be able to achieve the necessary funding in the manner we first planned, and the board are now exploring alternative proposals with various other parties.

"Our agents are currently out to the market with student accommodation providers and hotel operators and we hope to receive bids in the near future.

These will give the board a good selection of excuses when they want to announce the next delay to the construction. Probably the biggest advantage of the latest revision for the board is that uncertainty about where home matches will be played will not be a problem when they announce further delays and changes.

Second Annual Report – The continuing campaign

In June Rovers announced that the student accommodation company Opal had withdrawn from the Commercial, Residential and Stadium Redevelopment project and that the stadium build would be delayed by a year.

It would be unwise to assume this is the end of the plans and if Rovers do find another student (or other) Accommodation Company to back the scheme then it is possible the redevelopment will be started next year. That is why, even though things appear to be safe and quiet at the moment, the members of the HorfieldROSE committee continue to work to restrain these plans.

In May HorfieldROSE met with the Ombudsman’s investigator and our thanks go to him for giving us the opportunity to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of our complaint against Bristol City Council’s original planning permission of January 2007. Our thanks also go to the many residents who contributed to the HorfieldROSE complaint, and to those who wrote directly to the Ombudsman’s office. Except to say that the Investigation is ongoing, we have no further information at the present time.

Much work has been done during the year: we have met with Councillors and Officers from the Transport and Planning departments, and have continued to voice our concerns about the suitability of such a large development for this area. We have highlighted the increased density of population and traffic that will come from the development of Southmead Hospital, the Cricket Ground and the various housing projects proposed for the area.

The current situation is that, as no stadium building work is taking place, the mitigation measures (i.e. Residents Parking Zone, Stadium Monitoring Group, Park and Ride, etc.) which were obligations on Bristol Rovers Football Club from the first planning application, do not have to be implemented.

Two of our committee members recently attended a meeting with Bristol City Council, police, traffic safety officers, local Councillors and representatives from the Football Club to discuss parking and traffic control issues. The emphasis is on keeping the area immediately surrounding the Stadium clear for emergency vehicles and spectators. Match day restrictions will be put in place during the season, any permanent measures being subject to public consultation. Please do respond to the Council during the consultation period as measures set up now may well become a precedent.

We have asked for clarification on who pays for these measures, how they will be enforced, and how consultation will be effected. Any concerns you have should be addressed to your local Councillor.

The clamping measures for those who park illegally on Horfield Common are a success and thanks, again, go to everyone who sent in their views on the issue – things can be changed with persistence.

We will fight on and continue to abide by the principles on which we were founded:

1. The protection of the local environment and the amenity of residents in Horfield and Bishopston against unacceptable impacts of stadium development and activity,

2. Support for sport in general and the Bristol teams in particular. Our opposition is to the development plans, not the teams themselves.

3. Campaign in an inclusive manner, working with all involved and remaining politically unaligned.

Back to Basics

In a long running campaign like this it is easy to get caught up in the day to day aspects and then to forget the primary reasons for things.

HorfieldROSE and other people who oppose this stadium plan are not anti-sport. Many of the members of HorfieldROSE are football or rugby supporters, but when one looks at all of the factors in these plans the detrimental aspects far outweigh the benefits. There are many good reasons for wanting a new and better stadium, but not just any stadium because the one that is being planned, is not good for Bristol, it is not good for the clubs, the fans or the resident's who will have to live with it.

The Wrong Location

When the Memorial Ground was established in 1921 in memory of all those who had died in WWI, it was a set of rugby pitches with a covered wooden terrace stand in an established Victorian residential area near the edge of the city. Both players and spectators would be drawn from the surrounding area and most would arrive on foot.

Times have changed and so has the city. Nearly a century of development and the Memorial Ground is now land locked in a huge sprawl of housing suburbs. Attendees to matches now come from much greater distances, cars are the primary mode of transport, and sport has become much more commercial.

