taking ownership Bristol housing exemplars

There’s much to learn about delivering different kinds of housing from Bristol’s hinterland. A journey through the city’s suburbs can take you from to recent community led and community financed affordable housing to the first large scale development to reach the ‘2016 Zero Carbon Standard’.

In Bristol’s interwar suburbs more concentrated neighbourhoods are taking shape amongst those built a century ago at 20 dwellings per hectare. Here are three residential enclaves where new housing makes room for communities to steward places and where the role of the street as a social place is given oxygen.

Merry Hill and Elderberry Walk make good use of smaller sites. In December 2024 the NPPF highlighted how planning authorities and neighbourhood planning groups should identify and allocate small and medium sized sites – and ‘seek opportunities, through policies and decisions, to support small sites to come forward for community-led development for housing and self-build and custom-build housing; also work with developers to encourage the sub-division of large sites where this could help to speed up the delivery of homes’ (Para 73).

Merry Hill, Lockleaze, Bristol

Bristol CLT & Brighter Places

In Lockleaze, north Bristol behind the (almost 2km long) interwar Romney Avenue is the recently completed Merry Hill (2022). Three turns off the Avenue, the formerly disused allotment site feels tucked away. A single street snakes through the site that is between a railway and back gardens. Fifty affordable homes are arranged in 5 terraces of 5-9 homes that fold round two shared gardens, where because the site is steeply sloping some house types are arranged as two storey houses over ground floor flats.

The site plan was originally developed by Architype. The multi coloured terraces they envisaged are a signature of Bristol’s hillside housing. The sweeping central street feels too wide but, because of itn’t easily accessible it is a slow space. On the day I visited it was being used for playing, hanging out, go carting and car washing. The build was slowed by the pandemic and presumably rising construction prices leaving funds short of the proposed common house. This will be built at later by the community.

The homes are built following fabric first Passivhaus principles, have solar PV and ground source heat pumps. This project is delivered by Bristol Community Land Trust and Brighter Places with support from Bristol City Council who actively seek to sell land to CLT through their Community Led Housing Land Disposal Policy 2020. This sets out the principles of what a CLT will offer in return for its residents and the local area.

https://www.bristolclt.co.uk/shaldon-rd

Elderberry Walk, Southmead, Bristol

Brighter Places, Bristol and Bath Regional Capital (BBRC) and Cheyne Social Property Impact Fund – 59 dph

Also delivered by Brighter Places, Elderberry Walk in Southmead is a mixed tenure scheme of 161 homes. The layout combines 79 houses and 82 flats and carefully integrates different tenures across a strong street network. Placing bins and bike stores in front gardens means four compact blocks have back to back gardens and with no access alleys. A terrace of apartments backs onto open spaces to the north. The design team used a simple material palette of one type of brick and roof tile that is enlivened by considered: building forms, fenestration, balconies and coloured entrances. The central green street integrates trees, sustainable drainage and incidental play – linking to the adjacent landscape spaces. Generally, the internal streets work hard to be multi-functional – providing parking, tree planting and sociable thresholds to homes.

The development includes on-site renewable energy generation to achieve a 20% reduction in residual CO2 emissions as required by BCC. This is the first project in the UK to bring together a housing association, community investment company and private sector capital to build homes.

Hanham Hall, Hanham, South Glos.

HTA Design, Barratt Development – 50dph

Completed in 2013 this development by Barratt of 187 homes was to be the first large scale housing scheme to achieve the ‘2016 Zero Carbon Standard’ set out in 2006. It reached the standard (winning multiple awards) just as the standard was scrapped (in 2015). The approach to sustainability led the highest standards for the homes in terms of thermal and acoustic performance and daylighting. A broader placemaking approach to sustainability was taken; ‘The key ingredients are a holistic approach to design and an understanding that people want to be empowered, rather than coerced, to live sustainably.’

Homes have strong interfaces with formal and informal landscape spaces, there are beehives and shared greenhouses, part of the site is retained as a semi wild landscape. The grade II* listed Hanham Hall at the entrance to the site is run by a community interest company and includes a community room, workspaces and a café that hosts a repair workshop on Saturday’s. The CIC has gradually become run wholly by residents and manages the communal spaces. The landscape spaces form the set pieces of the development. Some densely occupied parking courts and streets make these landscape connections possible.

See short film here:

https://www.barrattdevelopments.co.uk/showcase/hanham-hall-bristol

https://www.hta.co.uk/hanham-hall/

Images:

Merry Hill – Juliet Bidgood.

Elderberry Walk – 1 Churchman Thornhill Finch, 2 Juliet Bidgood.

Hanham Hall – 1 HTA, 2 Juliet Bidgood.

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July, 2024 (updated May 2025)