Wade Street and Houlton Street in Bristol in 2026, right, and what it will look like in the future, left(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach Plc)

In pictures - the imminent transformation of the entrance to Bristol

by · BristolLive

It is 51 years since the last section of the M32 motorway was completed, taking motorway traffic from the M4 right into the heart of Bristol city centre.

From 1975, drivers heading south west into ‘town’ have been met with a range of changes views over the years, from the terraced rooftops of Eastville and Easton, a beloved football stadium that was eventually replaced by Ikea and Tesco, the railway bridge with Banksy’s name on it for years to the much-loathed Tollgate House brutalist office block, and then the looming presence of Cabot Circus.

But over the next few years, the drive into Bristol is going to change again - and it will probably be the most radical transformation in the 51 years.

At the moment people coming into Bristol down the M32 in cars and buses see an industrial landscape to their left with the old factories and units of St Jude’s along the nearby banks of the River Frome.

But if all the plans already allowed and currently requested come to fruition, the reality of the journey into Bristol in the 2030s will be very different, with huge tower blocks lining the inbound side of the motorway just as the M32 becomes Newfoundland Way on the approach to Cabot Circus.

Scroll through the images to see the scenes now, and what they will look like in the future.

In the beginning

The post-war Bristol really got underway with the building of the M32, Newfoundland Way and this building - the strangely-shaped Tollgate House. It was finished in 1975 - the same year the motorway right to this spot was opened.
It had 19 storeys of offices that were fully air-conditioned, and this was the future in 1975.(Image: Eugene Byrne)
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The clearance begins

This image was taken in 1997 and drivers on the M32 are coming into the city centre from the road that emerges behind Tollgate House, with the junction of Newfoundland Way, Bond Street and Temple Way on the left.(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
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The end of the beginning

By the 1990s, Tollgate House was widely loathed, and council chiefs began planning for a future at the end of the M32 without it. In 2003 it was compulsorily purchased, and taken down floor by floor in the first months of 2006. This picture was taken in February and by May it was all gone.
Bristol had attracted investment from the Chinese Government, and Cabot Circus was coming....
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The new Cabot Circus

Temple Way was moved completely to a new route to go around Cabot Circus and the 'end of the M32' was actually brought forward around 100 yards to the north east, further up Newfoundland Way.
There, the great multi-storey car park of Cabot Circus was created, on the site of the old Tollgate House, with a retail park on the other side of Houlton Street.(Image: Google Earth)
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