All of these factors make the site less appropriate for today's needs. All seater stadiums are always bigger than terraced stadiums with the same capacity. Changing the stadium from mainly terraced to all seater and at the same time increasing the capacity by 50% makes the necessary structure significantly larger completely filling the site. This is not good for the neighbours of the stadium, but it also means that the stadium will not be able to expand, gives no area outside the stadium for activities and also presents crowd management and safety issues.

Despite being near a showcase bus route, there are simply not enough buses passing to bring even a fifth of the fans to a sold out match, so most fans are forced to drive. The stadium is two miles from any dual carriage roads and the A and B roads that do come near the stadium become clogged and congested very quickly especially around junctions.

Large numbers of people coming by car means there is a huge demand for parking. Currently the non-residenttial roads around the common soak up a large number of the cars coming into the area. But as the numbers increase, fans will be forced to park further and further from the stadium.

The increased congestion and time it will take for people to find parking spaces will not only detract from the experience of the stadium users but also presents a real hazard to safety in the area and restricts the ability of emergency vehicles to move within and through the area. This will be even more important after the E&A moves from Frenchay hospital to Southmead hospital.

Time to consider other sites

In 2002 a search for an alternative site within the Bristol City Council boundary was done and this concluded that there were no available alternative sites. Six years have passed and many things have changed. Bristol City FC managed to find a new site last year.

Avonmouth had been ruled out because it is on the flood plane, but this week a bread factory has been granted permission there and other developments have also been allowed by the Environment Agency.

The eastern fringe of the city is also being developed on greenfield land around Emersons Green.

A stadium in any of these areas would have room to expand, and better road links. Any search that considered sites in parts of Bristol covered by South Gloucester Council would increase the number of possible sites dramatically.

Current Plans not good for Bristol, Fans or Residents

Bristiol

The current plans are described as a £40 million stadium but less than half of that is going on the stadium and the rest goes into the student accommodation, hotel, offices and so on. This is not going to be a great stadium by anyone's standards.

Bristol needs good sporting venues and it would be good if these could also be used for other large events like concerts. However, because of the inappropriate location of the Memorial Stadium, other uses are being restricted by conditions in the planning permission. Even if they were not, the same transport problems would plague visitors to other events as well. At least as regular visitors sports fans would know the area better than visitors to occasional events.

Since the site is not city centre getting to it by public transport is difficult. Since most bus routes go to the centre, anyone not already on the showcase bus route will have to travel into the centre, change buses and then head up the Gloucester Road. This is why people drive instead. Since driving is inevitable, it would be much better to find a site that is either central or has better transport links.

As mentioned before, there are only two A&E departments within Bristol and to have one of them snarled up in match day traffic jams will not be of benefit to the city.

The Fans

No one would deny the poor state of the current facilities, but the fans and the clubs will not be well served by better facilities in the wrong location.

At 18,500 capacity, the stadium is much bigger than the current one, but not big by Championship league standards. The stadium could be a serious impediment to advancement because it already fills the site and cannot be expanded, and the student accommodation will make it impossible to sell the site and move in the future. If the plans are built it will be the last stadium Rovers will ever own and it will never be bigger than 18,500.

And that assumes it gets built. Even now this project has cost the club in terms of money spent getting it this far, disruption to the sale of tickets due to uncertainty about where the teams will be playing. And by taking on an overambitious project and failing to deliver the Rovers board leaves yet more fans disenchanted with the whole experience. Considering how well the team has done over the last year it is a shame that this project sours that success.

Residents

One of the key things that many people forget is that this is not just a larger stadium, it is a stadium with a student block, hotel, offices and other uses bundled with it. This is no longer just about a better sporting venue, this is a large commercial development.

This changes a lot of things. One of the consolations for living near a stadium is that it is essentially dormant 300 days of the year.

The student blocks (which will essentially be the outer walls of the stadium) will be seven storeys high and have literally hundreds of windows on each side looking down into the back gardens of the surrounding houses on all four sides. The roof trusses of the stadium will be a couple of meters short of the height of Cabot Tower. This is an extremely tall building bang in the middle of Victorian terraced homes.

