Arriving into Bristol Temple Meads by train, you are landed in the centre of Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. You can see it from the train coming in but the station funnels you out between the long arms of its buildings and pushes you towards the mile-long walk into the city centre. You have to backtrack to see around and behind the station - the fractured complex of roads, dated offices, historic walls and industrial sheds, carved into islands by the curves of the river Avon and a network of canal and old floating harbour that make up the 100ha Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. The enterprise zone has had a special status since 2012 and was given added weight by the setting up of the West of England Combined Authority in 2016 with a £500 million Economic Development Fund. Homes England is on board and Network Rail too. Bristol mayor Marvin Rees describes it as 'massively significant'. It has had great hopes attached to it, the most high profile being the £90 million Bristol Arena. Populous and Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBS) worked on its design before it was cancelled in favour of a developer-led site, north of the city. The bridges installed for the arena are a testament to the failed hope. But now there are now fresh moves, most notably Bristol University's new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus. And in March a new development framework comes before the city authorities to be embedded into the Local Plan running to 2035.
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