This edition of Nimby Watch, we’re going to the zoo! Specifically, we’re going to Bristol Zoo Gardens, a 12-acre site in the Bristol suburb of Clifton.
Alright then, where are we headed this time? We’re off to Bristol Zoo Gardens, which was until 2022 the historical site of a relatively small city zoo, which had operated there for nearly 200 years.
Not sure I really like that kind of zoo. They’re really cramped, surrounded by loud city noise, it doesn’t seem all that fair on the animals. I’m sure the good people of the Bristol Zoological Society made sure animal welfare was their top priority – but they clearly shared a lot of these concerns, which is part of why they closed this site. They’ve moved the zoo to a much larger location further outside the city – 136 acres versus 12. According to the zoo, the new gorilla enclosure alone is four-and-a-half times the size of the old one.
So all’s well that ends well, then? You know it’s too early in the column for that to be the case. The problem is that, as you will surely be shocked to learn, operating a zoo costs money – and making sure a much larger site has all the mod cons a modern zoo would want costs even more. As a result, the Zoological Society has been trying to sell off its old site to fund its activities for… quite some time.
This is where we come in, isn’t it? You’re about to claim that people opposing having a lovely 12-acre zoo turned into thousands of homes is bad, aren’t you? Honestly, the cost of housing, and the shortage of good homes, in places like Bristol is so bad that I would cheerfully support demolishing the whole site and building thousands of homes on it. But that’s not what is being proposed – instead, most of the land will be turned into a public park, the zoo will continue to operate a café, exhibition space and some other projects, and there will be a little under 200 homes scattered around the edge of the site.
That sounds… quite nice, actually. It does! And one thing that’s quite central here is that the site was never freely open to the public before. The zoo was private property, and charged the public for entry – so this would be the first time in modern history that there was a public park here. It’s essentially a new amenity.
Okay, okay, you’re making that point quite forcefully. Why? Because obviously there’s a group that’s so opposed to the plans that it’s taken them to judicial review, even after a years-long planning process. They argue that the zoological society – whose central purpose is conservation – doesn’t care about, well, conservation, and argue (among other things) that the park wouldn’t be guaranteed in perpetuity, because in the future the owner could apply to change its use.
That would seem like an argument to make if a future developer tried to make those plans. You’d think so, wouldn’t you? As it stands, Bristol Zoological Society is stuck in limbo – it has sold off most of the land to a developer, but isn’t allowed to use any of the cash it’s realised. The site is being left undeveloped, and everyone concerned is having to spend thousands in court fees.
But isn’t it worth taking a little bit longer to make a decision, if it helps us ensure it’s the right decision? Now you’re just baiting me, aren’t you?
A little bit. But answer the question. These decisions already take far too long, and that’s at the very root of our problems. Bristol Zoological Society made the decision about the gardens site in 2020, having secured the support of its whole board and every former director and chair. It took the Society two years to actually close the old zoo site, and another year to secure planning permission for their extremely community-minded plans – and that was in 2023. It only just had their court hearing for the judicial review in 2025, and it’s still waiting for the result.
That doesn’t sound great. Even if sanity prevails and the zoo wins, it will have lost five years of time, presumably thousands of hours of effort, and who knows how much in legal fees – all over the efforts of people who will never, ever be satisfied by anything other than the status quo, or imaginary schemes that have no funding. There is, in other words, no reasoning with these people – planning has to be made faster.
So in other words… For the sake of the animals, bulldoze that zoo! I’ll be honest, that rallying cry sounded better in my head.
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