Will Bristol Temple Meads be getting another passenger entrance?

When Bristol University’s brand new £300 million campus is built behind Temple Meads, it is hoped it will include a new entrance to the city’s historic railway station.

The station has already seen a number of upgrades in the last year, including the electrification project and two new sets of ticket gates to improve passenger congestion at rush hour.

And in the next year, work will begin on a new roof which will enable the continued safe running of the station and more than 150 new seats will be installed.

But it is also hoped when the University of Bristol’s Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus opens its doors in 2022 there may also be a new station entrance from the campus site to Temple Meads.

It is something the university and Bristol City Council have said they would like to see and both organisations are working with Network Rail on the possibility of facilitating a new entrance.

The university secured outline planning permission for the new campus in 2018, and in January this year demolition work on the former Royal Mail Sorting Office began.

In its place will be new research, enterprise and teaching buildings which will make up the academic part of the campus, which the university hopes will provide a “striking new landmark” for the city.

Next door will sit three tower blocks of student flats which will become home for 953 students.

Public consultations on the detailed designs of both aspects took place earlier this year in April and September.

And now the university is preparing to submit a reserved matters application to the city council for the academic element later this month.

But at the moment there does not seem to be mention of a new station entrance in the plans.

During a residents meeting last month, Professor Guy Orpen, the deputy vice chancellor for the new campus development, gave some detail about plans for a new entrance.

He said it would open out the under-rails subway which links the platforms with a new entrance at the far end of platform 15.

And information on the Bristol Temple Quarter website says access to the station would be gained through a public street between the station and land to the east – the Cattle Market Road site.

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But currently there are no other details about where the new entrance will be located and how passengers will access it.

However it is unlikely to be operational until after the new campus is complete as it will probably be considered unsafe for people to be walking through a congestion zone.

Network Rail has been contacted for comment.

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