Bristol University £500 m Project Builders Appointed

Contracts have been signed to press ahead with a major new Bristol University campus being built in the city. 

The Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus will redevelop an under-used area by Temple Meads railway station, with contracts being signed with construction firm Sir Robert McAlpine.

Plenty of construction workers will have good reason to invest in JCB work clothes as work takes place, providing 38,000 sq m of academic space and on-site accommodation for 900 students, with the project continuing until completion in 2026.

The campus is also part of a wider redevelopment of the Bristol Temple Quarter that will provide another 22,000 homes and generate 10,000 jobs, all of which will keep construction workers busy for years to come.

Vice-chancellor and university president prof Evelyn Welch Sid: “Today really is a landmark day – not just for the University of Bristol but for the city as a whole,” while Bristol mayor Marvin Rees said “This is another milestone for Temple Quarter, after we secured £95 million last year to help transform Temple Meads.” 

He said the Temple Quarter development will boost the city’s economy by £1.6 billion a year.

The development of the area around Temple Meads is one of the biggest of several major projects in central Bristol, but a key constraint on the growth of the city’s economy and built environment is its gridlocked roads and limited public transport, which has prompted Mr Rees to champion the idea of having an underground metro system. 

Such an undertaking may be very expensive, but if it does go ahead, the process will provide plenty of construction jobs.

In an interview with New Civil Engineer last month, tunnelling Expert Martin Knights said that the project would pose “no more challenges than any recent tunnelling that’s taken place in London,” noting that even the possible presence of underground coal seams would not pose an insurmountable obstacle.

The real key issues in getting the system built would be political will and funding, he asserted.