Bristol student flats provider 'welcomes feedback' on Colston building name

A student accommodation provider which manages one of the last remaining buildings named after Bristol slave trader Edward Colston has said it would welcome ‘all feedback’ on the name of its building.

‘The Colston’ is one of the major student accommodation buildings in The Centre in Bristol, with 100 rooms available to students at both Bristol University and UWE.

It was named ‘The Colston’ when the building, which is above the 4500 Miles from Delhi restaurant and next to the armed forces recruitment centre facing the Cenotaph in the The Centre of Bristol, was converted to student accommodation in 2016. But one local resident said it was now time for a re-think.

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“This is obviously a non-local company not aware of local context and just lazily naming the building after the location on Colston Avenue, only a short distance from the empty Colston plinth,” he said.

“Their website makes reference to being convenient for University of Bristol, which is distancing itself from the Colston legacy by, for example, removing the dolphin from its logo. Personally I think the company that owns the building should be made to change their ill-judged name choice,” he added.

The accommodation building was named ‘The Colston’ long before the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled in 2020, just yards from the front door. It was named after Colston Avenue, which still bears the Colston name, after Bristol City Council said it wouldn’t be changing street names unless there was an overwhelming majority of residents and businesses based on that street demanded it.

Before the Colston statue was toppled there had already been a number of places named after Edward Colston that began to drop the name - Colston Primary School renamed itself Cotham Primary School, while the Colston Yard pub and the Colston Hall dropped the name before 2020.

The toppling of the statue prompted a deluge of establishments that had previously rejected pressure to drop the name to change, including the Colston Tower building next to the statue, Colston’s Girls’ School became Montpelier High, Colston’s School switched to The Collegiate School and the Colston Arms became the ‘Open Arms’.

More recently, Bristol University began a long process of changing its logo to drop Colston’s dolphin emblem, but right across Bristol there are still areas, streets, buildings and businesses named after Bristol’s infamous son.

The Colston student accommodation is managed by Homes for Students, while the building itself is owned by that accommodation provider’s landlord.

A spokesperson for Homes for Students said: “As a third-party operator managing The Colston on behalf of the landlord, it is not within our remit to change the name of the property.

“However, we are aware of local sentiment and would welcome all feedback on the name from interested parties via our customer services inbox. We will ensure all feedback is passed onto the landlord,” he added.