An additional 546 students in the area will change the character of the area and will generate more journeys. Local pubs and restaurants will be overrun by students because there is no break out space or recreational area for students on the stadium site. Also as a living facility the number of lorries servicing the building for deliveries, refuse collection and so on will increase dramatically and every day of the year.

Summary

Everyone deserves a better stadium than this. The city needs something it can be proud of, that people can get to easily and that can be used for sports and other activities. The club needs a venue that will be able to grow with its successes and will not be an impediment to fans because parking is too miserable, or indeed because ticket prices at an all seater venue prove to be prohibitive.

Hopefully, the recent withdrawal of Opal will provide time for reflection and opportunities for a different and better plan in a more suitable location.

Opal Student Accommodation Abandons Stadium Project

Update

This story has been covered in most of the media this evening. 

Also the "quote" from HorfieldROSE member Toby Lewis in the Evening Post article is a very crude paraphrase and not a direct quote (what is printed in the paper does not even make logical sense). The point being made was that HorfieldROSE has always contended that this is the wrong site for the stadium because of the lack of transport infrastructure such as parking and transport, and that it would have been better for this to be stopped through a logical decision rather than financial difficulties.


The following statement has appeared on the Bristol Rovers web site today:

The directors of Bristol Rovers Football Club have recently been made aware that the preferred student accommodation provider negotiating the stadium regeneration is no longer able to progress the project.

As a result the club has entered into negations with an alternative provider.

A further statement will be made next week.

The preferred student accomodation provider was Opal and it was Opal that was to provide £32 million of the funds for the stadium redevelopment (£8 was to be found).

Opal has been in the frame for a very long time and were involved in the S106 negotiations on the previous planning application that was signed this January. Bringing in a new company at this late stage is unlikely to be easy.

One of the key things about Opal is that they do not currently have any student properties in Bristol and this was their foot in the door. Other companies such as Unite which do operate in Bristol will be less willing to pay such a large sum for the student block at the Memorial Stadium.

The other thing to consider is why Opal, who have been very committed to the project, have pulled out. This surely has to do with their ability to raise this sort of finance in the current economic environment. If Opal are finding it difficult then other companies will too.

On Friday 16 May Bristol Community Radio 93.2FM Rovers director Edward Ware said that tenders from the building contractors were due to be received on "Monday week" (which oddly meant the bank holiday Monday, 26 May 2008). Either Mr Ware got his dates wrong or the Rovers board have decided not to share the value of the tenders yet.

The £40 million cost for the stadium is only the Rovers own estimate. The actual bids that the building contractors may return could be higher than this. Perhaps this is what has brought things to a head with Opal, if they were being pressed for even more to finance the build.

Once again fans are left in the dark by the Rovers board. It will be very interesting to hear the "further announcement" by the Rovers board next week.

Rovers in the News

Rovers have been in the papers quite a bit over the last two weeks, and not just on the sports pages. The article on Friday 2 May 2008 "How Rovers Paid Up In Stadium Bid" is quite odd. The article blames the 12 months of delays to the stadium development, in part, on a financial settlement with ex-directors of the club.

"A club spokesman claimed one reason for the delay - which, he said, could not be revealed to the public while it was going on last year - was an issue over the purchase from former directors Colin Williams and Mike Turl of the two houses and of shares held in the club."

It is not clear why it could not be revealed, and the strange thing is that this issue was covered in much greater detail in a Western Daily Press article on 14 October 2006, three months before the planning application even went to the planning committee. So the issues were already very much in the public domain and basically amount to the repayment of loans made by the ex-directors to the club. No big controversy.

On Tuesday 29 April 2008 the article "Gas Opt For Cheltenham" contained several surprises. First was the cost of building the stadium had increased a further £5 million bringing the total to £40 million. This is still only an estimate and the actual cost will not be known until the club receives bids from the three contractors that have been asked to tender. The firm Balfour Beatty (which bought Cowlins last year) has declined to bid "for purely commercial reasons".

