Milestone

Bristol Temple Meads eastern entrance to open on 7 September

By Staff Writer  |  29-08-2026

The new eastern entrance at Bristol Temple Meads will open to passengers at 4pm on Monday 7 September 2026. The infrastructure owner set the date on 28 August, more than a year and a half after the main building works were finished, and described the opening as a milestone in a longer programme to double the capacity of the busiest station in the region.

The entrance cost 23 million pounds. It is the first of three new entrances planned for the station, and it was paid for out of 94.7 million pounds of government funding awarded to the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority to deliver all three. The owner expects the new entrance to carry around 2.5 million passengers a year by 2030.

The eastern entrance opens directly onto the University of Bristol's Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, and gives St Philip's Marsh and the east of the city a way into the station that does not require the walk round to Station Approach.

What was actually built

The construction is more awkward than the finished product suggests. To create the entrance the infrastructure owner extended the existing station subway beneath platforms 13 and 15, excavating through existing structures before carrying out drainage, foundation and station improvement works. Work of that kind sits under a live railway, in ground already occupied by Victorian and later fabric, and it is the reason a single entrance took as long as it did.

Construction began in late 2023. The main building works were completed in October 2024. The gap between that completion and the September 2026 opening is explained by the entrance being timed to open alongside the university campus it serves rather than in isolation.

The wider programme

The entrance is one part of the Bristol Temple Quarter regeneration programme. That scheme is a partnership between the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority and Bristol City Council, which formed Bristol Temple Quarter LLP in 2024 to drive the work forward, working with the infrastructure owner, the University of Bristol and Homes England.

Marcus Jones, the infrastructure owner's Great Western route director, said: "Bristol Temple Meads has been at the heart of the city since it opened in 1840, and this new entrance ensures it will play an even greater role in its future. By connecting the railway directly to the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus and one of the UK's most exciting innovation districts, we're connecting new jobs, investment and economic growth to the rest of the West and beyond."

Helen Godwin, Mayor of the West of England, put the entrance in the sequence of works at the station, describing the combined authority's investment there as "building on the extensive roof repairs which were recently completed", and pointing to the old sorting office having been replaced by the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus.

Karen Mercer, chief executive of BTQ LLP, said the partners "have delivered a new entrance to the station on time and on budget", and that it "will dramatically improve access to the station for communities and businesses in east Bristol".

What changes on the ground

From Tuesday 8 September the service 8 bus between Bristol Temple Meads and Clifton will begin serving the new eastern entrance next to the university campus. A new bus stop is being provided on Cattle Market Road and the route will stop using Station Approach.

Two points matter for anyone tracking the rest of the programme. The first is the funding structure: one grant of 94.7 million pounds is buying three entrances, and the first of them has taken 23 million pounds of it, which sets a rough expectation for what remains. The second is the claim of on time and on budget delivery, made by the client side rather than the contractor, on a scheme whose main building works finished nearly two years before the doors open. On a project delivered under a live railway with excavation through existing structures, that claim is one to test against the outturn figures for the remaining two entrances.