Bristol YTL Developments Taylor Wimpey Muse Developments

Bristol City Council has increased the amount of city centre affordable housing being delivered by waiving viability tests for those developers prepared to offer more.

Cllr Paul Smith, Cabinet Member for Housing at the council, told our conference that it is taking a ‘strong line’ on affordable housing policy. The authority, which has a policy that 40% of schemes in central Bristol should be affordable, had followed the lead of the Greater London Authority (GLA) by telling developers that it would waive the requirements to conduct viability tests if they earmarked 20% of their schemes for affordable homes.

The approach had already led to an increase in the proportion of affordable housing coming through the process, he said: “If you get to 2% policy compliance, we will waive the viability test and see if we can get more. The industry has responded really well to the challenge and we’ve got a lot of schemes at 20% when we were getting six per cent before.”

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Smith also said Bristol is looking at identifying under-used land around the city, particularly around transport infrastructure like roundabouts, for additional housing when it revises its local plan.

An example of this approach is in east Bristol where the council is working with Stirling Prize winning architect Bill Dunster’s firm Zedpods on a pilot project to build eleven homes above a car park and another 500 plus dwellings more could be delivered by turning the Lawrence Hill gyratory system back into a junction.

The council also aims to use the relaxation of housing borrowing powers on councils, announced recently by Prime Minister Theresa May, to bring forward a programme of 3,000 new homes in Bristol.

The authority is set to prioritise council housing for its own land before looking at partnerships with housing associations or private developers. Bristol currently faces a housing crisis with more than 500 families sleeping in temporary accommodation, as well as another 200 in vehicles and 100 in night shelters, but with the council’s more pro-active role in housing delivery its hoped that they can counteract that issue – with delivery set to increase to 3,000 homes overall by 2021.

He described the debate raging about tall buildings in the city as ‘sterile’ adding: “Let the height flow from high quality living environments.”

Nigel Holland, Divisional Chairman for Taylor Wimpey’s South West and Central division, warned that more must be released around Bristol to accommodate the city’s rapid growth.

He said: “Bristol is like a balloon getting ready to burst and will struggle to continue to grow if we don’t provide opportunities. Where we go next is the question we need to address. We live in a great part of the world and sadly it’s somewhere that’s never quite punched its weight – the potential is huge.”

Taylor Wimpey’s regeneration of the old Cadbury site in Keynsham, where the former factory has been converted into employment and community facilities, is an example of successful place making, he said: “We’ve created a place for people to live and work, we’re not just building houses. We need to do a lot more of this as a sector. It’s not good enough to put the buildings up and run off with the money.”

Sebastian Loyn, Technical Director at YTL Developments, said the reserved matters application had been submitted for the first housing at the Malaysian backed developer’s major scheme at Filton Airfield.

He said the three-bedroom homes being built at the development would be 15% larger than average at 1,100 sq ft and the floor to ceiling heights would be higher than average at 2.7m with all homes featuring their own battery linked to roof mounted solar panels.

Duncan Cumberland, Head of Residential at Muse Developments, said that the developer had started on site in the spring on the second phase at its Wapping Wharf scheme, which it is carrying out in a joint venture with Umberslade Securities.

The scheme, which he described as the last large-scale redevelopment opportunity in the Bristol Harbourside regeneration area, contains two blocks totalling 248 new homes of which 113 are for private sale and 135 have been forward sold to Sovereign Housing for a mix of private rent and shared ownership.

38% of the development is affordable housing – the highest proportion delivered by a development in Bristol city centre during the last five years.
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