Bristol Alliance renames Broadmead scheme

Bristol Alliance’s new £500m shopping centre in Bristol will be called Cabot Circus. The Alliance, a Hammerson and Land Securities joint venture, will name the Broadmead replacement scheme after explorer John Cabot. It follows the scrapping of the previous choice of name, Merchants Quarter, after claims it evoked the city’s links with the slave trade. House of Fraser will anchor the development with a 170,000 sq ft department store. It will include 15 major new stores, 100 other shops and 20 new restaurants and cafes, along with more than 2,600 car park spaces, a cinema, a 120-bed hotel, and a new student accommodation block. Although born in Genoa and of Venetian descent, Cabot moved to England and settled in Bristol around 1490. With the support of Henry VII, he sailed from Bristol in 1497 on the Mathew in the hope of finding a route to Asia. After 52 days at sea, on June 24, he sighted land somewhere in Newfoundland, which he claimed for England.