Mixed reaction to council backing for new Bristol City stadium bid

Campaign groups have given mixed reactions to Bristol City Council's recommendation to approve the £65 million stadium at Ashton Vale.

Ashton Vale Heritage Group said officers have got it wrong, while Shortwood Green Belt Campaign said they have got it "half-right".

Council planners have said they are minded to approve Bristol City Football Club's proposal for a 30,000-seat stadium, with a hotel and restaurants.

But they have recommended around half of the 253 homes should not go ahead because, unlike the rest of the development, it does not meet the test to build on green belt land.

This half-and-half approach has attracted criticism from the club itself, who say the £10 million the Southlands housing could generate is needed to fund the scheme.

And campaigners aren't happy either, albeit for different reasons.

A spokesman for Ashton Vale Heritage Group said: "We knew it would take great courage for them to reject it, with all the hype and pressure it was always going to be difficult.

"We can't believe it has been approved on sound planning decisions.

"The application is in green belt and subject to protection. An exceptional need has not been proven and so the application should have been totally rejected. The transport assessment alone makes it unworkable.

"The lives of many people in Ashton Vale will be ruined, and important features of Ashton Vale and the surrounding countryside lost if this development is approved.

"Bristol City Council wants it both ways, to be a green city and a dense city at the same time.

"With a sweep of the pen, they will destroy what makes it so attractive."

Ron Morton, of the Shortwood Green Belt Campaign, launched an e-petition against the proposals.

He said: "My initial reaction to this planning officers' report to the council is that they appear to have got things half right.

"There is, however, no conceivable 'exceptional circumstance' to justify officers' acceptance of the ancillary leisure, restaurant and hotel facilities adjacent to the stadium itself.

"This remains contrary to PPG2, even if the club need the money to pay for the stadium. This is looking more and more like a stadium tacked on to a speculative property development in order to get council approval.

"I am totally against any such development on the green belt, since that is not why principled councillors put the green belt around Bristol to protect it for the city 40 years ago, in an age of identical pressures of housing need."