£10million scheme to save famous shopping street
AN ambitious £10million plan to save one of Bristol’s most famous shopping streets has been unveiled – with the backing of traders and local councillors.
The proposal to turn around the fortunes of East Street in Bedminster was shared at a briefing by local business leaders this week, who said it might take between five and 10 years.
They said the plan has been put together after more than a year of talking to residents, visitors and traders in East Street, and the aim is to create a new, people-friendly place packed with local shops, cafes, bars and pubs.
George Grace, director of the Bedminster BID team, said it wasn’t a question of ‘if’ or ‘should’ the transformation take place – East Street had no other option than to significant investment over the next few years, or it would continue to slowly die.
With banks and High Street names like Boots and Argos leaving in the past couple of years, East Street’s future looked bleak as the number of empty shop units increased.
But now the street that’s been ‘South Bristol’s High Street’ since Victorian times, and is still the second-biggest retail area in Bristol after Broadmead, is starting to see its fortunes turn, with new bakers, clothes shops and bars opening up as lockdown eases.
One of the closed banks is already back into use – as a New Orleans-inspired jazz bar and steakhouse.
Those behind the rescue plan hope to secure multimillionpound funding from a range of charities, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, as East Street is part of a Conservation Area and seen as a key part of Bristol’s industrial history.
They also aim to secure funding from central Government, the West of England Combined Authority and Bristol City Council.
In total, the entire vision would cost around £10million to implement, but would be done in stages.
Of that, around £4million would involve refurbishing and restoring historic buildings, with £6million on the street itself. The first step would be £2-3million spent on transforming the middle section of East Street.
Simon Dicken, manager of Wilko in East Street and the chair of the Bedminster BID, said the vision for East Street was essential for the street to survive the future challenges of the 2020s, the changing way people do their shopping, and a future where more people work from home, shop online and
want their local high streets to be a place of community again.
“We’d like to see this as a five to 10-year project, but we don’t want to rush it,” he said.
“We can learn from each phase. This isn’t the only idea, there are some things here that will work, some that might not.
“We want to go forward with the community and the businesses, and improve things steadily.”
He rejected the fear the plan would replace one set of people with another.
“What is there in this that would not appeal to a pensioner who has come to East Street her whole life? It’s just about making it a nicer place to be,” he said.
“Nothing here excludes people. We’ve spent a year or more asking
people who already come to East Street what they want, and this is their ideas put together.”
The launch was backed in person by Olivia Nava, who runs the Bubble Play Cafe, Amandine Tchou from VX Bristol, and Andy Clark, who runs the Assembly pub and recently opened a bakery and clothes store nearby in East Street.
Olivia said: “Having this widened pavement is perfect. Our customers come in and tell us all about how East Street used to be, and what they’d love to see for the future, and I think this reflects that – it’s something they asked for and we on the BID team have listened to.
“I am quite excited about this. I felt hope as a business owner
who has invested money here.
“Seeing the banks and Boots and everyone leave, the footfall decreased even before the pandemic, so this now gives me hope that I can stick around.”
George Grace, director of Bedminster Bid said: “It’s got to happen. Given East Street can’t support a Boots anymore, then things have to change. It’s not a question of ‘if’ or ‘whether,’ or ‘should,’ we absolutely have to do this.”
Also present at the launch was Zoe Sharp from Dandara, the development company that earlier this year won planning permission for one of the five sites that make up the Bedminster Green regeneration project.
She said Dandara will begin work this year on 316 new homes – almost 300 of which would be flats to rent in a series of tall apartment blocks – in the Little Paradise area between East Street and Malago Road.
Two councillors also attended the launch.
Tessa Fitzjohn, who was elected for the first time on Thursday as Bedminster’s first Green Party councillor, was joined by Tony Dyer, who was born and bred in South Bristol, and is the new Green Party councillor for Southville.
Cllr Dyer said: “East Street in Bedminster has always been the main street, the high street for South Bristol.
“When I was growing up, if someone said they were going ‘into town’ they meant here, not the city centre.
“But if we try to recreate the East Street of when I was growing up, it’s not going to work.
“Times have changed. These guys on the Bedminster BID team have put together a vision that puts people at the heart of it.”
Central to the scheme is a narrowing of the width of the road to create wider pavements and pedestrian spaces, and then, ultimately, if everything else before has worked well, closing off East Street to motorised traffic completely at certain times, so buses would stop on Malago Road and Dalby Avenue instead of going down East Street now.
Widening the pavements and creating an even more pedestrianised feel than present would open up spaces for outdoor cafe and bar seating, market stalls and greener areas with trees and plants.
The Bedminster BID team say the strategy has been broken into six parts, which will change how East Street looks and feels to be in, without necessarily replacing the existing long-standing traditional shops that make the street still popular today.
» Urban greening and biodiversity
The street would have many more trees and planters.
The BID strategy says: “With few street trees, poorly maintained planters and dilapidated pocket parks, East Street lacks any biodiversity. That’s why the future of East Street is as a green street offering enhanced biophilic benefits for street users, urban heat reduction measures, nature-based drainage solutions and increased biodiversity.”
» Increasing the number of rest and play spots – such as pocket parks
The strategy would do away with the cluttered street of bollards, bins, signs and planters, and instead create a more people-friendly place, including pocket parks – making East Street even more a place where people hang out.
» Addressing the public transport options and pedestrianising East Street
Between 220 and 350 buses a day drive along East Street, and ultimately the strategy would move the bus routes to Dean Lane, Dean Street and Dalby Avenue. At the Cannon Street end of East Street, a public square would be created that would be completely pedestrianised.
The nominal ‘road’ along East Street would be kept clear for emergency vehicles, but would essentially be a cycle path.
» Celebrating culture and diversity through art projects
Bedminster is famous as the home of Bristol’s street art, and already many of the prominent buildings are canvases with a regularly changing selection of huge murals. The East Street vision would be to have more of this.
A spokesperson said: “We’re looking to celebrate the street’s culture through a series of local art-led projects, including groundscape, street and facade art, strengthening East Street’s identity and allowing it to emerge as an everchanging canvas for creative expression.”
» Creating retail diversity and building a night-time economy offering
While East Street has always had pubs, the vision is of a flexible ‘day-night’ economy with many more bars and East Street being a shopping hub by day turning into an evening cafe culture by night.
» Restoring the street’s locally listed buildings and cultural facade treatments to rundown buildings
A conservation area, behind the shop fronts are some impressive Victorian architecture – East Street was always the main road through the ancient medieval village of Bedminster, which was transformed into one of Bristol’s busiest streets in the factory boom of the 1880s. The Bedminster BID team are hopeful of signing up the Heritage Lottery Fund to their vision of restoring and revealing the architectural fabric of East Street while transforming the street at ground level too.