Justifying the Unjustifiable

Anyone who saw the handling of the planning application that was submitted by Rovers in 2006 and which was unbelievably granted permission in 2007 will no doubt wonder if there were unseen forces at work. How could such an inappropriate plan receive permission?

One is made even more curious when seeing documents in the application file such as an email to Kit Stokes, the planning officer in charge of the application, from Michael Rogers who is a Design/Project Officer at City Centre Projects & Urban Design, which is part of Bristol City Council.

His email begins

From an urban Design perspective, I find the proposed development very difficult to support. The retention of the sport stadium facility within this location, as an integral part of the character and identity of the local neighbourhood, is to be welcomed from my perspective. I feel, however, that this benefit is wholly overshadowed by the scale, form and intensity of enabling development proposed. From an Urban Design perspective, I consider that the proposal raises four fundamental problems:

1. The creation of an inappropriate mix and intensity of development for such a backland location within the centre of a development block. [...]

2. The visual impact of the proposed development. Based upon the submitted visual impact images, I would wholly disagree with the author's statement that 'the development will have very little or no adverse visual impact.' [...]

3. The detrimental impact of the proposed building upon neighbouring residential amenity' overshadowing and the shear overbearing impact of the building's scale/proximity appear to be the critical issues here [...]

4. The poor quality living and working environment for the proposed enabling development.

The four points have been truncated here to give the essence of his objections but each point is followed by a lengthy paragraph explaining the case against allowing such an application to be granted permission. But then amazingly he continues:

Notwithstanding the above fundamental concerns with regard to the proposed development, I am mindful of the Council's corporate commitment towards assisting the Football Club in its achievement of an improved facility at the Memorial Ground.

He then goes on to suggest a number of mitigations that would help to shoe horn the application through the planning process and that the plans might be presented to the South West Design Review Panel for their input. Their input as seen in the officers report bares a striking resemblance to the suggestions made by Mr Rogers. Click here to download the full document from Mr Rogers to Mr Stokes.

When the planning officers report came out, it seemed clear the the author was tasked with reconciling the unreconcilable. No where was this more apparent in the three consecutive paragraphs at the end of page 42 and beginning of page 43 of his report. In the first paragraph he admits:

Overall it is acknowledged that a modern sporting stadium of the scale required will inevitably appear out of place in a predominantly two-storey residential environment, this is a dilemma that is in evidence in towns and cities all of the country.

So he agrees that stadia are out of place, but then in the next paragraph says

It is considered that the proposal would enrich the local skyline, whilst clearly identifying the location of this landmark facility.

This is not a counter argument simply a contradiction of the earlier statement. And possibly fearing that people will not swallow this contradictory statement he adds

Whilst there are concerns about the overall scale, it is considered that the stadium will only be visible from a limited number of vantage points.

This too is largely untrue. The current stadium is visible from many places in and around Horfield and beyond, but the fact that is is a dark colour and not a bulky structure means that it is far less visible. The new stadium in contrast will have significantly more bulk and mass and will be clad in brighter materials which will make it highly visible from vantage points near and far.

In the week after the application was granted permission at the Development Control Committee meeting last January, we examined the "key issues" section of the planning officers report.

We simply counted the problems that the officer cites. We also count whether he suggests a mitigation to lessen the problem, a condition to contain the problem within limits, simply excuses the problem without offering any solution or suggests that there will actually be a benefit from the new development. These are his judgements not ours, we are simply counting them, although we do not necessarily agree with all the conclusions. We also ranked problems between one start and three star (three star being more serious than one star) and put the results in a table.



The above table shows the solutions to the various key issues and how they are handled. Twenty three issues are remedied in part by mitigation or conditions while twenty one are unresolved and simply excused. A further six items are claimed as enhancements as a result of the plans. The poor quality of amenity for the students in student flats is not excused or remedied and so does not appear in the above table. Also the two issues on waste and recycling were not problems nor enhancements are are not included in the above totals. Some items included both excuses and enhancements in which case the issue was counted in both columns.

You can download our report which lists all of these issues in detail explaining what each key issue is how it is to be resolved and any notes about whether we agree with the problem or solution.

We can only hope that the latest planning application will be allowed to stand or fall on its own merits and that all those factors are openly and clearly visible to planners, committee members and the public.