Castle Park Town or Village Green Public Inquiry

Published on 09 February 2009 byDani Marlborough

A five day public inquiry will be held in December to decide whether Castle Park should be formally designated a Town Green.

Deeley Freed is objecting to the Town Green application because it believes that this would jeopardise the potential benefits that the redevelopment of St Mary-le-Port could provide for Bristol, particularly in relation to proposed park improvements and the ability to create a new independent food quarter.

These improvements could play a key part in achieving Bristol City Council’s ambition to make the city the “green capital” of Europe, by strengthening Bristol’s growing locally produced, organic and independent food businesses.

Following the last public consultation in 2006 Deeley Freed and their project team set about significantly revising their proposals for the St Mary-le-Port site. In response to public feedback the re-design work has involved substantially reducing the amount of open space to be included within the proposed development and providing more input to the look and character of the new buildings and spaces.

Less than five per cent of the park would be affected, with development limited to pieces of land immediately adjacent to the already built-up area. The row of cherry blossom trees and the triangle of green land surrounding the footpath would be preserved.

Andrew Maltby, a director of Deeley Freed, said: “Following public consultation, we substantially scaled back the amount of open space which would be affected and were intending to produce new plans for public consultation earlier this year. But we cannot work up any new plans in detail or make them public until the Town Green application has been determined because we will not know until then what we have to work with. There would be no point consulting on proposals which could not happen.

“We have formally objected to the Town Green application because our legal advice is that the park does not qualify for that status, and if it was granted it would jeopardize the potential benefits, including improvements to Castle Park and the creation of a new food quarter, which the St Mary-le-Port development could deliver.”

Deeley Freed has also been liaising with Bristol City Council’s parks department which is currently working with English Heritage on a conservation management plan for Castle Park and funding for many of the projects in the plan expected to be provided through the St Mary-le-Port development. A new Castle Park Improvement Plan Board has now been established, with representation of local residents, park users, council officers and local members, to consider and take forward these plans.

Deeley Freed remains fully committed to the long term development of St Mary-le-Port but needs to await the outcome of the formal legal process before progressing its plans any further. The result of the inquiry is expected in 2009.