Harbour Hopes development could impact on Bristol Harbour Railway
VOLUNTEERS have raised concerns regarding future development projects near Bristol Harbour Railway’s running line which they say the city council has been‘nibbling away at’.
A new scheme entitled Harbour Hopes: A vision for Western Harbour consultation draft dated March 10 to April 22, will transform the area alongside the River Avon and around the Cumberland Basin.
The Bristol City Council report states: “We aimed to engage, listen to, co-create and collaborate with local people, people across the city of Bristol and the wider area.”
An extensive invitation list was compiled that covered a variety of interest groups, neighbourhoods and stakeholders, informed by an Equalities Impact Assessment. The report listed those invited but there was no one on behalf of the railway.
Because of a landslip where the line, adjacent footpath and road has slipped into the tidal River Avon, the run is presently to Vauxhall footbridge – around half the full distance of the line.
Warehouse terminus
When the preserved line reopens after the landslip works, it will terminate where it did previously, outside the Grade II listed A Bond warehouse.
Just beyond is Ashton Bridge which crosses the River Avon. This was once a double track railway bridge but changed for a bus, pedestrians and cyclists route in 2015. The likelihood of the railway ever being reconnected to the main line appears impossible and could be more so after the development.
The BHR’s plan has always been to have a platform adjacent to the A Bond warehouse similar in design to the one outside M Shed, and it is hoped to reinstate this once the line fully reopens.
Should the council’s plans go ahead, volunteers say there could be serious implications regarding any chance for the BHR to have a station at the line’s far end, and there is no mention of any station or railway in the Harbour Hopes report.