PLANS to bring a new arena to Bristol could take a new direction with a developer proposing a new site in South Gloucestershire.

Despite considerable work going into plans for a prospective site on the Temple Quarter site of Bristol, Mayor Marvin Rees announced a pause in pre-construction, so that an independent review could be carried out.

In the meantime, discussions between Bristol City and South Gloucestershire Councils, the West of England Combined Authority and private sector developer YTL have taken place, looking at the deliverability and affordability of an alternative proposal to develop an arena within the Brabazon Hangar at Filton.

The council has accordingly expanded the scope of the Value for Money review being carried out by KPMG to compare the two proposals, including associated infrastructure costs.

Mayor Marvin Rees said: “Not enough work was done on options in the first place.  Now a second option has come forward more formally, giving us two potential schemes to look at.

“Inevitably this also brings a need for more information and we need to fully evaluate this new proposal and the associated infrastructure costs.

“We have already gone a long way down the road with the Temple Quarter project and the council needs to be confident that it can make a like-for-like comparison when informing final proposals and taking a decision.

“I am 100 per cent committed to delivering an arena for Bristol and I want to be sure we are fully informed on the options for achieving this at a cost the city can afford.

“We are therefore pressing ahead with further detailed examination of the two most viable options. We will update cabinet again in April.”

To reduce the weekly spend incurred by the council during this review period, the Pre-Construction Services Agreement with Buckingham Group was suspended in November. The suspension is currently in place for a period of up to six months, with the ability to recommence the contract at any time.