The second surprise was Nick Higgs saying "We will be looking to get back here as soon as possible. Maybe with just three sides of the ground finished". This would mean the south stand within the stadium would not be built, probably ever. The new stadium building almost completely fills the stadium site with only a single lane road going around the perimeter of the site. All traffic entering the site including cars, deliveries, refuse collection and emergency vehicles will have to follow this road around the building as there is no turning room anywhere.

It would therefore be impossible to have any construction work going on while the building is in use because no traffic would be able to use the perimeter road. Access for cranes and movement of large structural elements would be problematic. Conceivably the whole facility (including the student flats and hotel) could be shut down in the summer but it will be far more costly to construct the south stand after the building was put into use and so becomes that much less likely to happen.

The third surprise was Higgs saying "that 80 per cent of the project would be financed by the building of student accommodation for 546 people, with the rest of the balance to come from commercial letting." The deal with Opal (the company that will buy and run the student flats) is not signed and even they will be affected by the current economic climate. But the remaining 20 percent of £40 million (which is £8 million) will be from "commercial letting". Big money for a company with a turnover last year of £4.9 million, a profit of £740k and debts of £2.7 million.

Since no buyers have come forward for the hotel, serious questions should be asked about how this further £8 million will be raised and what assets will be sold or mortgaged to get the money. Will Rovers actually own anything after all the contracts are signed?

Seeing the reader comments on all of these articles, fans are obviously not impressed and feel they are being lied to and kept in the dark about what is really going on at the club. Delay after delay for the start of stadium work is being supported by feeble excuses such as "negotiations over public art" and now "two pre-season friendlies" and "buying back properties from ex-directors". As one fan said in the Evening Post comments section "Come on Evening Post, get on with some proper journalism and find out what's really going on? They must think we are stupid."

Ombudsman to Conduct Interviews

The Ombudsman's Investigator has recently contacted HorfieldROSE and has confirmed that, after discussing our complaint against Bristol City Council with the Local Government Ombudsman, he has been asked to visit Bristol in June to investigate our complaints in more detail.

This is obviously a major step forward in the Ombudsman's consideration of the 44 complaints sent to Bristol City Council last year, and the additional documentation sent to the Ombudsman over the last 12 months in support of the original complaints.

We understand the Investigator will be meeting with Council Officers and Councillors, and possibly those residents of Bishopston and Horfield who sent letters to the Ombudsman in support of the main HorfieldROSE complaint, during his visit.

It is probable the Investigator will also be interviewing members of the HorfieldROSE committee.

Whilst the Ombudsman's investigation concerns the previous planning permission for the residential, commercial and stadium development at the Memorial Ground the importance of the decision to investigate further cannot be underestimated.

The HorfieldROSE committee intends to co-operate fully with the requirements of the Investigator during his visit to the City, and we will be informing HorfieldROSE members of the arrangements closer to the date(s) of his visit.

An Unwelcome Decision

On the 2nd April the Council's Development Control (North) Committee meeting again decided to approve the residential, commercial and stadium development at the Memorial Ground.

We believe the reason for the re-submission of the development application was due to changes to the design of the building being deemed significant enough to warrant a new planning application.

Residents attended the meeting and a number of statements read to the committee opposing the development plans. Many of the arguments against the proposals were on noise, loss of daylight, overlooking, sustainability, privacy and environmental, issues but the arguments were in the main, ignored by the committee.

It fact, there were a number of non-planning issues raised by Council Officers which influenced much of the discussion by the Councillors present, and after reviewing the minutes and video of the meeting, the HorfieldROSE committee has decided to make a formal complaint to the Council over these issues.

The main points of the complaint are as follows :

