Bristol Civic Society has expressed some important concerns about the arrangements for the temporary school at Spring Street, particularly in relation to the travel arrangements. We have reproduced their comments in full below.
23/01305/F | Demolition of existing buildings located on site. Provide 2no. two storey and 1no. single storey temporary buildings for secondary educational use at the Oasis Temple Quarter School, comprising classrooms, staff offices, dining hall and kitchen, to accommodate up to 360 pupils, up until September 2025. (Major) | Former Peugeot Site Spring Street Bristol BS3 4PZ [Public comment, neutral, 28 January 2023]
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Comments for Planning Application 23/01305/F
Address: Former Peugeot Site Spring Street Bristol BS3 4PZ
Proposal: Demolition of existing buildings located on site. Provide 2no. two storey and 1no. single storey temporary buildings for secondary educational use at the Oasis Temple Quarter School, comprising classrooms, staff offices, dining hall and kitchen, to accommodate up to 360 pupils, up until September 2025. (Major)
INTRODUCTION:
The Society accepts there is a need for a cohort of Bristol children to get their Y7 and Y8 education started whilst Silverthorne Lane remains unbuilt, and that Spring Street provides a location where such a temporary series of structures could be built for the proposed five “University Terms” use Spring 2024 to Summer 2025. The proposal seems to impact its Host district without local benefit however. Recognising and mitigating these impacts via condition seems the best hope looking forward. The catchment excludes local children and in turn distorts
travel.
Aesthetics: Part of the proposal is set in the Bedminster Conservation area and a high aesthetic bar has been set previously in the 21st Century new builds and adaptations built out East of Bedminster Parade, both in the Bedminster Parade and York Road character areas. The proposal makes no attempt to reach this aesthetic bar with Blocks A or B located in the CA, and were this proposal “permanent” we would formally object strongly. The Heritage statement is also inadequate for works in Conservation Areas. There is perhaps a conditioned mitigation to be considered here between applicant and officers to benefit the overlooking residents and the existing walking population on Spring St Place?
Statement of Community Involvement: The Society cannot accept the applicant’s suggestion that persons previously engaging with the Whitehouse St framework implies that the “BTS” school proposal has had detailed pre-application. It has not. That opportunity to influence design has not happened, and is behind us if the application is approved unconditionally. A purple blob on Framework page 86 or a green one elsewhere neither describes this proposal, nor where the children eventually living here will be educated beyond 2025.
Framework: The Society and local people have engaged with a proposal for four storey or taller living accommodation on plots 6A and 6B separated by an active travel corridor to Mead Street with trees above ground and underlain with a heat network artery. Block C is laid out directly upon that route. Therefore, there is a concern that extending the temporary use beyond the application period which ends in mid-2025 could compromise the availability of Heat Network in Mead Street given generation sources near Whitehouse St.
Transport Planning in general: The Society accepts this is tricky, some of the mode-guestimates imposed on the consultants are way outside national norms as they point out in Section 3. The process seems incomplete and not to accept cumulative impacts, such as there are local drop-offs for St Mary Redcliffe Secondary students already established at the proposed “BTS” school gate. The Society objects to the current incomplete suite of three documents, which proposes a review a year after construction, (? December 2024?) as this will be too late and a car-delivery overload appears the most likely impact on the York Road and St Luke’s Road interchange residential area in reality in January 2024. Mitigation is almost certainly by re-planning Transport prior to-opening, utilising the anonymised initial intake when it has a known address database, which should be available to the City very soon; and followed by a full review of lessons learned in Summer 2024 informing a further formal plan for academic year 2024-2025 when the number of students travelling will double.
SUMMARY:
The Society does not object to the temporary educational land use but notes the abnormal proposed catchment area, which excludes the school’s own locality, will produce relevant abnormal travel arrangements, impacting the site location and neighbours. Travel plans and transport statement appear in conflict and at odds with architect’s cycle parking provision. The buildings proposed are devoid of aesthetic merit, in a conservation area, but not of concern on height. The low intervention foundations are commendable but their layout conflicts with the local
Whitehouse framework. Lack of early community engagement contrasts badly with the recent Framework process.
Building style: The proposal is visually unattractive considering that the two largest buildings (A & B) are in a Conservation Area and their rear elevations would face the back of existing listed and unlisted residences on York Road. Some mitigation is needed on the built assets, beyond a token row of raised beds or planter pots.
Future use conflicts: We are concerned that the buildings once established will be used or repurposed beyond 2025, as they will then be at odds with the new local framework that provides an active travel corridor (and
potential heat network link) between the new Whitehouse Street and Mead Street developments under the plot of block C. Already some proposal documents give figures for a 3rd year of intake. This could delay heat-network linkage to Mead St.
Integration of school with surroundings: Safeguarding considerations for students will create an opaque caged community separate from its surroundings, especially considering the existing boundaries of railway line and roads. Public users of the well-used narrow boundary route between Spring Street and St Luke’s Road may be viewed negatively by the school. Community use out of hours is ruled out in the travel plan. The proposal is painfully short on benefits for its neighbours. The games pitch could be sited South of the proposed active travel corridor so it can be repurposed for community use in due course, even if the heat network is cut through the abandoned site.
Density of student movement at school start/end times: The existing pedestrian and cycling through-route on the north of the site is narrow and close to the school boundary and is inadequate as drawn for the tidal flux of students at both ends of the school day. School outings require that Coaches wait on Spring Street during the day.
Impact on local traffic: Whatever the preferred travel plans for students, some parents will drive their children to school and turn back to avoid the CAZ. The official drop-off and collect route within the school’s boundaries will conflict with staff access to their car-park. Some parents will try to drop-off and collect children at the St Luke’s Road entrance using the existing lay-bys, thus creating further congestion at an already busy junction. Parents already park here to drop off children who attend St Mary Redcliffe School on the other side of the river. [Via the Avon New Cut Banana Bridge] Further traffic problems can be expected from staff cars and general vehicle deliveries accessing the Spring Street entrance from York Road which is also very busy at commuter times. Existing TRO’s make a lobster-pot of Spring Street, easier to enter than to leave via Whitehouse St. This may indeed gridlock and impact existing motor trade businesses and residents.
Unrealistic travel plans for students: Both the Travel Plans and the Transport Statement Documents for the school contain unrealistic and unsubstantiated figures for the number of students who will use different modes of transport. There are also unfilled gaps and conflicting statements between the three initial documents. Bearing in mind that the priority catchment area for the school does not include the site itself or the residential areas of Southville, Bedminster, Windmill Hill or Totterdown, most students will have journeys of several miles from catchment areas more relevant to the final site of the school proposed in Silverthorne Lane, including Easton, Whitehall, Redfield, St Georges and part of St Annes. Only one bus directly links these areas to the temporary school and the cycling routes will involve crossing busy roads for all, water for some, and negotiating the massive construction sites in the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. To suggest that 45% of 360 students (who will all be aged 11-13 years) will cycle is disingenuous at 9x National norms, and the actual cycle parking shown by the architect is in turn paltry. Consultants uncalculated mode % figs from BCC ?, (with their national 2021 norm % in brackets) borrowed from section 3. Table 3.1 et al.
Walking 25% (37%)
Cycling 45% (5%)
Public Trans 10% (31%)
Cars 20% (27%)