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Video | Brabazon, the anatomy of a new town
Rod Sweet Global Construction Review
How developer YTL is bringing downtown Bristol’s buzz and sense of place to the city’s sterile suburban north.
This video offers a visual sneak preview of Brabazon, and we sit down with Seb Loyn, YTL Developments’ planning and development director, to learn the rationale behind the scheme, and with John Thompson, chief executive of YTL Construction, the developer’s own, in-house, tier one contractor in charge of getting Brabazon built.
Five miles up the Gloucester Road from downtown Bristol, you come to the sort of place that gives me an acute sense of psychic malaise – built for cars and lorries, with vast roundabouts, dual carriageways, retail parks, factories and warehouses the size of football fields.
It’s an economic powerhouse. Some 50,000 people work here in high-tech manufacturing at companies like Airbus, GKN Aerospace and Boeing.
That’s the legacy of the old Filton Airfield, home of the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was founded here in 1910, forerunner to BAE Systems, also nearby. Concorde was built and took its maiden flight here.
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In British aviation and aerospace, the area’s pedigree is impeccable. But for a human on foot, it’s a harsh place to be.
That’s about to change.
Downtown buzz
YTL, a global conglomerate founded by Malaysian billionaire, the late Dr Yeoh Tiong Lay, bought the 450-acre Filton Airfield site in 2015 and has since developed a plan for a comprehensive urban district called Brabazon, after Britain’s first commercial airliner developed here after the second world war, which had its maiden flight in 1949.
YTL Developments now has consent for 6,500 homes, some 300 already occupied.
There’ll be a high street with independent shops and restaurants, Grade A office and commercial spaces, big-name supermarkets and department stores, a 15-acre park with a lake, three schools, student accommodation, and its own train station, Bristol Brabazon, opening in September.
Artist’s rendering of the up-and-coming City Green at Brabazon New Town. Image: Courtesy of YTL
YTL Developments told me the idea was to bring downtown Bristol’s buzz and sense of place north to this high-value but sterile suburban expanse.
Most eye-catchingly, a 20,000-seat arena and exhibition centre will emerge from the historic Brabazon Hangars, where the Concordes were built. It’ll be the third biggest in the country. Aviva secured naming rights for it in February, and YTL aims to hold 130 events, drawing two million people each year after its scheduled opening in late 2028.
Last month, Brabazon, along with areas to the east taking in Bristol Parkway Station and the Bristol & Bath Science Park at Lyde Green, made it onto a whittled-down list of seven new towns promoted by the UK government.
