Somerset stunning village 'betrayed' as Americans are coming to take over
Residents of a village on the outskirts of Bristol have expressed their 'appalled' and 'betrayed' feelings after councillors approved plans for an American medi-tech company to construct a massive 'office campus'. This development would effectively merge their village with the city they claim after the huge plan for North Somerset was given the go-ahead.
The village of Long Ashton was filled with shock and dismay this week following Wednesday's explosive council meeting. Villagers believe this decision will ultimately destroy the legal Green Belt separating their North Somerset village from the edge of Bristol.
After a tumultuous week, which started with it being labelled as 'the most important in Long Ashton's modern history' by the long-serving chairman of the parish council, the topic of Epic and its campus is a constant in the village's shops, hairdressers, and pubs.
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Last Saturday, villagers congregated at the community centre, leaving only standing room at a public meeting, to discuss strategies to persuade councillors to vote against the project.
Epic, a US firm that supplies IT systems to a growing number of NHS trusts, have three different offices in Bristol but wants to merge them all and offices around the country to create a new European headquarters for its global company. The firm’s corporate vision is for a huge campus that would take 15 years to complete and include a 3,000-seater auditorium. Their choice of site for this is the wetlands of the Ashton Vale, on fields and woods that separate the south-western edge of Bristol and the village of Long Ashton.
It’s Green Belt, so in theory should never be built on. Bristol City Council told North Somerset they objected, pointing out there are sites with less impact all over Bristol itself, that Epic could have chosen - sites that would not impact the Green Belt.
But council planning officers came to the conclusion that, while it would irreversibly damage the Green Belt and the environment and shouldn’t be allowed, the positive impact on jobs and the economy of the region from such a big development and investment outweighed the negative impact on the environment, the Green Belt and Long Ashton. It was, the officers said, all about balancing the two things, and they recommended councillors should come down on the side of the US corporate tech giants.
At a tense and stormy meeting on Wednesday afternoon, councillors in North Somerset agreed, leaving Long Ashton villagers stunned and furious.
In the company’s first comments since being granted planning permission, a spokesperson for Epic said: “We are pleased that North Somerset Council supports our plans for the Epic Long Ashton Campus. This will be a highly sustainable development that uses renewable energy sources, preserves most of the campus as open space, and improves the ecology of the area through renaturalisation of Ashton Brook and increased biodiversity.
“It is a significant investment in North Somerset and the UK, and it will help us support the growing community of UK organisations that use Epic to provide health and social care. We look forward to building a positive long-term relationship with North Somerset Council and the wider Long Ashton and North Somerset community.”
North Somerset councillor Mark Canniford (Weston-super-Mare Hillside, Liberal Democrat), the council’s executive member responsible for economy, also welcomed the planning committee’s decision to approve the plans. He said: “This poses a huge opportunity for the whole of North Somerset and shows that North Somerset is open for business and we want to see opportunities like this all over the district.”
But local councillor Stuart McQuillan was on the committee, voted against, and said afterwards what upset him the most was that his fellow councillors didn’t appear to have read the reports or know what they were making a decision on.
“I have served on North Somerset's planning committee for over five years,” he said. “I have won votes. I have lost votes. But yesterday, I was utterly appalled at the lack of debate and engagement with my motion to refuse the application. Some councillors asked questions so basic it implied they had not read, let alone analysed the officers’ report and the planning balance,” he fumed, as BristolLive reports.
“Several members also did not attend the site visit. We have had longer debates over extending a bungalow. Many stated in the meeting and to residents that this was not going to be a foregone conclusion and waived through, but I find that hard to believe that based on the quality of the debate.
“I cannot shake the impression many had made their minds up based on the many briefings on the economic benefits of the proposal they had received from officers. Many of these briefings barely mentioned other key issues such as Green Belt and heritage,” he added.
When Bristol Live featured life in Long Ashton - which locals cheekily call ‘LA’ - in late 2021, we found a village with a sense of community made stronger by Covid, and with an identity proudly and determinedly separate from Bristol. While many communities around the edge of Bristol will have some affiliation, the people of LA were resolutely separate - and the physical manifestation of that are the fields, rivers and woods that separate the village from the trading estates and suburban streets of Ashton Vale and Bishopsworth.
Now, outside of the council chamber, in the village itself, there is fear about the future. Housing developers have options on hundreds of acres of Green Belt land next to the Epic site, have been trying to get it included in North Somerset's Local Plan, and are submitted planning applications for what will effectively be a new suburb of Bristol, which will include Long Ashton.
But the plans have been divisive — even within the council’s executive. The executive member responsible for sustainability — and local councillor for the neighbouring Winford ward — Annemieke Waite (Green) said: “For everyone who lives along the A38, this is a bad decision. And we are going to live to regret it.”
Long Ashton Parish Council said it felt “profound disappointment” at the decision. The parish council said: “The development will transform Long Ashton from a distinct rural community into what will effectively become a conurbation of Bristol, causing significant and irreparable harm to local heritage assets and valuable agricultural land.
“My concerns are for Long Ashton as a village, but equally for the wider green belt. If this critically important piece can be sold for such a bizarre development, then no piece of green belt is safe,” said one villager, Alan.
“For the village, my primary concern is that we will be subsumed by Bristol, and we lose our identity as a village. But we will probably see a reduction in air quality due to the inevitable traffic problems, on an already congested road system, lose a valued green space, and so on. And for what? Some overly optimistic economic gain, very little if any of which will be seen by Long Ashton or North Somerset. Plus, there are so many alternative sites that should have been properly considered locally and nationally,” he added, as BristolLive reports.
Amanda Barrett is a Long Ashton parish councillor and one of those who founded the Long Ashton Nature Community and Environment Trust. She said she was ‘deeply disillusioned and angry’, and the whole experience had left the village just as disillusioned. “We have absolutely no faith in consultations anymore,” she said. “They are just a tick box exercise. Why bother to write informed objections, emails or letters when few councillors can be bothered to read or engage with them?
“At a time when the adverse effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are increasing and should be blindingly obvious to members of this committee, they chose to ignore so many local and national policies to follow the scent of promised gold. I also really resented the use of the acronym NIMBY - it was used as a derisory slur by one of the Conservative members. Using language such as this is sinking to a new low. Local politics is becoming as divisive as national,” she added.
Another resident said the village felt betrayed by North Somerset Council. “Yesterday’s decision is a betrayal of the council’s previous declaration of climate and nature emergencies and runs counter to the current draft Local Plan.
“The claims by Epic in terms of job creation are overstated and the negative impact on the area either ignored or underplayed, whilst they wilfully reject the plethora of unfilled office space or brownfield land within just a few miles of the proposed site,” said Em.
“This decision fundamentally undermines the concept of greenbelt. We are being asked to compromise all of these things and more, whilst Epic concedes nothing,” she added.
Another resident, who declined to be named, had few words about the imminent new neighbours for Long Ashton. “When the diggers move in, Long Ashton will cease to be the haven that was the very reason for the diggers being summoned in the first place,” they said. “They will kill what they covet.”
The plans will see office buildings, a 3,000-seater auditorium, and solar field built across the landscaped campus between the Long Ashton Bypass and the South Bristol Link Road. Epic is headquartered near Madison, Wisconsin where its sprawling campus includes a mock castle and a cafeteria building designed to look like King’s Cross Station.