The quick sale of Kier’s half-finished ‘Urban Quarter’ development on Hengrove Lane, adjacent to Hengrove Leisure Centre to Terra Firma, a European private equity outfit, operating under the brand Tilia spells trouble for locals and increased profit for financiers.
The first thing Terra Firma have done is go back to Bristol City Council to alter the planning permission. Their request? That they can add two storeys to a couple of the proposed blocks of flats there.
While this will increase the amount of people and vehicles on a crowded site, it will also increase profits for a shadowy group from Europe’s financial elite.
This is also, of course, a profitable little private equity trick that can be pulled off elsewhere in South Bristol where the amount of unsustainable housing development on their open space, accompanied by few new public services or facilities, already has locals up in arms.
The housing crisis is turning out to be a nice little earner for some isn’t it? And a new kind of hell for others.
