Secretary of State James Brokenshire’s approval of Hammerson’s plans for a 1m sq ft redevelopment of Bristol’s Broadmead shopping centre has been hailed as a vote of confidence in the city centre,

Robin Dobson, Director of Retail Development at Hammerson, welcomed the decision during his presentation at the Major Developers Session at the West of England Economic Growth Conference. The development giant won consent for the scheme, which includes hotel, leisure and additional retail space earlier this month. He said: “The future is very bright, particularly with the fantastic decision by the secretary of state to back investment in the city as opposed to out of town. We look forward to continuing investment in Bristol.”
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Highlighting  figures showing leisure and entertainment accounts for eight per cent of floor space in Bristol, while in the most successful centres that share can reach 15 to 20%, Dobson said: “There is a huge opportunity for us in the next phase of the regeneration of the city centre.”

Schemes with a major leisure element benefited from substantially higher returns and dwell time, he said: “If you can get it right, complementary mixes work.”

But there is still a role for retail space in good locations, Dobson said, pointing to the desire of e-retailers like Amazon to open physical stores and figures showing that 12% more multiple brands are looking for physical space than five years ago. He said retailers are becoming more selective in the number of locations and store size required and that Bristol is a strong location with many companies citing it as the first destination they want to locate in outside of London. Plus points were the 2m sq ft of offices in pipeline, of which a quarter is already on site, and the 100,000 new homes planned in the sub region over the next 15 years.

Paul Hanegraaf, Creative Navigator at Camden Lock owner Milligan Retail, agreed with Dobson that mixed use could generate the best returns. He said: “Where you get an optimal mix of retail, leisure and catering you see the very best performance.”

Hanegraaf, said that the growth of ‘olderpreneurs’ is one of the biggest factors spurring growth in commercial property. He pointed to Barclays figures showing a 63 % increase in businesses run by the 55-plus age over the last decade.  And the fastest-growing age group of business owners were the over-65s which had expanded by 140%. He said “These guys are far less likely to fail, and are more likely to be led by a serial entrepreneur who are less likely to fail.”

By contrast, he said the number of business started by the 25-34 age group had grown by a relatively modest 23%.

However many of these start up entrepreneur feel un-catered for by the existing commercial property offer, he said: “They would like retail space but not what is being offered historically.”

Ben Wells, Chief Commercial officer at Bath Rugby, outlined the club’s plans to redevelop its ground, plans for which have yet to be submitted to the council. He said that while the current ground backs onto the River Avon, the new stadium aims to open up the town’s riverside.

The ground would feature Bath’s only restaurant with riverside views and a sky bar, Wells said: “This will create a public realm to be used round the year, opening up the entire riverside with food halls and market traders.”

Wells said the club hoped to attract traders who are nervous about taking on a year long lease with all overheads attached. By creating a wider range of facilities, the club aimed to turn more of those taking a day trips to Bath into overnight visitors. Out of the Bath’s 6m visitors per annum, 4.8m are only stay during the day. The development would feature a sizeable car park underneath the stadium and aim to divert coaches  from the congested, historic city centre, Wells said: ”This helps us to create a city with cleaner air and less pollution.”

Sebastian Loyn, Technical Director of Development at YTL Developments, said the Malaysian owned company had secured planning approval for phase one of the Filton airfield redevelopment, unlocking 600 homes, the site’s railway station and 200,000 sq ft of offices. He said initial remediation works for the first residential phase are also complete on the scheme, which aims to deliver 5,800 homes at the former airfield, dwarfing big ticket developments like King’s Cross in London.

He said that buildings of up to 10 storeys will be allowed in the town centre of the development, where housing densities will be around 70 dwellings per ha.
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