Government £95m for Temple Meads project

BRISTOL Temple Meads station is to get three new entrances as part of the first phase of the city’s biggest-ever regeneration project.

On June 10, Levelling Up Minister Neil O’Brien MP announced £95 million in Government funding for the project, designed to create 2500 new homes by 2032 and supporting about 2200 jobs, around the GWR terminus.

The Bristol Temple Quarter partnership between the West of England Combined Authority, Bristol City Council, Network Rail and Homes England will regenerate approximately 130 hectares of brownfield land around the station.

The funding will allow the creation of three new or significantly improved station entrances to the north, south and east.

The new entrances will mean that the station no longer severs the connections between neighbouring areas but connects them instead. The new eastern entrance to Bristol

Temple Meads will make it much easier to reach the station from surrounding neighbourhoods and creates a link to the new University of Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise campus.

There will also be a multi-storey car park and a new transport hub which will link up the railway with connections for pedestrians, cyclists, and the local and citywide bus network, making it easier to travel around the city and to/from the region. The funding follows in the wake of last summer’s £132 million track and signalling upgrade at Bristol East Junction and the ongoing renovation of the station’s historic train shed roof.

Opened on August 31, 1840, and extensively rebuilt between 1871 and 1878, Temple Meads replaced Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s original terminus.