'It looks awful' Frustration as development remains unfinished

NEIGHBOURS near an unfinished block of flats in South Bristol have described their frustration after another year of living next to the boarded-up buildings.

- Tristan CORK

It has been two and half years now since work stopped on the building site next to the climbing centre in Bedminster, and the sight of the empty shells that are supposed to be affordable homes for local people has become a symbol of the challenges Bristol is facing to provide homes for people on the waiting list.

The housing association that is supposed to have provided 67 affordable homes has told of the “very challenging” times in the industry, but now there is a glimmer of hope that, at last, work may restart in the coming months as it enters the “final stages” of talks with a new contractor.

The case of ‘the Old Brickworks’ in Luckwell Road is one that highlights the challenge of getting new affordable homes built in a city where building costs are spiralling, developers say they are being squeezed and the cost of creating what is effectively subsidised homes for people on the housing waiting list is increasingly impossible.