Small Street planning application refused

I am pleased to say that Bristol City councillors have voted to refuse permission for the application to convert this property to student accommodation. While the planning officer and councillors noted that they could not refuse it on the grounds of the destroyed ceiling, they nonetheless demonstrated a clear desire to send a strong message to developers that such vandalism would not be tolerated in Bristol. Councillors' comments included the following: 'Stinks to high heaven to reward an unscrupulous developer by granting an approval' 'A building that was about to be listed had a historic ceiling torn out in order to prevent listing. If this goes through, are we saying to developers, 'if you want come in and trash what little historic fabric we've got left in Bristol, you can do so with impunity'? Or do we want to say, 'if you trash what little we've got left, you're not really welcome'? We were the fifth worst bombed city in WW2, in the 50's and 60's we managed to destroy even more. If you've got something like this Jacobean ceiling, what an opportunity to have a premium quality flat which you can charge a premium for. If you've got something like that, take responsibility. You have a responsibility to look after it for future users.' 'If we are giving the green light to be irresponsible by tearing down historic fabric clearly that's wrong, and that's what the applicant has done here. So this is a clear line in the sand, and we don't believe that's an appropriate way to proceed.' The planning officer stated that, 'Officers share members' frustrations about what happened to the ceiling. We reviewed that situation to see what we could have done better. The building was on a list of buildings that had been on a list of properties that had been submitted by a local expert to Historic England with suggestions for listing. As a result of this (incident) we have improved our flagging of those properties so that in future if we get any kind of application on properties like this it will flag on our system that this is on a list of properties suggested for listing, and we will escalate this with Historic England.' This is welcome, but we need to go further. Buildings should be assessed for listing long before any development is proposed. This would give developers and owners advance notice, enabling them to plan more effectively, and avoiding conflicts. If we don't do this, there is a real risk that unscrupulous developers will simply destroy historic features before they submit their planning applications. I also hope that Bristol City Council will now lend their full support to this campaign to close the planning loophole that allowed the developer to legally destroy this beautiful historic ceiling.