Bristol boosted by £91m arena plans

Plans to build a £91m entertainment arena and modernise a 250-year-old theatre have been given the go-ahead by Bristol City Council.

The 12,000 capacity indoor arena will be located in the heart of the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone, one of the UK’s largest urban regeneration projects, and is expected to open in 2017.

It will be paid for jointly, with the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership contributing £53 million and Bristol City Council £38m, which the latter expects to recoup from operator rental and other income.

Announcing the project as one of his “top priorities”, the city’s independent mayor George Ferguson said: “Bristol is the only major city in the UK without a facility of this scale and with the funding package now in place we can at last move forward to make an arena for Bristol a reality.” Work will now begin to appoint an operator to run the venue, he added.

During the council’s 2014 budget meeting, described by Ferguson as one of the “most challenging budgets the city has seen for decades”, councillors also approved a £12m plan to modernise Bristol’s Old Vic theatre.

The 12,000 capacity indoor arena will be located in the heart of the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone

Originally built in 1766, the Old Vic is the only surviving example of the 18th Century horseshoe-shaped theatre. The project will involve refurbishing the foyer, the studio theatre, the 18th Century Coopers’ Hall, plus the bar and cafe areas. It comes after last year’s complete revamp of the main auditorium. So far, £5m of Arts Council funding has been earmarked for the project, but the theatre will need to raise the remainder.

Speaking after Bristol City Council’s unanimous decision, architect Steve Tompkins told the BBC News website that he was “delighted and relieved”, adding: “It is an important development for Bristol, both architecturally and culturally, and we’ve got to make sure it’s right.”

The theatre’s artistic director, Tom Morris, said he saw the theatre’s two-stage redevelopment plans as a partnership between the theatre and the people of Bristol: “To go through that democratic process and to have the quite radical plans interrogated by a committee of councillors, and to get that unambiguous endorsement is really exciting… It means the city council understands how important it is, for everyone in Bristol, that this redevelopment will be able to open out the theatre to the street.”

The plans show the refurbished foyer and studio theatre as being fully accessible to wheelchairs, and Coopers’ Hall will be returned to its original purpose as a function hall for the city.