When plans were submitted in 2022 to build nearly 200 homes on the site of the loss-making Bristol Zoo, the charity behind the project hoped to alleviate the housing crisis while securing much-needed funds for its conservation efforts.
Despite local protests to keep the zoo in the affluent Clifton district, a cross-party coalition of city councilors approved the project.
“Families on our waiting list have a great opportunity to live in such a beautiful area,” noted City Councilor Paul Goggin during a lengthy planning debate last year.
But the future of this development is now uncertain.
Opponents have applied for a judicial review and are hoping for the support of the new city council, which has been led by the Greens since the local elections in May. Three Green councillors were the only opposing votes when the project was first presented to the council.
Hotspots like this are likely to become far more common in Bristol as the Labour Party plans a building boom.
Locals should welcome Angela Rayner’s plan to build 1.5 million homes across the country by the end of this parliamentary term. There are 20,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in Bristol and more than 1,300 households are living in temporary accommodation. For every privately rented home, there are on average around 300 enquiries.
Still, there are fears that the Green Party’s advance in the city and local NIMBYism could slow down development efforts. Those who have dealt with the Greens complain that environmental concerns and ideals are often more important in decision-making than the housing crisis.
Former Labour mayor Marvin Rees, who resigned in April after eight years, said: “One of my frustrations has been their unwillingness to engage with the realities of tackling a housing crisis on a limited land area.”
Rees claims that Green councillors opposed or abstained from voting on recent projects that would have created at least 2,250 homes.
In his experience, the Greens talked “in principle” about tackling the housing crisis, “but did not support the actual provision of housing”.
“If they are serious about social justice and climate change, they have to be willing to tell people things they don’t want to hear,” he says.
“I’m not saying principles aren’t important, but… the difference between the policies they proclaim and the policies they practice has been one of the most disappointing experiences of my time as mayor.”
The Greens now have a firm grip on the city; they not only control the city council but also have an MP, Carla Denyer, who represents Bristol Central.
The party pledged to build 150,000 social housing units a year across the country ahead of the general election in July, but said doing so would “protect valuable green spaces for communities (and) reduce climate emissions”.
Such ambitions may prove contradictory in practice.
For example, Adrian Ramsay, the co-leader of the Green Party, is trying to stop plans for a corridor of electricity pylons through his Waveney Valley constituency to provide wind energy. While the infrastructure would help reduce emissions, Ramsay has raised concerns about the impact on the landscape.
Bristol is full of low-rise, two-storey buildings and, according to the Centre for Cities think tank, has the second lowest population density of any major city in England after Bradford.
There is already a housing shortage, and without more construction, this will only get worse. The city’s population is expected to rise from 483,000 in mid-2023 to 550,000 in 2050.
Researchers at the Centre for Cities estimate that releasing an 800-metre site around all railway stations within a 45-minute radius of Bristol city centre would provide space for 55,200 new homes.
However, this would mean that construction would take place on green belt areas. During Rees’ time as mayor, the Green councillors “simply did not participate in these debates,” he says.
The alternative is to build more high-rise buildings in Bristol.
“If you don’t want to build on small green belts and green spaces, you have to increase density and possibly build,” says Conservative councillor Richard Eddy, who chaired one of two development committees in Bristol before the local elections.
“Green city councillors are very critical of this step.”
Bristol has long been one of the most left-wing cities in the country and development there can prove difficult. The opening of a Tesco in the Stokes Croft area sparked riots in 2011.
The dispute over the Bristol Zoo project is just a reflection of the general tensions in Bristol regarding housing.
The new council leader, Tony Dyer of the Greens, has promised to repurpose vacant buildings as housing and to ensure that thousands of already approved homes are actually built.
Bristol is battling a backlog of 14,000 homes that have been approved but not built, and Dyer has promised to tackle the problem.
Eddy says he is “cautiously optimistic” as there has been no “knee-jerk Nimbyism” since the Greens came to power, but adds that “the jury is still out.”
The Greens’ tolerance of developments in Bristol will be put to the test in the coming years.
Since 2016, an average of 1,790 homes have been built per year in the city, but the Government is proposing a binding target of 3,057 new homes per year in Bristol as part of its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
The local council is already resisting. A draft plan submitted to the government envisages up to 1,925 homes per year, which is well below the NPPF target.
Rob Bryher, a Green councillor who now chairs the development committee that Eddy used to chair, says: “Bristol’s housing targets have been agreed unanimously by all political parties and we believe that centralised housing targets are designed in such a way that it is extremely difficult to balance the need for affordable housing with environmental protection.”
“The new government must give local authorities the power to build more social housing on more suitable sites.”
Nevertheless, some locals have doubts about whether it makes sense to give local politicians more planning powers.
Mike Orr, a planning partner at property consultancy Rapleys who has worked in Bristol for 40 years, points out that the Greens have raised the affordable housing target from 600 to 1,000 of the planned 1,925 homes per year.
“They haven’t said how they’re going to do it,” Orr says. “It’s going to be extraordinarily difficult.”
The situation in Bristol suggests that the Greens want to rule for the world they want, not the one that exists. Bryher insists that this is not the case.
“The Greens in the planning committees weigh up each application, taking into account the need for housing, ecological sustainability and local conditions,” he says.
“This independent and values-based approach ensures that the right homes are built in the right place at the right price.
“It is not a blank check for developers for proposals that are substandard or unaffordable for people most affected by the housing crisis.”
Dougal Matthews, who moved to Bristol seven years ago and is part of a neighbourhood group in the suburban district of Brislington, says the Greens need to “get a grip on planning applications” but adds that all parties share some of the blame.
“We have a massive shortage of affordable housing. The situation in Bristol is chronic.”
A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “All parts of the country, including Bristol, must play their part in ending the crisis by building the homes we need.”
They add: “Housing targets are an important tool to ensure that housing is provided in the right places. This is vital to tackling the chronic housing shortage that the country faces and which means that home ownership is a distant reality for much of the population.”
In Clifton, the Bristol Zoological Society says it remains confident in the project and believes it is “really the right thing” for the city and will create “much-needed” housing.
The plans are on hold while the court proceedings are ongoing.
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