£123m Bristol Arena axed for £300m mixed-use scheme

Long-running plans to build a £123m arena in Bristol have been officially scrapped by the city council in favour of pursuing a mixed housing, hotel and conference centre scheme on the Temple Island site.Bristol City Council said it had abandoned the arena plans because of the large borrowing required and fears about rising costs on the project compared to another development option which would generate cash for the council.The mixed-use scheme that will be now looked at with backer L&G could comprise 550 homes around 250,000 sq ft offices, a 100,000 sq ft conference centre and 5-star hotel.The decision is a huge blow to Buckingham Group, which signed a pre-construction services deal for the project in April 2017 replacing original contractor Bouygues who walked away from the project a few months before when its detailed costings rose to £90m from the £80m outline sum first agreed with the council.The scheme has been on hold for more than nine months as fears grew over further cost increases.A business case will also be developed for the re-allocation to other projects of the £53m Economic Development Fund (EDF) money earmarked for the arena project.