Update from Bristol City Council – Public Realm Improvements for Arnside Road

13/05/2020
Below is an update from Bristol City Council about the public realm improvements for Arnside Road. To see images attached to this update, click HERE
Please do get back to Bristol City Council with any comments on lucy.empson@bristol.gov.uk 

 

Design

The basic design of the public realm improvements around the Arnside shops has not changed from the original scheme.

Detailed design work has been progressing, making sure that it continues to meet the aspirations of the community, but also the requirements of the highways department and is affordable.

Street furniture and paving materials are now being considered. The buildings on Arnside, and indeed most of Southmead, are red brick, so we have taken this as our starting point and suggested bringing some red into other elements of the public realm to provide some all year round colour. Stainless steel street furniture is tough and needs minimal maintenance, which will help to ensure that the scheme stays looking good for longer. Examples are on the image boards.  They include:

  • Paving materials –concrete slabs on footways; tarmac on cycle route; buff surfacing on speed table between the shops; red brindle paving blocks on parking and loading bays
  • Kerbs – silver grey granite
  • Seats, bins and bollards – stainless steel
  • Granite bench seats – red ‘shiraz’ granite
  • Street lights – silver grey to match the stainless steel street furniture. Arnside Road will have two lighting brackets, a higher one to illuminate the road and a lower rear light for the wide footways

Bristol City Council are committed to working with the local community on the details of the public realm design of Arnside Road, but this is obviously difficult given the current crisis. We do want to keep design works progressing though so that the overall programme for the works is delayed as little as possible. To keep people in the loop and get some feedback we are showing images of how we think it could look, but there is still time to change this.

We have talked about working with local people to develop a text based artwork for the granite benches on the local centre. If you would like to be involved in this, or have ideas of others who would and how we can make contact with them at the moment, please let us know.

 

Changes to parking on Arnside and Greystoke Avenue

Greystoke Avenue parking bay

We now have planning permission to create new waiting parking spaces along the edge of the Greystoke Strip to support the shopping centre. These will be available before we start the main works on Arnside.

Topsoil will be stripped from where the parking bays are being constructed and stored in low mounds on the Greystoke strip for reuse in the Arnside planting beds.

Construction work has been delayed slightly due to the current crisis. Now the lockdown is lifting, however, BCC will be awarding the contract and agreeing the programme with the contractor.  We hope that works will start on site in July.

 

Arnside Road

General parking will be removed from Arnside Road between the shops as part of the public realm improvements. More disabled parking, loading outside Iceland and 3 hour limited parking will be available nearest the shops. Unlimited parking spaces will be available on Greystoke Avenue. There will also be new speed tables on Arnside Road between the shops and on Greystoke Avenue accessing the car parking spaces to slow vehicles down and help pedestrians and cyclists.

These parking changes are subject to a legal process called Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs). The TROs have been delayed slightly by the crisis but will be formally advertised from 19/05/2020 to 11/06/20. The notices will go up around Arnside shopping centre next week and comments can be made direct to the Council in writing or via the Council website. Details of how to comment are on the notices.  Assuming these are agreed the public realm improvement works will be tendered and would start on site about four months later, hopefully before Christmas 2020.

 

Sustainable Urban Drainage pods (SuDs)

Southmead has clay soil and rain water quickly runs off to cause flooding issues downstream both locally and further into the city centre. Sustainable urban drainage (SuDs) ‘pods’, like the ones on Embleton Road, help to slow down that water as well as providing the opportunity for more planting in the local streets. 8 new SuDs pods will be constructed on Wigton Crescent, Lowther Road, Dunmail Road and Ravenglass Crescent as part of the regeneration project. As soon the lockdown ends we will be out to talk to the people who live nearest to them.

The trees on Arnside will also be planted using a new ‘Stockholm’ SuDs system that creates a big tank to store water below ground and also provides a good growing environment for the trees. Arnside will be the first time this new technique has been trialled in Bristol so it will be exciting to see how it works.