In a letter recently delivered to traders in the area of the pool, they include a list of 10 excellent services but have neglected to advise us of how they are going to squeeze what looks like a staff of at least 40 into 18 spaces which have already been allocated for shoppers.

Bristol Resource Pool, a local campaigning group, opposes the planning application for redevelopment of Bristol North Baths. Community members in last ditch stand to prevent sell-off of local facility plan protest on Saturday morning, 2nd February.

Planning applications have been made for the Pool building and associated sites, which propose a new public library and two storeys of flats above the existing car park and 36 flats on the Cheltenham Road library site once the library facilities have moved. The Baths themselves are scheduled to become a new group practice and health centre for the Spence Practice from Logan Road.

Locating health facilities in the Baths building is a huge lost opportunity.

Because of their need for confidentiality, health services have very little connection with the street and therefore add little to the vitality of Gloucester Road. Community facilities in the area will get even scarcer, because the practice is a private business and the pool building will be owned by a private developer. The new library will be smaller than the present Cheltenham Road building. All of this will mean a big net loss of local community space and facilities.

The proposed new medical facilities would produce lots of new vehicle trips.

New facilities will attract patients, midwives, community nurses, doctors, emergencies, etc. but the shoppers’ car park will be reduced from 23 bays to 18, because of the demands of the new library. These are bound to be monopolised by health centre and library users as well as the occupants of the new flats above. Equivalent medical facilities at Gloucester Road Medical centre in Church Street command 40 bays of their own. Coupled with the Council’s plan for permit parking on all the streets around Gloucester Road and the expensiveness and under-performance of First Bus and First Rail, this will make the congestion and pollution problems around Gloucester Road much worse.

The disposal process has been poorly managed.
The City’s planners were not involved in the preparation of the disposal tender for these sites. 18 months of subsequent negotiations with them have reduced the numbers of proposed market housing units in the combined project considerably, leading Chatsworth to argue that the scheme’s potential profitability is no longer high enough to support the creation of affordable housing units (normally a requirement for all new housing developments).

The bid on which the status of ‘preferred developer’ was awarded has diminished considerably, with the removal of the affordable housing obligation, to the point where it now seems unlikely that it could be as valuable as the offer of the second bidder, the joint package of Resource Pool and the Knightstone Housing Association. This brings the whole tendering process into disrepute and penalises Knightstone for its experience and realism in assessing the development potential of the disposal package. Local people have thus lost out on affordable housing investment, community facilities and capital receipts for the city’s coffers.

The Council’s poor project management has highlighted its blinkered view of the sustainability of Gloucester Road – ‘England’s last High Street’ – as ‘the Independent’ newspaper called it. It has no regenerative vision or master plan for the street, which could support and enhance the area’s vibrant street life and communitarian ethos.
For Further Information contact Bristol Resource Pool at Cafe Delight, 189 Gloucester Road. http://theresourcepool.wordpress.com/