Your say / Baltic Wharf
‘The dream of affordable homes on the site is slowly evaporating’
It is becoming clear that there is a catalogue of misinformation, half-truths and procedural irregularities surrounding the Baltic Wharf development, which is revealing a disturbing relationship between the Planning Department and the Council’s wholly-owned developer, Goram Homes.
Baltic Wharf on Bristol’s Harbourside is one of the Caravan Club’s most popular sites, bringing in over £1,000,000 each year to the city, but the Club is about to end its 47 year tenure, with the loss of wooded area on the harbourside.
Goram Homes is acquiring the site in order to build 166 waterfront flats.
The Caravan Club was unable to move to the vacated police dog and horse centre at Clanage Road, as the former secretary of state Michael Gove, blocked the move on the grounds of high flood risk.
Ironically, Clanage Road site has a lower flood risk than Baltic Wharf, which has the highest possible numeric flood risk, and the Environment Agency rightly objected to the Baltic Wharf development on seven separate occasions.
Shortly after Goram agreed to pay £30,000 to the Agency’s proposed Bristol Avon Flood Strategy (planned for 2040 … if at all), the Agency withdrew its objections.
Consequently, Bristol will lose its Caravan Club site, along with an area of high biodiversity value with 70 mature trees, to be replaced by a residential development which a Goram-commissioned report admits would lack safe escape for residents in the event of a flood and also suggests would not allow safe access for emergency services in the event of a flood.
Goram Homes was set up to ensure that the Council, rather than private developers, would benefit from the value uplift on council-owned land when granted planning consent.
Any profit could then be invested in Council-owned social housing on site.
Of course, this raises the possibility of a conflict of interest, with the Council being both developer and consenting authority.
In the case of Baltic Wharf, the planning committee were promised 40 per cent affordable homes, comprising 50 council owned social rent properties and 16 shared ownership.
This was pivotal in the granting of planning permission in April 2024.
In fact, the Planning Committee were told that there was a realistic aspiration to make the development 100 per cent council housing, again very influential in the committee’s decision making.
However, even at this stage, financial problems loomed large.
In May 2023, a viability report was produced for Goram Homes by Redloft, showing that if the development included affordable homes, it would make a crippling loss of £10.2m.
Mysteriously, this report disappeared from documentation, only to reappear days before the planning meeting.
This damning financial report was highlighted by objectors at the 2024 planning meeting, as well as at the Economy and Skills meeting in July 2024.
In each case the financial doubts were dismissed by planning officers, with councillors and the public assured that the development was in fact viable and that the affordable homes would be delivered without the need for any subsidy.
Throughout this process, Goram and planning officers insisted that the site is brownfield, which carries a lot of weight when considering a planning application.
It is important that brownfield sites are clearly defined, otherwise the term might be misused.
National planning regulations are very clear on the precise definition of brownfield, most importantly that the site is, or has been, occupied by a permanent structure.
There is no part of the definition that applies to Baltic Wharf… hardly surprising as the site is covered with mature trees, and has never been occupied by a permanent structure.
If Baltic Wharf is brownfield, so is the Downs, Castle Park and most of Bristol’s green spaces.
Furthermore, the council is legally obliged to maintain a brownfield site register and, surprise surprise, Baltic Wharf is not on this list.
Nevertheless, Goram and planning officers maintained this erroneous claim when applying for, and receiving, a £2.5m Brownfield Land Release Fund grant from the Ministry of Housing.
Astonishingly, when challenged as to whether the site was genuinely brownfield, planning officers responded that the Ministry of Housing, by awarding the grant “confirmed that the site meets the required brownfield land criteria”.
However, when we asked the Ministry, we were told that “A senior official from Bristol City Council, was required to confirm that the site met this definition as part of their application”.
It’s good to see that officers do have a sense of humour!
In the meantime, the financial woes have magnified, and the dream of affordable homes on the site is slowly evaporating.
Because funds are now needed to maintain and improve the council’s existing housing stock, the council are unable to purchase the affordable homes options.
Consequently, Goram Homes will sell the 50 social ‘units’ to Sovereign Housing Association and so the Council will lose any benefit from the ownership of any new council housing.
Baltic Wharf is valuable Harbour Authority land worth between £8m and £15m.
However, this is being under-sold to Goram Homes for a bargain-price of £1.3m (valued as a caravan park rather than as a development site WITH planning permission) with all the benefits of this cut-price deal now going to Goram’s commercial partners and none to Bristol City Council.
Meanwhile, the Harbour Authority are being denied many millions of pounds, money desperately needed for urgent harbour repairs, and because the Authority is required to be self-financing, instead this must be collected through the more-than-doubling of mooring fees, which has driven a huge number of boats out of the Harbour.
There has now been a further development that seems to have come as a complete surprise to Goram Homes.
A second Redloft financial viability report, published in April, has declared that, with 40 per cent affordable homes, the development will make a substantial loss.
Sound familiar?
This, it is claimed, is due to “recent market challenges” beyond the control of the developer which now requires that Goram apply for financial assistance to deliver the promised 40 per cent affordable homes.
The loss now projected is £9.8m.
You will, of course, remember that the original (2023) projected loss was £10.2m.
So rather than there being an unforeseen deterioration in the finances, they are in fact no worse than they were at the time of the planning meeting when we were told this wasn’t a problem.
So why was this original financial report at first suppressed and then dismissed?
It is our belief that the administration was desperate to create a precedent for building on this highest risk flood zone and at a height out of keeping with surrounding buildings.
This “Trojan Horse” would then facilitate the much larger proposed Goram Homes development at ‘Western Harbour’.
So where are we now in this labyrinth of dodgy deals and half-truths?
It was established at a recent Strategy and Resources policy committee that there can be no affordable housing at Baltic Wharf without subsidy, despite the assurances made in 2024.
The planning consent requires the scheme to deliver 40 per cent affordable without subsidy.
Consequently, a new planning application has been submitted for an amendment to the 2024 consent which allows the 40 per cent housing to be delivered as part of a separate consent – with subsidy, assuming, of course, that this is forthcoming.
This is due before the Planning Committee on Monday.
Separating the affordable homes provision from the main planning consent, allows Goram to commence building with no guarantee of any affordable homes.
However, as this represents a “material” change to the original consent, legally the entire application should be reconsidered.
On the other hand, councillors on the planning committee will now have another opportunity to reject this flawed proposal before we lose a major tourist attraction and revenue earner, and before we put residents’ lives at risk, and before we lose a unique green space with 70 valuable trees.
An alternative use of this valuable green-field site could be to provide a much needed community park, perhaps with a dedicated disabled adult play area currently lacking in Bristol.
To approve the amended plan now proposed, would provide no new council housing and possibly no affordable housing either, and would cost the city money that would be better spent creating genuine affordable homes elsewhere.
The application for an amendment to the 2024 Baltic Wharf planning consent can be viewed, and
commented upon, here
This is an opinion piece by Martin Rands, a resident of Avon Crescent, and John Tarlton, a professor of regenerative medicine at the University of Bristol and environmental activist
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Main photo: Bristol Tree Forum
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