The derelict sorting office building next to Temple Meads station which for years has blighted the entrance to the city for rail passengers has been acquired by Bristol City Council.
The eyesore 2.1 hectare site, alongside the area planned for the city’s long hoped for arena, has been disused for more than 17 years. 
By buying the site, a key area within the Bristol Temple Enterprise Zone, the council can now draw up more ambitious plans for the zone.
Mayor George Ferguson said: “This purchase is a game changer. For years I have been ashamed of this disgraceful eyesore that greets visitors to the city arriving by train.
“Since taking office at the end of 2012 I have been determined to deal with a situation that has been out of our control. Now that at long last we have ownership of the site we can plan more holistically alongside our plans for nearby Arena Island.
“Together these two sites have the potential to transform this crucial area behind Temple Meads and stimulate the development of St Philips Marsh.
“We now need to take time to think about the future of this area, alongside the arena planning application, which is due to be submitted at the end of the summer. We must make sure that the plans for the arena and this site work together to create a vibrant new mixed use development and that the consultation process takes this fully into account.”
Until April it appeared the council had been powerless to buy the site and talks with its Thai owners about its future had been deadlocked for months.
But the city council’s cabinet has switched funding previously allocated to buy the land needed for the nearby arena to allow it to acquire and redevelop the site – which for nearly two decades has given millions of visitors arriving by train a bad impression of Bristol.
An earlier London-based owner had planned to turn the building into a media and creative centre with offices and apartments. It was suggested that it could become a new home for the BBC’s Bristol-based departments – creating a ‘media city’ similar to the broadcaster’s new base in Salford.
West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) chair Colin Skellett said: “This is great news, creating the opportunity to redevelop the worst site in Bristol and the one that the Prime Minister described as making the entrance to the city look like a war zone.
“Acquisition of this site creates the opportunity to transform the area and provide a new vibrant entry to the city and enterprise zone.”
The move follows the council’s purchase of Arena Island and 1-9 Bath Rd. Over the next few months further work will be carried out to review how these three important sites can work together to create a new quarter within the enterprise zone. This new opportunity will feed in to the planning application for the arena which is currently planned for the end of the summer.
The former sorting office site has two large interlinked disused buildings – a 1930’s sorting office and an adjoining 1970’s office building.
The council plans to use the site for a mix of employment space – including possibly some waterfront offices – with some residential development.
It will also bring better connections to Temple Meads station, including a possible new pedestrian bridge from Arena Island and links to a proposed floating pontoon cycleway and walkway connection to nearby Temple Quay.
The purchase has been made possible through a grant of £5.425m, from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The grant supported the transfer of Arena Island from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) to the city council, allowing funding agreed by the Mayor to acquire Arena Island to be used instead to buy the former sorting office.
The £90m, 12,000-capacity Arena, is expected to open in 2017.
