Harbour Place Shaping Strategy
A comprehensive 20-year strategy for Bristol’s harbour – 27 hectares of waterspace and associated places and landscapes.
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DK-CM, working with Fourth Street, Savills and Rising Arts Agency, developed a comprehensive 20-year strategy for Bristol’s harbour that ranges from an overarching Vision (informed by intensive, bespoke engagement activities) through to detailed site-by-site Place Plans, a Delivery Plan and Strategic Outline Business Case for discrete elements of the strategy. The Place Shaping Strategy will be the primary tool guiding planning, place-shaping, development, investment and funding in the harbour area up until 2044.
Bristol’s harbour estate is a complex urban environment of waterspace, parks & green spaces, existing communities (residential, creative and industrial) and development sites. The waterspace alone is 28 hectares and the harbour area received 11m visitors in 2023. DK-CM’s strategic work is intended not only to shape development on a place- and site- specific basis, but also to set out a series of income-generating projects to take forward, and finally a coherent approach to public realm and public transport, in effect reimagining the harbour estate as a waterborne park for the whole city.
Having set out a clear principle-based Vision, using evidence gathered through a substantial, genuinely innovative and multi-pronged engagement process, the project sets out principles, site-by-site guidance, project briefs and other site-specific information in the form of the Place Plans – to guide development and investment in each location.
The project involved a lengthy, bespoke engagement process led by DK-CM; this incorporated a substantial interactive public exhibition at M Shed (in the space recently vacated by the toppled Colston statue), virtual events, in-person 1:1s and an innovative youth-creator -led programme giving the project access to the experiences and aspirations of diverse local young people.
The completed Strategy has now been endorsed and adopted, and can be downloaded here.
Credits
- Client: Bristol City Council/West of England Combined Authority
- Dates: 2023-24, endorsed and adopted February 2025.
- Collaborators: Fourth Street, Savills, Rising Arts Agency
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