By Andrew Waller, 11 September 2026
 

Councillors rejected the St Joseph’s planning application by 5 votes to 3 at a meeting of Planning Committee B on 2 September. The proposal to create 126 student beds at the former care home will now return to the committee on 14 October to face a second vote.

 

In the meantime, the council’s planning officers, who had recommended approval, are tasked with writing a new report recommending rejection. If that is adopted at the October meeting, the rejection will be confirmed—but in that event there’s a high chance developer Harringay Real Estate will appeal, putting the final decision into the hands of a government planning inspector.

 

Given recent developments in planning policy at both local and national levels, as well as the government’s eagerness to kick-start construction, particularly in housing, the betting must be that an inspector will approve the plans unless there is a strong case not to.

 

While public consultations drew 162 objections, with only 3 submissions in support, planning determinations are legalistic in nature, so the tide of opposition doesn’t guarantee that student accommodation will be rejected.

 

Like all major council committee meetings, the 2 September proceedings were live-streamed to YouTube. The video is available to view at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obu3lN7N-tw (or, search YouTube for Bristol City Council, Planning Committee B, 2 September 2026).

 

Opposition to the proposal was led by Clifton Down councillor Serena Ralston and Cotham councillor Guy Poultney. Cllr Poultney is a member of Planning Committee B but stood down—to be replaced by a substitute—so he was able to openly oppose the application without being bound by normal impartiality rules.

 

Both Ralston and Poultney made verbal statements—as did others, including the developers—before the committee listened to a detailed presentation by planning officers, followed by questions and debate among the sitting committee members. (Some written statements and questions were also included in the agenda papers and would have been available to councillors before the meeting.)

 

For my own purposes in analysing the presentation and debate, I’ve downloaded the YouTube transcript of the discussion and cleaned it up to make it intelligible. If it’s of use to you, it’s here: https://www.thenoisepages.com/single-post/planning-committee-transcript-2-sep-2026

 

Also, all the documents relating to the application (reference 26/11841/F),  including public comments as well as the developer’s plans and statements, are still available for view on the Bristol planning portal: https://pa.bristol.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=TEB341DNFO100

 

(Alternatively, search for “Bristol planning portal” and insert “St Joseph’s” or the application number in the search box on the page. Note: The portal seems quite frequently to be unresponsive, so you may have to be patient.)

 

The officers’ report is listed as “25 Aug 2026 / Committee Report / Report to Committee –  2nd September 2026”.

 

About a week before the 14 October meeting (which is in the afternoon of that day), agenda papers and submission documents—presumably including the rewritten officers’ recommendation—will appear on the meeting page for Planning Committee B: https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=141

 

Members of the public can participate in the Public Forum section of committee meetings, and several people did so on 2 September, including me. I was in Cornwall on that day, so was not able to present my statement in person. It was submitted in writing only, and is here: https://www.thenoisepages.com/single-post/my-public-forum-statement

 

Amongst objectors, the main issue is that Cotham Hill and surrounding areas already have a large student population, which many associate with night-time noise, litter and other problems. A lot of objectors (including the Noise Pages) said the proposal was at odds with Bristol planning policies aimed at preventing over-concentrations of shared and specialist housing, such as HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation) and purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA), the category St Joseph’s would fall into.

 

Many people pointed to Woodland Court, an existing 196-bed development that stands across the street from St Joseph’s. Few if any people cited it as a source of noise or other specific problems, but it was seen as an example of the large number of students already present; there are also dozens of HMOs in the surrounding area, adding several hundred more students to the total count.

 

In their recommendation to approve, the officers’ key conclusion on these issues, spelled out on Page 25 was:

 

“Substantive objections raise concerns regarding the cumulative presence of students within the locality, however no demonstrable evidence has been provided to demonstrate that the addition of 126 managed student bedspaces would result in unacceptable cumulative impacts on neighbouring occupiers, health, wellbeing, living conditions or the character of the area that would warrant refusal of planning permission.”

 

However, the officers also noted that they were handicapped in their decision-making because planning policy has been evolving even while the application has been under consideration:

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• The government published a new version of its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which sets the rules for how policies are made and applications are decided, as recently as 17 August 2026.
   

• Bristol’s “adopted” Local Plan, which deals with student accommodation under Policy DM2, dates back to 2011 and is in the process of being replaced. However, the revised 2024 version, which contains more-explicit policies relating to HMOs and PBSA (Policies H6 and H7) is still going through a government-approval process—although that is expected to conclude within the next month or two. Until this process is completed, these so-called “emerging” policies can only be given “limited weight” in decision-making, according to NPPF rules.

 

In a potentially key comment while answering questions from a councillor, senior planning official Lewis Cook said during the meeting (time-stamped 43:20 in the video):

 

Officer (Cook): "So, yeah, we're in quite a difficult position with the publication of the new NPPF. ... We've got an emerging local plan which has been through the proposed modifications process and is currently with the planning inspectorate

"So we're waiting for comments back from the planning inspectorate on that policy, amongst others. .... basically the NPPF says we can give weight to emerging policies ... if they are uncontentious and they comply with the NPPF.

"This policy was contentious, [and] is still contentious. And the issue of compliance with the NPPF is -- so when the NPPF was consulted on and particularly on policy HO9 [an NPPF policy], ourselves, amongst a number of local authorities, have said to the government that we feel that concentration [eg, of student numbers] should be part of policy HO9 and as you know that's part of emerging policy H7.

"Now, the government in their wisdom have expressly not included that within the policies in the NPPF. So the government's view on that, we are presuming, is essentially that concentration is not amongst the most significant issues that we should be considering when considering student accommodation. And that's why we've given the policy relatively limited weight because of that potential conflict there.”

 

These comments seem to imply that either (a) the inspectorate will, in its final report, order further amendments to “emerging” local Policy H7 (and, who knows, even H6 as well?) to eliminate whatever conflict with the NPPF still remains—exactly what that is has not been made clear—or, (b) the revised Local Plan will be approved but with some sort of warning label that will diminish the impact of H7 (and H6?) until such time as the next Local Plan revision—already beginning—resolves the conflict.

 

This situation clearly bolsters the arguments of anyone who thinks the whole St. Joseph’s issue should be postponed until the Local Plan approval process has run its course and we know what we’re dealing with, policy wise.

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Related links:

• My own original objection

• My supplementary response on 18 August

• My Public Forum statement​