Why the Hotel from Hell isn’t going anywhere just yet

By The Editor
Feb 4, 2010

By Tim Crump

The Temple Way area of Bristol is looking pretty good these days. The much maligned flyover has been replaced by the gyratory, surrounded by impressive, modern, clean, 21^st-century office blocks.

There’s only one serious fly in the ointment, and every Bristolian knows what I’m referring to: It’s official name is the Island Site, and it suits its surroundings like a tramp at a coming-out ball.

The site consists of two buildings: The George Railway Hotel has a Grade-II listing and can’t be pulled down; the taller Grosvenor Hotel is not listed, which will bring a sigh of relief to just about anyone who’s ever walked past it.

After a recent council planning decision however, things look set to improve – eventually. The site is planned for redevelopment by Temple Circus Developments (TCD) and I’ve seen the latest plans, which look impressive.

Mind you, it’s taken fourteen years to get this far. Not to build something — but to even think seriously about being able to knock something down.

The story is a typical public-versus-private saga of shifting local government policy and changes of personnel.

Ever since the mid-nineties TCD have owned the George Railway site, but not the Grosvenor. However, they wanted – and still do want – to redevelop the whole site. Not unreasonable, as only resolving half of this ugly problem wouldn’t be to anyone’s advantage, leaving the Grosvenor still standing.

With the Grosvenor’s owners unwilling to sell, the council stepped in in 2002 and agreed to work with TCD. A development brief was agreed, which laid down requirements on building height, style etc which would accommodate both TCD’s and local authority interests. Subject to the brief being followed, the council agreed to make a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the Grosvenor if plans were accepted.

So far so good. However, about five years ago problems from traffic congestion in areas near to the Island Site found their way onto various council agendas. Anyone taking an interest in the attempts to solve Bristol’s notorious traffic problems will tell you that finding a solution has been a somewhat protracted process, to put it mildly. Abandoned supertrams; lack of an independent transport authority; funding problems — the list goes on.

Eventually, TCD were invited to make another planning application in 2007 – rejected in early 2009. Bizarrely, criteria such as the height of the proposed building were given as reasons for refusal by local politicians, contradicting the details agreed in the development brief.

The next, and most recent, application was made in November 2009. With a different planning committee, TCD hoped a solution might be reached — but alas no. Council officers inexplicably advised their councillors to reject on previous grounds, although this time the Bus Rapid Transit scheme (bendybus to you and me) was given as an additional reason: apparently it will use land near the Island Site as a hub, and details are not yet finalised.

It was starting to look like we’d never move forward at this point. TCD certainly thought so, advising that the decision needed to be deferred to find an alternative solution and avoid sterilising the site. This was viewed in some quarters as an attempt to blackmail the council into approving TCD’s preferred plan of developing the entire site, though TCD’s spokesman Dan Bramwell disagreed.

“TCD have already spent £1m trying to redevelop the site and can’t afford to keep spending more money on plans that may or may not be accepted,” he explained.

It made logical sense, particularly in the current economic climate. Fortunately councillors agreed to a deferral, allowing TCD the chance to submit a new plan, two storeys lower, with some other design and massing alterations. This time all the key players were happy and the plans were approved yesterday .

“Great,” most of you are probably thinking. “Now they can pull the Grosvenor down, right?” Wrong.

Bramwell has advised that “there is a long way to go”, and that it could be years before work starts, citing the current economic climate and the awkwardness of the site with its large variety of stakeholders as hindering factors.

So don’t expect to see the wrecking ball at the Island Site just yet. Yesterday’s council decision simply means we’ll be stuck with it until further notice, rather than the ten years threatened by TCD if their latest plans had not been approved. How long’s that going to be? How long before the economy takes off again? How long before Tony Blair finally admits guilt over Iraq? Who knows…

Anyone wanting to find a new reason to block change on the site now has plenty of time to think up a reason to keep it as it is, form a protest group and stick another giant spanner in the works. They’ll be in plentiful company.

Interwoven among the site’s story are the interests of no less than seven (at last count) local groups, concerned about all sorts of things, from blocking the view from the gyratory to Redcliffe Church (no, I’ve never noticed it either…) to conserving the ancient Portwall that runs under the site (perfectly safe in case you’re worried — though it’s unlikely you’ll ever want or get to see it).

A more likely stumbling block, though, will be new traffic proposals: aside from the BRT there is talk of either getting rid of the gyratory or digging a tunnel under it – and heaven only knows what else. We all know, of course, that any of these plans could follow the same trajectory as those for the Bristol Arena, putting off development of the Island Site indefinitely until they’re finalised or shelved.

You can’t blame TCD. They’re a business — it’s not their job to make Bristol look beautiful. And I do understand that the site is in a pivotal spot which has made it hard for the council.

Nonetheless, with the site’s location and the number of interested parties it didn’t take a genius to see that private development was never going to materialise in the short or medium term. Bristol City Council therefore had no right to leave us with this mess for so long, making pointless U-turns concerning the height and design of the proposed building, and a showing a total lack of foresight about the Temple Circus area in general.

I thought maybe yesterday’s decision would be cause for celebration — and I’m partly correct. The inhabitants of the charity hostel inside the Grosvenor won’t have to be re-homed for now. For everyone else, don’t hold your breath: The Hotel from Hell isn’t going anywhere just yet.