Bristol’s city centre is integral to its success as an economic centre of the city, region and the UK. All of our high streets support Bristol’s residents and visitors providing a welcoming, inclusive and original place for people and businesses to come together.
Key documents shaping our city centre and high streets:
The City Centre includes the distinct areas of Bristol Shopping Quarter (Broadmead, The Galleries and Cabot Circus), Park St and Queens Road, Old City, Christmas Steps, King Street, Harbourside, Old Market, Redcliffe, Temple Quarter and Stokes Croft.
A meeting place and home for key services in the city including administrative, healthcare, retail, cultural, educational, professional and transport sectors, the city centre is a diverse area serving its residents and visitors. It is the economic heart of Bristol and an important economic centre for the region facilitating many of the activities that makes Bristol known for being a great place to live and work. There is a high concentration of employment contained within the city centre, with over 140,000 people employed and 47% of Bristol’s jobs located here. The prosperity and availability of employment attracts people to Bristol. The prosperity and availability of employment attracts people to Bristol.
As well as being an economic centre, the city centre is also an important place for urban living – 9,000 new homes were completed between 2009 and 2021 and it has the potential for thousands more.
The city centre is a sustainable location with transport hubs (Temple Meads Railway Station, the main bus station on Marlborough Street and MetroBus) connecting to wider Bristol and locations further afield. Using these, as well as walking and cycling, visitors and residents can easily access the distinct city centre areas including the principle retail, shopping and leisure destination in the South West; a thriving evening economy and night life for food, music and arts; the Floating Harbour which stretches over 70 acres and is an internationally renowned tourist attraction featuring its waterway and various cultural offerings; Bristol’s historic core and the Old City include key heritage sites and buildings home to a mix of uses, green spaces and surrounded by a more contemporary setting.
Bristol city centre is evolving. Within the next Local Plan period (up to 2040) we will see major transformational changes to its physical landscape, social demographic and the way in which it is used. Residential development is an important feature of this change, increasing the number of residents housed within the city centre boundary helping the areas vitality, activation and diversity. This includes around 2,500 homes within the City Centre Development and Delivery Plan area (focusing on Broadmead and Castle Park). There is also a continuation of planned office development, redevelopment and refurbishment taking place across the city centre but with concentration around Temple Quarter and other key office locations at Redcliffe and Harbourside.
There are the following key regeneration areas in the city centre:
Broadmead – The City Centre Development and Delivery Plan sets out a vision and strategies for the regeneration of the focus areas of Broadmead and Caste Park. The aim is to revitalise Broadmead as a thriving retail hub and cultural neighbourhood, giving people a reason to visit, work and live there.
Bristol Temple Quarter – A new sustainable urban quarter located to the south-east of the city centre, with strong education links, will be developed. A key part of the works involves improving Temple Meads Railway Station, making it into a modern transport hub and enabling increased capacity and user functionality.
Western Harbour – Located to the far west of the city centre and Floating Harbour, surrounded by major infrastructure, a new sustainable city quarter will be developed on mostly brownfield land and integrated sensitively with its surroundings.
Frome Gateway – Located to the north-east, a new mixed-use neighbourhood is planned that is integrated with its surrounding communities and environment focusing on the historic Frome waterway.
Amongst all this, the city centre will retain its status for being a premier tourist destination building on its culture and diversity of uses serving visitors.
Bristol is a diverse, 24-hour city of unique neighbourhoods, at the middle of which is the city centre and local high streets. There are 47 designated high streets across Bristol.
Since 2021, Bristol has utilised secured funds to successfully help the city centre and local high streets. The range of support made available has included a Vacant Property Grant Scheme, business development support, culture and events activity.
Providing investment and care in our high streets are vital to sustaining and enhancing them as vibrant and diverse places where communities can come together and thrive amongst each other.
As a central keystone in the sense of place, Bristol must feel safe, accessible and inclusive to all, whether that be visitors or residents. The Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership work together to tackle safety in the city and there are various positive initiatives such as the ‘Bristol Rules’ campaign which encourage safe behaviours especially at night.
The city must be easily accessible and understandable to those visiting for shopping or leisure purposes. Bristol Where’s it to? high streets campaign was created to raise the profile of the independent traders throughout the city’s high streets. It also encourages citizens to shop locally linking community with their local independent businesses and creating prosperous high streets in the process. If you are a new or current business who would like to be added to the campaign, please get in touch.
Created to improve people’s experience of Bristol, the council’s Legible City initiative was the UK’s first fully integrated environmental identity, signing and information scheme, making use of extensive pedestrian focused mapping. By using direction signs, on street information panels with city and area maps, printed walking maps, the project communicates in the city consistently and simply to visitors and residents alike. This allows people to understand the city centre as a whole, its geography, businesses and the key locations within it. Providing an overview of Bristol’s central area, the blue walking map continues to be a key tool for Bristol, enabling visitors, both old and new, to navigate this original city.
