Bristol kept its engine turning over, now it’s going full steam ahead

COMMENT Bristol’s trophy cabinet needs more space. It was already a squeeze as 2020 began. The previous year, a BBC study named Bristol the best place to live in the UK outside London for people under 26 and foodie magazine Chef’s Pencil named it the vegan capital of the world. Rightmove found it to be the most searched-for place outside London for both buyers and renters in 2019. And, as 2020 got underway, Bristol Harbourside was named one of the best places to live in the UK outside London by The Sunday Times. In Q2 2020, lockdown 1 began. But still the silverware mounted. Everyone found time to critically examine and analyse where they lived and worked. Once lockdown 1 was lifted, the property market said it all. Six of the top 10 UK postcode areas with the strongest demand for property were in Bristol (The Times, 20 June 2020). Over the past 10 years, six of the top 10 locations where asking prices have increased the most outside London are in Bristol (Rightmove, September 2020). Breaking records in 2020 Savills reported record-breaking quarters for Bristol in Q2, Q3 and Q4 2020, selling twice as many properties as in the corresponding quarters in 2019. Q1 2021 saw a decrease in new starts by 25% year-on-year. Supply is stalling and demand is soaring. This lack of supply is seeing housing delivery targets start to suffer. Step forward the housing rental market and, specifically, build to rent. Q3 2020 saw increased interest from buy-to-let investors building on institutional and international investor interest in BTR in Bristol since 2018.  BTR schemes completing pre-lockdown 1, during 2020 and later this year will have delivered more than 850 new homes.  Q3 2020 saw strong demand from the corporate sector for one-bed and two-bed apartments in central Bristol. Demand exceeds supply, with some properties being relet up to 20% more than in the same period in 2019 (Savills Q3 2020 Bristol and Bath Research Report). Bristol has been of interest locally, nationally and internationally during 2020 for other reasons too. The New York Times’ headlines of “Bristol Removes Statue of Black Protester After Just One Day” (16 July 2020) and, more recently, “U.K. Police Bill Protesters Turn Violent at Bristol Rally” (21 March 2021) identified the city and its geographic location in the UK to the world. Bristol played a major part in the transatlantic slave trade. The last 12 months have given the city time to reflect on that past again following the death of George Floyd and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Despite its history, Bristol has developed into a liberal and diverse city. A key driver, especially given the impact of the pandemic on Bristolians, is to make Bristol a fair, healthy and sustainable city. The city declared a climate emergency in 2018, setting the most ambitious targets of all the core cities. Bristol has a long association with the green movement and is proud of its Green Capital status. It is the UK’s first Cycling City and also a Fairtrade City. Prior to lockdown 1, Bristol boasted the highest employment rate of the British core cities and was above the national average (Bristol City Council, Bristol Economic Briefing, September 2019). Overall, Bristol’s economy looked in reasonable condition continuing to attract investment and business in a variety of sectors. Local businesses, in the services sectors, continued to grow. The housing, construction and development industry is identified as a specialism within the region by the West of England Combined Authority, accounting for 13% of the workforce compared to 11% nationally (ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2018), as it seeks to drive the region’s economic recovery. The region also has strengths in the creative and digital sector, aerospace and advanced engineering sector, professional services and logistics. In terms of real estate, the logistics market is flying. How the wheels kept turning Bristol is somewhere people want to live and work. The resilience of the city after the first lockdown was demonstrated by the number of cranes that stood still initially but resumed work once the construction industry could safely restart. The variety of those projects is important and includes 275,000 sq ft of grade-A office space, 92,000 sq ft of flexible creative office space, a hotel and BTR and affordable housing residential schemes.  To note, most new office space is prelet and supply remains constrained. Offices will require a period of adjustment but will be here to stay. Remarkably, the wheels kept turning in planning too. Everything moved online at speed and into uncharted territory. Working closely with the Council, Dandara was one developer that secured planning committee approval during 2020 – a BTR and affordable housing scheme and the first for the Bedminster Green regeneration area, giving it that important kick-start. The variety of planning permissions secured just before and during the pandemic is significant for preparing Bristol for its recovery after. Other permissions included a new library and a new campus for the University of Bristol (albeit delayed until 2025), an arena, a new harbourside tourist attraction and a mixed-use scheme of residential, student, offices and a school as part of the St Philip’s Marsh regeneration area. There are more major schemes in the planning pipeline. A note of caution: delivering more homes is a key driver, but city-centre employment land, predominantly industrial, is being directly impacted by residential-led regeneration area designations, according to JLL’s Employment Land Study, 2019.  If employment land is neither protected nor re-provided suitably elsewhere in the city, where will those people living in these new city-centre apartment schemes work? Nonetheless, Bristol is well-placed to recover from the effects of the pandemic and the consequent lockdowns. This is partly because of what it had achieved prior to the crisis, but also because it is a forward-looking city where innovation and imagination flourish. It was quick to learn how to adapt so that everything did not come to a grinding halt, and has not lost much momentum. It is more than ready to push on to the next stage of its 21st century development. Zoe Sharpe is senior development manager at Dandara Photo: Neil Hall/EPA/EFE/Shutterstock