Swathes of land must be bought so rapid bus routes can go ahead

LOCAL councils want to buy 40,000 metres square of land for a bus rapid transit route – including a strip that goes straight through the disputed site of Bristol City Football Club's new stadium.

The £50 million Ashton Vale to Temple Meads BRT is one of three routes Bristol City Council wants to have up and running within five years.

It involves running a guided busway from the Long Ashton Park and Ride and Ashton Vale, up to Ashton Gate, then following Cumberland Road past the Create centre, Spike Island and M shed museum.

Then it crosses to the Arnolfini and joins a loop around Broadmead, Cabot Circus and Temple Meads.

Before it crosses the river though, there are up to five strips of land the council will need to make the scheme work.

This includes land at the Ashton Vale site where Bristol City Football Club want to build a £92-million stadium.

The council has looked at two options – one piece of land is 29,000m2 but is based on the assumption the new stadium is never built.

The other – with some overlap between the two – is 15,000m2, and assumes the stadium is built and the town green compromise is agreed.

Using this land would see the rapid transit route skirt the southern and eastern edges of the stadium site.

Importantly, the legislation required to approve the rapid transit route trumps the legislation that allows a town green.

But the option for a smaller land acquisition would accommodate both uses.

A third – and the largest – site is a 30,000m2 extension to the Long Ashton Park and Ride. This is where the terminal for the rapid transit route would be based.

The councils are also looking at two smaller sites, approximately 9,000m2 of land by the new Wimpy development off Brunel Way and 9,000m2 owned by Ashton Park Ltd north of the local railway line.

All sites are subject to negotiation, as the local councils hope they can come to terms with the various owners. But if they don't some of them could be bought with compulsory purchase powers, where owners are forced to sell.

The councils are refusing to comment at this stage about how much that might cost.

Julia Dean, spokeswoman for the body that represents the four councils, the West of England Partnership, said: "Although the project has the required permission from the councils to start formal compulsory purchase procedures they are not yet started.

"As always it is better to do these things by negotiation and these negotiations are still on going with nothing signed as yet, so we have the issue of commercial confidentiality and therefore can't say anything."

business card design laminator parker pens