Work starts at Dovercourt Road

We’ve started preparing ground for 140 new homes at the former Bristol City Council highways depot site at Dovercourt Road in Lockleaze, which is a joint venture partnership between Goram Homes and Vistry. Half of these homes will be much needed affordable housing, for social rent and shared ownership.

The work taking place on this brownfield site over the next five months is being carried out by Soilfix, land remediation contractors. Soilfix is preparing the site for house building, and we aim to start building the new homes this Autumn.

Our plans include keeping and enhancing as much existing vegetation as possible and creating new habitats across the development. Some trees however do need to be removed in order to develop new homes on the site, which has been derelict for years. This work is being done in accordance with planning consent obtained this year.

Decisions to remove trees to build new homes are never taken lightly. Our specialist team has consulted ecology experts to ensure our plans protect the most mature and protected species, and an ecologist approved the work before we got started. The team will stop immediately if there is any new evidence of nesting birds found whilst carrying out any clearance or tree removal.

• The trees being removed are mostly Category C, which are trees that an arborist (tree expert) considers to be low quality or have a limited life expectancy.
• 199 replacement trees are being planted on the site, which is more than the number required by Bristol City Council’s tree replacement policy. These include a large number of Elms, Japanese Lilacs and Italian Alders.
• A combination of new tree planting and biodiverse landscaping across the development will improve nature on the site by at least 10%.

We’ll provide updates as the development progresses, and we get on with building much needed new homes for Bristol