• Committee Members were advised before their consideration of the redevelopment proposal that, if the decision was refused, the Council could face substantial Legal Costs. This statement focused member’s attention on possible legal action against the Council rather than on the merits of the planning application.
• The Local government Ombudsman’s continuing investigation into the previous planning application (06/03850/F) was also raised a number of times during the course of the meeting. This matter is not a planning issue and should not have been raised by the legal officer or any committee member, as a view on the possible outcome of the Ombudsman’s investigations could, and possibly did, influence the decision making process.
• The Council failed to publish a number of updated design detail drawings on the public website, and this denied the community access to, and the opportunity to comment on, new revisions to the development design.
• Outstanding issues surrounding the submitted air quality report had not been addressed, the Council still awaiting a full response from the developer's air quality consultant. The proposed Conditions could not therefore be tested against a credible air quality report.
• No Environmental Impact Assessment had been carried out. The presented traffic and air quality assessments were considered sufficient information by the Council to substitute for an Environmental Impact Assessment for the previous planning application, but both these assessments now appear to be flawed and therefore fail to address environmental impacts of the development as qualified by national and EU policy.
• Noise conditions proposed for the previous application (06/03850/F) and carried over for this application, are not fit for purpose. A noise assessment had been completed for the stadium itself but not for noise associated with on site traffic and from the enabling developments. These additional assessments should have been carried out and considered in the course of processing the application, to provide greater certainty on the noise issues. There is the possibility the existing conditions may not be capable of being complied with and therefore compromise the permission.
• No information on the sustainability of the current proposal was provided to the committee. Sustainability of a development of the scale proposed is a major planning matter, but the changes to the build process (except in the reduction in the number of loads of spoil to be removed from the site) and the re-arrangement of the enclosed space was not considered in terms of long term sustainability of the development.

Many issues associated with the new development such as increased height of parts of the development, loss of daylight to properties on Alton Road, reduced sustainability due to increased use of precast concrete and re-arrangement of internal accommodation, overlooking, etc. have been raised through correspondence prior to the committee meeting, but were not addressed in ay detailed way.

According to the Council's code of conduct on Development Control matters, "When dealing with planning matters only material planning considerations should be taken into account. Section 54(A) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires all planning applications to be determined by reference to the Development Plan, if material to the application, and any other material consideration."

The events of the committee meeting has raised deep misgivings amongst those residents who attended the meeting, perhaps even more than after the planning meeting of January 2007. The HorfieldROSE committee has therefore decided to seek advice on the soundness of the planning decision from elsewhere.
We will report on this matter when we have more information.

HorfieldROSE committee.

Disappointed but not Surprised

Yesterday (2 April 2008) the Bristol City Council Development Control Committee met to make decisions on a couple of planning applications including the revised plans for the Memorial Stadium.

We were disappointed, although not surprised, that the decision was once again to approve the plans for the commercial, residential and stadium development at the Memorial Ground site.

It was basically a fait accompli when Bryan Cadman of the Planning department explained to the councillors that since this was only a revision of the previous plans which were approved, Rovers could challenge the decision legally if the new plans were refused permission. In this light five of the councillors expressed grave concerns about height, shadowing, noise, pollution and the lack of disabled parking but then voted in favour.

All of these issues were raised with the previous planning application and sadly most of them were glossed over, or simply ignored. Many issues had never been satisfactorily quantified such as air quality and noise assessments. In short the scale of the impacts was never given sufficient consideration and all sacrificed for the vague notion of "the general good".

It is actually a sad day for the fans too. During both this application and the previous two the inappropriateness of the current site of the stadium has been acknowledge by all concerned.

Transport in the area is good for a residential area but inadequate for large volumes of visitors at larger matches, even with the laughable transport mitigation measures. Parking at current attendee levels is possible because of the non-residential roads around the common, but this will not scale up as attendee numbers increase. Like filling a bottle under a tap, it starts slowly but once the capacity in the main vessel is used the water races up the neck of the bottle.

Fans will find that unless they arrive four or five hours before a match they will have to park in areas much much further from the stadium than they are used to. This not only makes the experience for the fans less pleasant but may also deter the less dedicated fans from attending which ultimately hurts the club's income the the whole rationale for the increased stadium capacity.

The student flats and hotel have taken up a significant amount of space within the stadium site which precludes future expansion for the stadium. As many fans have noted 18,500 seats is a bit small for a Championship league stadium. This effectively draws a line over the ambitions of the club and suggests that it really has no plans to advance past League One. Had the club considered alternative sites and sold the Memorial Ground for residential development the club could have kept its options open. If the proposals actually get built, the club will find that it is stuck with a stadium it cannot sell and wont even own the the student flats because these are being sold off in advance to raise the finance for the build. If an alternative site did present itself at a later date, the club will not be able to move from the current site. What a shame.

