Shops and homes will regenerate Barton Hill
Shops and homes are to be built in Barton Hill in a £50 million regeneration project for the area.
Work is about to start on four shops and 12 flats on the site of the old Corbett House surgery on the corner of Avonvale Road and Beam Street.
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Building is expected to take 12 months, with the shops due to open by March 2010.
Community at Heart, which was set up to manage Government funding for the regeneration project, is working with a letting agency to find new tenants for them.
The shops will remain in community ownership and will generate income from rents to fund the work of Community at Heart.
The homes will be owned and managed by Sovereign Housing Association, which is putting £1.6m into the project with the other £1.09m from Community at Heart. The houses will be made available below market rent.
A master plan put together by residents which sets out a range of improvements includes the demolition of the old shops in Avonvale Road, better parking and pedestrian crossings.
Once this development is complete, the existing rank of shops will be knocked down to make way for family homes – essential in an area where large families often live in one-bedroom flats.
Barton Hill resident Margaret Castle said: "The scheme will mean the demolition of the present shops, which are an eyesore, and bring much-needed houses.
"Building the new shops at the bottom of Beam Street will create a hub serving the area, which will include the Wellspring Healthy Living Centre and present shops, all within a very short walking distance of one another.
"The building of the shops also includes improving the nearby junction at the top of Marsh Lane to allow safer crossing for pedestrians.
"All in all, it will put the final touches to improving the area that local residents have been asking for," she told the Bristol Post.
4 Comments
by sally, Bristol
Thursday, February 12 2009, 2:16PM
“S, Bristol. Sorry final stages?
What, what, what.... nothing has changed.
£50m down the drain.”
by S, Bristol
Thursday, February 12 2009, 1:20PM
“This work is part of the final stages of the regeneration programme and all the money has been spent and allocated over the last nine years.
The present shops that Margaret is refering to are not going to be demolished - these are on Marsh Lane and Queen Ann Road.”
by Richard, Bristol
Wednesday, February 11 2009, 3:46PM
“Barton Hill needs this investment and if I recall correctly it was granted some time ago so why is there such a delay spending it?
There's so much potential there with it's position in relation to central Bristol and the M32 and A37.
I look forward to seeing the results by 2011??”
by Steven, North Bristol
Wednesday, February 11 2009, 12:52PM
“When she says ""Building the new shops at the bottom of Beam Street will create a hub serving the area, which will include the Wellspring Healthy Living Centre and present shops", Mrs/Miss/Ms Castle appears ignorant of the fact that the present shops are being demolished and replaced with houses.”