Bristol needs to consider developing tall buildings to maximise the constrained city’s potential to offer significant new grade-A office space.
Speaking after Estates Gazette’s first City Talks event in Bristol, where the panel debated having a more flexible approach to building tall, guests Phil Morton of CBRE and James Prowse from Hyperoptic shared their views.
“It’s a very important point that the city needs to grasp. Within two or three generations we are going to run out of business space so we need to think about tall buildings and getting the density up,” said CBRE’s Morton. However, he believes this should not be in one iconic building but in a cluster.
Hyperoptic’s Prowse, agreed. “It is a natural place for the city to go. There is a lot of talk about transport and communication within the city. If you improve the density then you can improve the walkability and the communication within the city.”
The pair agreed that Bristol is a highly investible city, but Morton felt it needed to promote itself more.
“Bristol is a very attractive opportunity with the electrification of the railway, we’re going to be an hour and 20 minutes from London, so suddenly it becomes more of a commutable area… But Bristol does not promote itself enough. The council has done a great deal here and the last mayor did an awful lot to bring the city forward. I think we need a PR company to promote the city and tell everybody what good work we’re doing and get the message out there.”
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