The redevelopment proposals are also very disruptive to the current business of the club. We have heard rumours that even the club's board is not unanimous on whether the plans should be implemented. Once again fans face the prospect of buying season tickets without knowing where home matches will be played. Also nearly two full seasons of playing in exile will be detrimental to club morale and finances and may hinder the current progress the team is making within the leagues.

Last year when the last planning application was being decided the word that kept coming up was "sustainability". The student rooms were to be prefabricated off site and assemble at the ground offering efficient used of materials and reducing wasteage. The insulation of the building was to exceed building regulations by 10%. There was even an article in the Evening Post suggesting that wind turbines could be placed on the roof.

This year, the plans involve the student flats being constructed from cast concrete which is one of the most environmentally damaging building materials (because concrete is made by burning limestone at extreme temperatures, 1560C, which takes lots of fuel). No mention of the 10% better insulation than building regulations was made this time round, and the solar gain of the building will be reduced by changes in the position of rooms. And the wind turbines, well, no one took that article seriously.

The proposals were presented as a scaled down version of the previous plans, which was very misleading. As we have explained in an earlier post the hotel has always had 84 rooms and this has not changed, but the number of stadium hospitality boxes (which could be used by the hotel as extra rooms) has been reduced. There have always been 546 student bedrooms. They were divided into 106 flats before but have now been divided into 99 flats. That just means more students crammed into each flat, the external impact of the students will be the same. The height, despite claims has gone up with the plans as submitted in January and revisions since have increased them further. The hotel block is 3m taller, the turrets on the north side are taller, the north east corner is taller, the arched trusses are taller. The south corners have been drawn in away from the boundary wall, but the central section of the south side remains at the old position and now leans out closer to the boundary wall.

They have removed the conference centre but intend to use the restaurant for conferences instead. Just removing a dedicated room within the building has no external impact when the same function will take place at the stadium, but simply in a different room. The retail shop will be reduced in size by five square meters (only 1% of the total area) which is so insignificant it hardly bares mentioning.

The reductions they did not highlight were the education centre which is reduced to less than half the size of last years plans. The crèche too is to be halved in size.

There are also serious safety concerns that have not been fully addressed. The perimeter road that will be added around the outside of the stadium will be so narrow that it has to be a one way road and there will be no places which will allow turning or passing.

The fire department has stated that it will not be able to get a fire engine with a tall ladder (a large appliance as it is called) around the building. Access to the south, west and north sides of the building could become severely restricted if there was any kind of obstruction or debris in the roadway.

Evacuating the stadium also raises some concerns. Because the building itself now fills so much of the site, there will be little standing room outside the stadium building within the stadium site. This will make it harder for fans to exit the building before other fans have exited the site. During a mass exit, emergency vehicles such as fire engines or ambulances would not be able to enter the grounds and fire fighters and paramedics would have to proceed "on foot" and against the flow of spectators.

The surrounding area to will be placed at risk by cars parked illegally on street corners. This reduces visibility and makes driving and walking in the area more hazardous. But the main concern is that emergency vehicles are large and require clear corners to turn into many roads. Residents with chronic conditions such as heart disease or acute asthma who may frequently need to be collected by ambulance live in fear. And accidents can happen to anyone.

This is not the end of the story. There will be another S106 to be hammered out with the council. Rovers have not yet signed a deal with Opal the student letting firm which will buy the student flats and provide the finance for the project. With an unsettled property market and other economic gloom, this deal becomes less certain. Rovers board may also decide that this is not the right time to cash in the family silver and will save their most precious asset, the Memorial Ground, for when they actually need the capacity and are in a stronger financial position to build a better stadium at a more suitable site. The fact that Bristol City Football Club can find a new site shows that it is possible and we can all take heart in that.

Picture credit: Title: Bristol Council Photo by: FatMandy Licence: CC NonCommercial NoDerivs License