A bridge too far?

This evening I attended the opening event for Bristol's latest bridge, which spans the floating harbour from Finzel's Reach to Castle Park.  The bridge is 91m long, and as you can see twists delightfully in its journey over the water.

It is a delightfully elegant structure and I am sure will feature in blips of the future.

The opening ceremony was held by the developer to mark practical completion of the bridge.  Not an unreasonable occasion to mark, given that this is going to be a new local landmark and that it cost them £3.1m.

The opening event attracted attention from a group of protesters who were objecting to the level of affordable housing within the Finzel's Reach Development. It will certainly make the local news and the internet, as they managed to breach security and run onto the bridge as the guests arrived.  

I have every sympathy with those who campaign for more affordable homes, particularly in Bristol where there is undoubtedly a housing crisis.  Unfortunately this particular target, whilst an easy one, was wrongly chosen.  

The Finzel's Reach development has seen several developers go bust having sunk millions of pounds into the remediation and development of the former Courage brewery.  There is affordable housing as part of the Finzel's Reach scheme, but you cannot saddle that development with a £3.1m bridge and not expect there to be a reduction in the amount of affordable housing on offer.

Demonstrations about the lack of housing are potentially set to become a growth area as housing need intensifies.  Compare and contrast the protests against new development schemes with the protests against the  lack of affordable housing provision.  New development effectively pays for affordable housing - government finances and accounting rules mitigate against large scale public housing projects (i.e council housing).

Like it or loathe it, we need to make provision for housing growth in some parts of the country.  It does not have to be for purchase, continental style rental scheme would work.  The consequences of failing to meet this need would be disastrous to the social fabric of the UK.

Something to consider before painting up your placard to suggest that those new homes be built somewhere other than in your village or town? 

This is a composite of 7 shots taken with the little Sony RX100IV and hand held (albeit the hand was clamped to a bridge to try to hold it in the same position for all 7 shots).  In very rough terms the settings would be equivalent to a 30s exposure shot at ISO200 and F8 on the Nikon.