‘Birdboxes’ Residents slam high-rise homes plan for shopping centre
PLANS to build 880 homes and a cinema on the site of a south Bristol shopping centre have been criticised for a lack of amenities and green space in an “already overpopulated” area.
Developers have submitted their vision to council planners to transform the Broadwalk Shopping Centre at the heart of Knowle into Redcatch Quarter.
In plans similar to Bristol’s Wapping Wharf, 12-storey blocks of flats would be built either side of a new pedestrianised street lined with shops, restaurants and bars.
Readers of the Post’s website Bristol Live have voiced both support for and concerns over the proposal.
Issues raised included how environmentally friendly the development would be, whether there would be parking, whether the cinema or proposed library would actually be used and how elderly or disabled individuals, or in fact families, would be able to access flats in skyrise properties.
One person commented: “What a brilliant idea! At a time when there is a shortage of housing for families and low-rise accessible housing for the elderly and disabled, propose to build yet more birdbox apartments that will tower over nearby houses whilst neglecting to include minor inconveniences like extra doctors’ surgeries and green space.
“It would seem based on this and other recent proposals and indeed ongoing building in some places that the mayoral vision for the city is high-rises full of young, single people, where residents zip about on e-scooters or cycles and where families, the disabled and the elderly are no longer welcome nor provided for.”
A second described the area as being “already overpopulated”, saying that flats were “not needed here” and instead suggesting that “a good spruce up” and some more suitable shops were all that was needed.
Similarly, other locals requested that more houses with gardens, green spaces and even a doctors’ surgery be located there instead.
On the other side of the debate, one person called the plan a “fantastic development” and welcomed the news of more homes to combat the housing crisis and bringing more spending to the area.
Another suggested that each flat should include a parking space.
Some questioned whether the likes of a cinema or library would be used, with streaming services now so prevalent, while some locals remembered the Gaiety cinema just down the road from the shopping centre, which even had its own 125-person dance hall on the first floor.
The cinema was demolished back in 2003 and is now the site of the Anchor House sheltered housing block for the elderly.
It would seem the mayoral vision for the city is high-rises full of young people [who] zip about on e-scooters or cycles and where families, the disabled and the elderly are no longer welcome nor provided for Comment on Bristol Live