Date: Mon 20th October, 2008
Venue: Marriott Bristol Royal, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TA
Are Bristol's regeneration plans working?
About 100 business leaders and property professionals converged on Bristol's Marriott Royal Hotel for an Insider Economic Forum panel to debate the city's regeneration agenda.
Panellists included Bristol City Council's chief executive Jan Ormondroyd and John Savage of GWE Business West, who sat alongside Stephen Atkinson of architecture firm Aukett Fitzroy Robinson, Neil Sherreard of Cowlin Construction and Simon Marks of EC Harris.
Key issues addressed by the panel included how best to tap the economic potential of South Bristol, with Ormondroyd arguing that the council should and would look to move more of its operations into South Bristol to "lead by example."
Lessons arising from the Cabot Circus scheme also came under the spotlight, with the project coming in on time and on budget after about a decade in the making. Ormondroyd emphasised the high-quality design and workmanship of the scheme, which she said meant it would stand the test of time.
Savage said that smart planning to deal with the extra traffic generated had so far proved successful and was a testament to the planning that had gone into the scheme at every stage.
Ensuring that the city's communities benefit from regeneration was also debated, with calls from the floor for more effort to be made to match local people to local jobs.
Bristol's other longstanding bugbear, its creaking transport infrastructure, was a predictably hot topic. Some in the room were angry that Bristol's transport had not improved sufficiently down the years and the panellists agreed that more still needed to be done, while arguing that the complexities of local government in the region meant progress was never straightforward.
