The biggest change to Bristol

- and what's happened in a year ...

- Tristan Cork reports

It's been a year since the Bristol Post announced that the 'biggest change to Bristol' was coming - the biggest since the aftermath of the Second World War - and that most people didn't know too much about it. But is the transformation of Bristol under way already, and what has happened in the past year?

T HE 'biggest change to Bristol' involves a huge swathe of the city, from St Pauls, across the M32 to St Judes, Lawrence Hill, St Phillips, Temple Meads and around to Bedminster, is on the cusp of being transformed so much, it will be unrecognisable to Bristolians in just five years' time.

That area forms an inner city arc of industry that's clearly visible from space, in between the city centre and the Victorian terraces of the residential city beyond.

And the transformation raises huge questions which are so far going largely unanswered about where people in a city like Bristol work, what kind of jobs they have, where they live and what kind of homes they have? The transformation has its origins in decisions taken ten or more years ago, and is already starting to get underway.

Most of Bristol already know that major change is coming to the city centre - with Broadmead, the Bearpit and the Galleries seeing a huge amount of development heading its way in the next few years. But this is even bigger than that, will affect more people, a larger area and have even more impact.

After the war, those in charge of rebuilding a bombed-out city took the opportunity for a complete change. The tightly-packed terraced streets that ringed the east and south east of the city centre were cleared away, the residents were generally sent to live in new communities of council estates on the outskirts of the city, and a new Bristol was born - a network of dual carriageways and huge roundabouts, industrial estates, warehouses and factories ringed the city centre.