Friends of Badock’s Wood has condemned the David Lloyd Club for trying to avoid paying a £31,000 community levy.
The Club’s recent planning application resubmission to the Planning Inspectorate rather than Bristol City Council will mean it is not liable to contribute £31,000 to the Community Infrastructure Levy.
The multi-million-pound leisure business originally applied to Bristol City Council to extend its building at the site in Southmead, adjacent to Badock’s Wood. At the same time, it had erected floodlit padel courts without permission. To avoid council enforcement, the Club then applied for retrospective planning permission for the padel courts and floodlighting.
David Lloyd then withdrew the spa extension application in May 2024. The padel court application continued through the process and was approved, with conditions, by the Council in November 2024. However, David Lloyd has now resubmitted the application with some amendments, but it has not gone to Bristol City Council this time.
Currently Bristol City Council’s Planning Department is in ‘special measures’ due to the delays in deciding planning applications. This means that for large numbers of planning applications, the applicants can just side-step the local council and submit their application direct to the Planning Inspectorate where it will be decided by an officer.
This removes any possibility of the application being discussed in public at a local planning committee where local residents can ask questions and make statements, and where usually the ultimate decision would be made by locally elected councillors. The public can only send in emails in to the Inspectorate.
David Lloyd Club is also exploiting a loophole which means it will not be required to contribute any money under the Community Infrastructure Levy scheme. Had it submitted the application to Bristol City Council, it would be liable, if its application was approved, to pay £31,000 to the Council for the community.
The Chair of Friends of Badock’s Wood said: “David Lloyd has the opportunity to make a positive contribution to the local community in which it is based. It is a multi-million-pound company but is exploiting the system to not only deprive us of proper local democratic input but also to deprive the community of £31,000.
“It makes no contribution to Southmead, offers no community activities or sponsorship, draws its private club members almost entirely from outside of Southmead, and its development plans will add noise and light intrusion to Badock’s Wood and adversely impact the wildlife there, and to cap it all it has now chosen a pathway to actively withhold this money from the community.”
More info about Friends of Badock’s Wood HERE