Your say / bristol zoo
‘We need to take a stand to protect our history and our heritage’
Before the Honourable Mr Justice Timothy Mould KC in court last week were no less than three King’s Counsel, four barristers and ranks of solicitors – plus representatives from Bristol City Council, Bristol Zoological Society, and a dozen campaigners and supporters.
We were all there to hear the challenge brought by Save Bristol Gardens Alliance against the planning permission granted on the old Zoo site in Clifton. This is for close to 200 flats, a road and car parking, and would entail cutting down almost half the trees and bulldozing much of the historic flower borders.
This hugely controversial plan was pushed through the council’s planning committee back in 2023 despite enormous and widespread public opposition and protest. Only the three Green councillors on the committee had the courage and vision to vote against it.
Over two days, the Alliance’s legal team argued our three grounds of challenge well and made the strongest case possible. His Honour was well-informed, scrupulously fair and clearly hugely experienced. His judgement will be handed down in the next few weeks.
But it should never have come to this.
Bristol Zoological Society may have had the ear of former mayor Marvin Rees but if ever there was an example of the wrong way to go about something, this was it.
Questions over the abrupt strategic change of direction from operating two sites to abandoning the Zoological Gardens and focusing on the (still struggling) Bristol Zoo Project out at Cribbs were never adequately answered.
How many of us could have told the new chief executive from London that the 200 years of Bristol Zoological Gardens had secured it a special place in the hearts and memories of generations of Bristolians?
That through open and genuine consultation over closing the zoo, and by being honest about all the possible options considered for the site, BZS might have headed off so much anger and opposition?
That no-one would ever be taken in by all the greenwashing over ‘free public access’ and ‘much needed affordable housing’ when nothing of the sort is in fact guaranteed?
If only BZS had chosen collaboration and invited debate over the future of this unique civic jewel. The Society wants cash, of course, but surely we could have found a way together to balance that with creating a wonderful, imaginative, tree-preserving delight for the next 200 years?
Together we could have developed an environmentally-led scheme fit for a proud city and the first European Green Capital. Not massive and desperately ugly blocks of concrete flats.
Maybe we still could, if the BZS Board is listening? If only.
The plans for the former zoo site in Clifton include building 196 new homes – image: Bristol Zoological Society
And if only our new Green-led council had discovered some backbone and thought about how spending thousands and thousands of council tax pounds on the best lawyers to defend a planning permission it voted against could be justified.
If only. We could all have avoided so much time, delay and massive legal bills.
A legal challenge can’t look again at the merits of the scheme but only at how the decision was taken and whether the advice in front of the committee was lawful. This is what the judge will consider.
If we are successful on any one of the points we argued it is likely that the planning permission will be overturned and a rethink of the future of the site will follow.
We say that as a protected open space, the Zoo Gardens cannot lawfully be built on and the reasons for doing so were inadequate.
Our other two grounds of challenge are about the environment: how the calculations of the harm the development would cause to biodiversity, and the carbon emissions it would release, were made.
How tragically ironic that (as we say) both a conservation charity and a Green council pushed to use outdated methodology for both. They could have led the way on environmental standards; but then if they had, the scheme would have failed planning policy and never have got off the ground.
To the 11,000 Bristolians who petitioned the council to refuse permission and the 1000 citizens who wrote reasoned arguments on the planning portal, and hundreds and hundreds of Bristolians who supported this challenge and donated £5 or very much more to meet our legal costs: thank you so very much!
Taking a stand to protect our history and our heritage clearly matters to all of us. Whether we win or lose this judicial review we will continue to press for a better plan for Bristol Zoo Gardens.
Our communities, our children, our grandchildren and the city of Bristol deserve better.
This is an opinion piece by Carrie Sage, a member of Save Bristol Gardens Alliance
Generations of Bristolians have happy memories of Bristol Zoo – photo: Martin Booth
Main image: Bristol Zoological Society
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