Frome Gateway is an area of industrial land close to the centre of Bristol. It has a range of uses including community and cultural, industrial, manufacturing, warehousing, and retail activity. Bristol City Council re-designated the area from a Principal Industrial and Warehousing area to an Area of Growth and Opportunity. This reflects an ambition to have a denser and broader mix of uses, including new homes, workspace, retail and leisure. A Strategic Regeneration Framework is being developed to guide this change.

To support the Strategic Regeneration Framework, Bristol City Council commissioned PRD to develop an Employment Land and Skills Strategy for the area. The strategy will provide guidance on the level and nature of future employment space, ways to support existing businesses, and employment and skills approaches which will maximise the benefits for local communities. As part of this, PRD will develop scenarios promoting different growth sectors and levels of business retention as well as test viability of these.

The Strategy is underpinned by a thorough social and economic baseline which details the community, skills and employment, and local economic context of the area. Our approach to this included quantitative data collection and analysis, policy reviews and consultation with council stakeholders.