Galleries demolition plan heralds new city centre for Bristol

A plan to demolish The Galleries Shopping Centre and create a new part of Bristol city centre has been formally submitted to the council.

Developers have submitted an outline planning application to knock down the 34-year-old shopping centre and its multi-storey car park and in its place create what will essentially be a new city centre for Bristol, with 450 new homes, shops, leisure, restaurants, health and community spaces, a new hotel and accommodation for 750 students.

Those behind the scheme say it will open up the rest of the city centre to connect with Castle Park, and create new streets between Broadmead and the park lined with bars, cafes, shops and restaurants.

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The Galleries shopping centre remains open for the time being. Bristol Live first revealed the bosses of individual stores in it were given two years’ notice of the plans back at the start of June 2022, but the shopping centre is expected to remain open well into 2025 while first the outline and then the detailed planning application goes through the processes at City Hall.

The plan has been proposed by the owners of the land, developers Deeley Freed and LaSalle Investment Management. “We’re delighted to have submitted this planning application after a lengthy pre-application process,” said Max Freed, from Bristol-based Deeley Freed. “This is a vital scheme for Bristol and we’re very thankful to all those who have got involved in the consultation that has been going on for four years,” he added.

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“This is a once in a generation chance to re-invent, revitalise and modernise such a large part of the city centre. Our vision involves completely transforming this inward- looking, 1980’s shopping centre, making the site more diverse, safe and green. The development opens up the city centre to Castle Park, with a real focus on addressing Bristol’s priorities around housing, health and wellbeing, climate, ecology, tourism and the economy,” he added.

“In response to feedback through the planning process, we’ve increased the public open space, incorporated more community space and reduced the height of the tallest element,” he said.

The Galleries first opened in October 1991 and was seen as the future for retail in Bristol alongside the revamp of Broadmead nearby. Its status as the premier shopping centre in Bristol was knocked first by The Mall at Cribbs Causeway and then by Cabot Circus, but the long-term future of city centre shopping - both for Broadmead and The Galleries - has been most affected by people choosing to shop online instead of regularly visiting the centre.

So the developers have been working up a scheme that will be ‘mixed use’, adding to other plans to create hundreds of new homes in the city centre. The plans include up to 450 new homes, of which 20 per cent - just under 100 - will be classed as ‘affordable’ in planning terms, about 10,000sqm of ground floor space for ‘retail, leisure, food and beverage, health and community uses’, and then around 40,000sqm of office space above.

There will also be a 250-room hotel, or ‘aparthotel’, and purpose-built student accommodation for 750 students, with an acre and a half of the entire site given over to ‘high quality public realm and green space’.

The developers say they have listened to concerns about how tall the tallest buildings proposed would be, and reduced the heights of the tower blocks, as well as scaling back the plans generally.

Back in 2022, the developers talked about a 300-room hotel - it’s now 250 rooms - a purpose-built student accommodation block for 800 students - it’s now 750, although the number of new homes that might be built there appears to have risen from 240 to 450.

Illustrations produced in 2022 also showed the landmark building of the development - a 28-storey block of flats - would be in the south east corner of The Galleries site, on the corner of Newgate and Fairfax Street where the footbridge across from Castle Park to the shopping centre is.

Back in February this year, the developers produced illustrations that show this proposed tallest building has been scaled down to 22 storeys and moved to the south west corner, further along Newgate, at the corner of Union Street, where the main entrance to The Galleries is from Castle Park.

The developers will hope Bristol City Council ’s new planning committee will be able to decide on the scheme this year, with work potentially starting next year.