Airport link 'Absolutely achievable', insists the West's metro mayor

A MASS transit system linking Bristol with Bristol Airport “absolutely is” achievable and could “unlock opportunities for housing” between the city and the airport.

- Tristan CORK [e-mail]

That's the view of new West of England metro mayor Helen Godwin, who said it was a “really exciting opportunity” for the region.

Ms Godwin told the Post she is “confident the Government will be listening” when she returns with a request for billions of pounds to add to the £752 million the West of England is to receive over the next few years for transport projects.

The Metro Mayor hinted that a project to solve the issue of how to properly connect Bristol Airport with the city of Bristol would also involve building potentially thousands of new homes in between south Bristol and the airport itself.

This week, council chiefs in North Somerset approved a major document setting out local plan policies for the next 15 years, which includes a proposal to build as many as 4,000 new homes on the edge of south Bristol around the Woodspring Golf Course, right next to the A38 road that connects Bristol and the airport.

Ms Godwin would not commit to exactly how a mass transit link between the airport and the city could or would be achieved - whether it be a tram system, light rail, an underground or a connection with the existing mainline - but she said she wanted that link to happen, and wanted it to benefit south Bristol too.

“It absolutely should be possible,” she said. “If you look at it from a kind of holistic, economic region perspective, we're the only airport, I think, in the country that doesn’t have a form of mass transit linking it back into its hub city,” she added.

“So that’s a really good reason to do something. There’s some really exciting opportunities that it could unlock around south Bristol and opportunities for south Bristol, but also opportunities for housing as well.

“Our mantra to Government is that we need to improve our transport infrastructure, but we also really want to help them with their housing targets. So if those two things can go together, then that’s great,” she said.