Bristol City Council to relocate cycling centre to new site 10 miles away to make space for housing

The project is expected to take three years and could leave some people struggling to access the new location.

The new Bristol Regional Cycling Hub will be built on a former landfill site in Lawrence Weston in 2026 and 2027, costing £15m. 

The hub will include areas to learn to ride, a one-kilometre competition track, a car park, and new and improved connections to the local cycle network.

The existing Bristol Family Cycling Centre opened in 2010 and is currently based at the former Whitchurch Athletics Track - a facility that residents are trying to save, as first reported by BristolWorld.

The centre will be replaced with the new cycling hub at Henacre Open Space, 10 miles away in north-west Bristol.

Councillors on the transport policy committee are set to approve £813,000 for council staff to draw up a business case and develop a planning application, on Thursday, September 12. 

A committee report said the new centre would provide training “across a much wider area”.

The report added: “The proposed Bristol Regional Cycling Hub will replace the existing cycling centre in Bamfield. 

“The temporary location at the Old Whitchurch Athletics Track in Bamfield is earmarked for housing development within the next three years.

“The cycling hub will be built on a former landfill site at Lawrence Weston in north-west Bristol, which is one of the most deprived areas of the city. 

“It will deliver an inclusive cycling community, offering programmes for skills improvement, social prescribing, and physical rehabilitation.”

The new cycling hub will offer training and host competitions, as well as deliver classes for disabled people. 

The council is aiming to increase the number of people who cycle across Bristol, partly to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

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Local community groups and cycling organisations are supporting the project, as well as the local Labour MP Darren Jones. 

He said Lawrence Weston had higher levels of obesity than across the rest of Bristol on average, and less leisure services for young people.

In a letter to the council, Mr Jones said: “The designs have been developed in close partnership with Sport England and British Cycling and will provide a much-needed new facility for this part of the city. 

“A minority of residents are satisfied with the provision of activities for children and young people, and satisfaction with leisure facilities and services is significantly lower than the Bristol average.”

Funding for the project was initially hoped to come from the government’s Levelling Up fund, however the government rejected the council’s bid. Instead, cash saved from other regional infrastructure projects that came under budget could be used to pay for the new cycling centre. 

More details will be revealed next April, when a planning application is due to be submitted.

But public opposition is growing against the plan to build flats on the running track in South Bristol. 

Over 3,300 petitioners have urged the council to save the track, which will become part of the massive Hengrove Park housing estate of 1,435 new homes in the next few years. 

The Whitchurch Athletics Track opened in 1973, and was formally closed in 2010.

However the track is still used by Southville Running Club once a week from April to September, as well as by the Bristol Family Cycling Centre.

The only other running tracks in or around Bristol are in Filton, Yate and Whitehall.

The Whitehall track was intended to replace the Whitchurch one, although this is located six miles away in a more affluent part of east Bristol. 

The Whitchurch track is located in the middle of three of the six wards in Bristol with the highest levels of obesity: Stockwood, Hartclfife and Withywood, and Filwood. 

The Hengrove and Whitchurch ward itself is in eighth place, with almost one in four residents there who are obese.

Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston ward has the fifth highest levels of obesity, at 28.6 per cent.

The Hengrove Park development is being built by Goram Homes, the council-owned developer.

The plans involve creating new sport pitches and a multi-use games area, but not an athletics track or cycling centre. 

BristolWorld revealed in June that the council rejected the campaign to save the track, saying they are “open to discussions with local residents about how we can provide track facilities in South Bristol”.

The Family Cycling Centre currently offers services “used extensively” by disabled people, with a fleet of adapted and specialist bikes, trikes and quads.

Some people living near the current site will be negatively affected, according to the council, including with protected characteristics like disabilities. 

An equality impact assessment admitted that some people would not be able to afford to travel to the new centre in Lawrence Weston.

The assessment said: “A transport assessment as part of the outline and full business case will be provided which is likely to show that some people who currently attend the site may find it difficult to access the new site, as the current transport links may be too costly financially or time-wise, or they may not have access to other means of transport.

“The negative impacts of service closure and relocation would be extensive for some people, but beneficial to those in the north of the city.

“It will remove a popular and well-used service in the south of Bristol which may result in fewer people having the confidence to cycle in those areas.”