Planning for the Plymouth Brethren, part three

In the third part of our series on the development and planning applications of the Plymouth Brethren, Brethren Exposed goes to Bristol in the UK and investigates the multiple planning applications behind the sale and purchase of property and land.

Bristol

Bristol is a large city in the Southwest of the UK. The brethren community in Bristol is believed to be one of, if not the largest in the UK with circa 450 members. There are two gospel trusts which cover the Bristol and South Gloucestershire area, the Frome Valley Gospel Hall Trust and the Greenfield Gospel Hall Trust. Consolidation has seen other Gospel Hall Trusts in the area become defunct.

The Frome Valley Gospel Hall Trust consists of five trustees, Richard Smith, Glenn Smith, Douglas Turner, Tristan Brady and Peter Davis. Richard & Glenn Smith are connected to the TGS (UK) & Transquip, Tristan Brady is a director of commercial outfitters McFeggan Brown and Peter Davis is a director of Plant Care.

The Greenfield Gospel Hall Trust also consists of five trustees, Mike Farr, Laurie Huntley, John Davies, Charlie Leflaive and Tim Smith. There is some connections to the Frome Valley Gospel Trust, with Tim Smith and Mike Farr also directors of TGS (UK), Transquip and Plant Care respectively. John Davies is ex of Western Global, Laurie Huntley is a director of outdoor shade & canopy business, Kensington Systems. Charlie Leflaive is one the main elders in the Bristol area, as well as being a director of PPE winners Toffeln, he is also a named trustee of the two corporate trustees Scribefort Ltd & Allerbrook Ltd of the largest UK brethren charity, the Grace Trust. 
 
Frome Valley Gospel Hall Trust
Frome Valley Gospel Hall Trust owns a mix of nine properties* and associated land. These include seven meeting rooms, one residential property and a meeting room under construction. The meeting rooms are located Northeast of Bristol, in the areas surrounding a 10-mile stretch of the A432 from Staple Hill to Rangeworthy, with another two meeting rooms 6 miles further west on the A38 around Alveston. These are predominantly small meeting rooms with a capacity of circa 50 people, with two that are district meeting rooms with a capacity of circa 125. The main much larger City meeting room comes under the control of the Greenfield Gospel Hall Trust.

Greenfield Gospel Hall Trust
Greenfield Gospel Hall Trust has two properties, one is the main Bristol City Meeting Room located on Hortham Lane, Almondsbury. It also owns a residential property on Hortham Lane, that could be a future access point for the City Meeting Room. The Trust also has a subsidiary construction firm called Freshwater Design and Build Company Ltd. This is a common set up for brethren gospel trusts.

In total there are eight meeting rooms in Bristol, plus a further two in planning/development. Some of these meeting rooms have been acquired/built in the last 10 years, and some former meeting rooms in the area no longer exist. The latest planning application submitted in July 2025, is for a meeting room on Over Lane, Easter Compton.

*The land at Over Lane was likely purchased in the last 12 months and therefore is not showing as owned by either Gospel Hall Trust in their last filed accounts. 

Planning Applications
The brethren community in Bristol has been on the move over the last 17 years. There has been a shift out from Bristol to more rural areas. This has seen a high number of planning applications, and it has also seen the sale of a number of meeting rooms including California Road in Oldland Common and Station Road, Warmley. In the latest planning application for a meeting room in Over Lane, Easter Compton, there is reference that the meeting room in Staple Hill has been sold, and it is likely the meeting room in Mangotsfield will also be sold. 

Timeline - New Meeting Rooms Planning Applications submitted
2008 - Winterbourne - Local room
2009 - Coalpit Heath - Local room
2010 - Almondsbury - City room
2014 - Frampton Cotterell - District room
2017 - Rangeworthy - District Room
2019 - Alveston - Local Room
2022 - Wotton-Under-Edge - Local room
2024 - Engine Common - Local room
2025 - Easter Compton - Local room
 
Timeline - Old Meeting Rooms no longer used/sold
Fishponds (now a non-brethren school)
Oldland Common (California Road)
Almondsbury
Warmley
Rangeworthy
Rudgeway
Staple Hill (recently sold and had not been in use for circa 10 years)

Timeline - Existing Meeting Room pre 2008 and still in use
Mangotsfield (likely to be sold)

Recently sold Staple Hill meeting room.

Observations from Planning Statements 
As part of our research and investigation of the planning applications submitted by the Brethren in the South Gloucestershire area, we noticed a lot of similarities (partly due to the recent applications being submitted by the same architect).

• Vague Terminology:

There is a tendency to see words such as infrequently, generally, approximately, occasionally, little activity and typically. These are used in relation to the hall usage, the number attending, the services, the cars attending. All providing a level of future 'wiggle room'. 

• Subjects not included:

Subjects are not covered, e.g. the installation of Air Conditioning and the siting of this in proximity to neighbouring properties and the potential noise level. There was inconsistency in mentioning the sale of other meeting rooms, we would ask if by 2040 we are looking at whole new set of meeting rooms. 

• Car Parking

Car Parking is often a contentious issue and the number of car parking spaces, taking into consideration the claim that there is a high level of average passengers, it is still often below the levels of spaces required, particularly in regard to the monthly services. We are aware of one meeting room having 12 spaces but managing to get nearly 40 cars into the car park.

• Usage

In many of the applications it shows that these meeting rooms will be used for 5 or 6 hours a week. An incredible investment to save five minutes travel for a few households! Though the usage is often described in loose terms with generally or occasionally added to cover future excess usage.
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• Household Proximity

In the last couple of years there has been a switch nationally to the brethren planning applications, whereby the number of households in the local and adjacent areas are highlighted to show the need for the new meeting room. We have included a diagram from the Easter Compton application as an example.

It is interesting to note the different sizes and shapes used and the proximity to each other. The methodology could easily be adapted to support the need by altering the size of the shapes in relation to the site or proposed location. The other item of note is that there is very little difference in distance between some of the meeting rooms, Coalpit Heath to Rangeworthy (the areas to the East) is around 5 miles and takes 15 mins by car. It is an area that includes approximately half the Bristol brethren community and along with the Engine Common application if successful, the area will have five meeting rooms.
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• Contradiction on later Planning Applications

We were recently alerted to a submission on a planning application in relation to the one of the former meeting rooms. The application was to change to residential and allow the building of new houses on the site. We were left open mouthed at this line "The application is seeking to make use of this large plot as there is no demand for the current D2 use although as previously stated the site was not accessible to the general public", or as we read 'this should have been a housing development originally and we are not quite sure why planning was given for a meeting room!'

• Objections/Support

There is a theme on each new planning application to draw comparison to previous successful meeting room applications. Often these differ though, for example one may be a green belt application, another might be in a residential area, another may be a change of commercial use.

​As is common, some of the planning applications meet substantial objections from the local community. These are often countered with substantial support; however, the comments of support submitted to the planning department predominantly come from brethren members supporting the Gospel Trust applications. It is not unusual to see these letters of support coming from brethren members outside the local vicinity. 

Summary
The wheeling and dealing of meeting rooms in the Bristol and the wider South Gloucestershire area is similar to the activity of other brethren gospel hall trusts. It is often created by wholesale house moves of brethren congregations from one area to another. This is likely to be an 'approved' move by Bruce Hales and the Global Advisory Panel in Sydney. The planning applications are interesting for the information not included, the amount of new meeting rooms and the impact on the local non-brethren communities and neighbours in each area.

In the next part of our series we will focus on the 'Watford' community and the long running planning saga and eventual windfall sale of a City meeting room to Harrow Council. Buying and Selling meeting rooms can become very profitable.