All your eggs in one trolley
Councillors stage U-turn over plan to build cafe on site of Downs toilet block
COUNCILLORS have made a shock U-turn over plans for a cafe on The Downs, just three years after granting permission.
Bristol City Council’s development management committee voted 5-4 against allowing the existing toilet block to be demolished and replaced with a glass and timber-fronted single-storey building, despite officers recommending approval and warning refusal would not withstand an appeal.
Members said they feared the development, near the Sea Walls off Circular Road, could be a “slippery slope” and set a precedent at the beauty spot.
They were also concerned that the new building’s ‘footprint’ would be much larger than the existing 1950s loos.
The application, from The Downs Committee, was resubmitted because the existing planning consent from March 2019, for an almost identical cafe, education booth and replacement toilets, expired three weeks ago.
It attracted 58 objections – including from ward councillors, the Open Spaces Society and CPRE, The Countryside Charity – and 16 letters of support.
Committee member, Green councillor Lorraine Francis, told the planning committee last week: “We are getting into a situation where green spaces are being commercialised.
“Once we start erecting permanent buildings – outside of a toilet which has been there for a long time – then the next thing you know we are building and building. This is going down a slippery slope.”
The council’s head of development control, Gary Collins, replied: “A decision on one application doesn’t set a precedent for another. This wouldn’t provide a green light to any other proposal.”
He said the application should be approved because it met criteria that allowed exceptions for developments that were “ancillary” to existing protected open space.
He said, given the lack of any real change in the circumstances and the recent expiry of the planning permission, refusal would be an unusual decision to make “and one that probably would not stand up at appeal”.
He added: “The existence of that recent permission is something we recommend you give significant weight to.”
Members heard that since the 2019 decision, a Government inspector had approved the necessary consent for the development on common land, which has no time limit, and that the cafe was required to help the Downs Committee meet the £15,000 costs of maintaining public toilets.
Tory councillor Richard Eddy said he was on the committee three years ago that was “overwhelmingly convinced it was a decent scheme”, which remained the case.
He said: “If anything, post-Covid, the demand to open these green lungs for the people of Bristol is even more vibrant, so I urge members to vote for this.”
Labour councillor Fabian Breckels said: “If there have been no significant material changes since the last time this was granted, we’re going to be on very thin ice if we refuse this now and we then find we get absolutely rinsed at planning appeal. Aesthetically, the new building is an improvement on the old. The old toilet block looks quite hideous and almost unsafe.”
Green councillor Guy Poultney said it would be good to have more toilets and information boards on the Downs, but they were already there.
“Where do you stop if you’re just building things to make money to facilitate the things that are ancillary? The balance hasn’t quite been struck with me, so I don’t think it’s quite worth it,” he said.
Another Green, Cllr Ani Stafford Town send, who chairs the committee, said: “I was quite excited by this because I like being able to use a toilet when I’m on the Downs. However, I’m not convinced why it needs to double its footprint to have this.”
Susan Carter, of the Open Spaces Society, told members: “These toilets don’t require replacing; they’re perfectly usable. The Downs Committee has lost its statutory purpose in putting forward this proposal. It’s not there to run toilets.”
Councillors voted to defer the application for officers to bring back a report detailing reasons that could justify refusal, as per council procedure where members are minded to reject plans against officers’ advice.