'D Day' for Bristol Zoo housing plans
Bristol City Councillors will convene later to decide if housing can be built on Bristol Zoo's historic Clifton site
Last updated 26th Apr 2023
It is a huge day in the history of Bristol Zoo with councillors set to decide whether homes can be built on its historic Clifton site.
The zoo closed last September after 186 years with bosses saying they were struggling financially.
They want to sell the site for homes and use the money to create a new Bristol Zoo at Wild Place near Cribbs Causeway.
Just last Saturday (22 April) the Bristol Zoological Society, which owns both sites currently, confirmed Wild Place will rebrand as the Bristol Zoo Project from this summer.
As well as selling the site for homes, the Society says selling the land will allow the popular gardens in Clifton to open to the public for free for the first time.
They add the biodiversity of the site will actually improve and 20 per cent of the homes will be affordable, but some are passionately against the plans.
Tom Jones who lives in Cliftonwood set up the group Save Bristol Zoo (SBZ) to try and reverse the Society's decision.
SBZ held a protest march through the city last month to raise awareness of their campaign.
The SBZ argument
Save Bristol Zoo claim that despite what the Society says, their financial position was strong enough that the site could have stayed open.
The Society says visitor numbers had been steadily declining for several years and therefore their income was decreasing, but SBZ say that is misleading.
In truth, the evidence can be used to back up both arguments depending on which of it you pay attention to.
Jones analyses it in an 80 page long report available on SBZ's website.
Jones agrees that Covid had a significant negative impact on the Zoological Society's finances, but says that followed three years of net gains in funds.
He also says the Society's income had been steadily rising since 2011, from ÂŁ8.8 million to ÂŁ12.3m in 2019, with a peak of ÂŁ13.6m in 2018 and that visitor numbers to the zoo had remained relatively steady at between 500,000 and 600,000 every year since 2012, only dropping significantly when the pandemic arrived.
Jones also says the amount of money Bristol Zoo Gardens made from membership fees actually reached a new high in 2019 at ÂŁ1.1m.
Away from the finances Jones also says many of the zoo's statements around the closure have been misleading.
For example, he says the Society cannot guarantee that the gardens will remain open to the public for free long term.
He claims in reality none of the housing set to be built will be affordable and that the Wild Place site, which is set to become the new Bristol Zoo, is actually much smaller than claimed because some of it cannot be built on, for example, because it features protected woodland.
"They can offer no long term legal protections that (the gardens in Clifton) will stay open for anything more than five years from when it opens," Jones says.
That is, he says, because of a planning obligation called Section 106.
"They're advocating for the loss of around 42.5 per cent of the trees on the site," he said.
"They're planning to bulldoze the herbaceous border where generations of shareholders have scattered ashes over the decades...
"Once they've sold the site they can offer no protection (of the gardens) at all."
He also says the housing estate will be "luxury" and not affordable.
"In terms of contributing to much needed homes in Bristol, this is not going to be what that is," he said.
Bristol Zoo's argument
On the financial points, the Bristol Zoological Society leadership insists their position was not healthy.
Visitor numbers at Bristol Zoo Gardens were on the decline before Covid hit, having gone from 589,522 in 2012 to 512,934 in 2019.
During a one-on-one interview with us at Wild Place we put SBZ's points to Dr Justin Morris, chief executive of the Bristol Zoological Society.
He refuted them all.
"They're opinions," he said.
"The fact is when you look at our accounts, which are published as a charity...it's very clear that the number of paying visitors to Bristol Zoo Gardens over the last 10 years or more has declined quite significantly...
"When you then take account of the compounding effect of Covid, we're now of course into a period of much greater inflation and higher costs, the parking that was once available at Bristol Zoo Gardens would not have been available in the future.*
"When you take all of those things together it's very clear that Bristol Zoo Gardens just isn't suitable as a modern, conservation progressive zoo in the 21st Century."
The Size of Wild Place
Dr Morris says any suggestion that the Wild Place site is not much bigger than Bristol Zoo Gardens, is "simply not true".
"It is the case that we've got much more space," he said.
"This site is nearly 140 acres, the Bristol Zoo Gardens site is 12 acres, that's the difference in scale.
"We've also got a range of different types of habitat.
"You mentioned the woodland, there is ancient woodland here and one of our exhibits right now, the Bear Wood exhibit is located in that ancient woodland.
"It is an area of Green Belt, but we have a planning consent from 2010 for a masterplan for this site and we're really confident that we'll be able to develop the Wild Place site to become the new Bristol Zoo."
The Gardens in Clifton
Again, Dr Morris says it is wrong to suggest the gardens will not stay open in Clifton long term.
"I've no idea where the five years has come from, that's simply not true," he said.
"The way that it works is that through the planning application that we've submitted, we've set out what the business model would be to ensure that the gardens can be sustained to be open and free to access to the public and that would be a condition of that planning consent.
"That planning consent then exists in perpetuity and if anybody wanted to try and change that in the future then that would require them to go back to Bristol City Council and submit an entirely new planning application for that site."
Dr Morris adds that a management company will be set up including residents in the new housing, the Bristol Zoological Society and other nearby residents, meaning any such decision would have to involve the Society.
"I'm not aware of any legislation that means that after five years somehow that protection falls away," he said.
Will the Gardens be damaged to build housing?
Questioned on this, Dr Morris did not deny that some changes will be made and agreed that the gardens hold "a special place" in the memories of lots of people.
He says the Society has reached out to every family who scattered the ashes of a loved one at Bristol Zoo Gardens, to ask how they would like that to "be addressed".
When it comes to biodiversity though, he insists that will actually increase.
"It's actually a really significant increase, it's over 30 per cent," he said.
"That's partly because of the changes to the gardens that we'll be making.
"The gardens are much loved but they would in places be redeveloped as a result of this application."
Though he agrees some trees would be cut down to build the housing, he insists the total number of trees on the site would actually increase.
Will some of the housing really be affordable?
The term "affordable housing" is a problematic one, because there is no single definition on which everyone agrees in the UK.
However, the most commonly used definition dictates housing is affordable if it is offered at no more than 80 percent of its total market value.
In an area like Clifton, where the average house price exceeds ÂŁ1 million and is nearly ÂŁ400,000 for a flat, 80 per cent of those figures would not be considered "affordable" to the majority.
Pressed on this though, Dr Morris says the planning application will force any housing developer to go further.
"I don't think it's misleading at all (to say some of the housing will be affordable)," he said.
"When we say affordable housing we mean two things.
"Of that 20 per cent, 75 per cent is socially rented housing...and the other 25 per cent is housing that's reserved for first time buyers and it's below the market value and it's capped at a figure of ÂŁ250,000.
"So regardless of the cost of housing in the Clifton area, in terms of that affordable housing it's affordable because it's either available on a socially rented basis or it's available at a cap for first time buyers."
Similar to affordable housing there is no set definition of what social rent is, but it is usually around half of the market rent.
Today's meeting
Bristol City Council's Planning Committee is due to meet at City Hall at 2pm to discuss the zoo's plans, which have been recommended for approval by planning officers.
The public gallery is expected to be full, with representatives from the Society and SBZ in attendance.
We will also be there and will have reaction on whatever decision is made.
You can see the planning application for yourself on the City Council website here.
SBZ's website is here.
*Dr Norris' comment about parking refers to a legal dispute regarding the use of The Downs as an overflow car park.
For decades the zoo had run such a car park on the green space during busy periods, but in 2021 following a campaign from residents, Bristol City Council agreed they would stop allowing parking on The Downs for events taking place elsewhere.
The change came into affect from 2023 and would have prevented the zoo from using it, had it remained open.