as far afield as Bath, Chepstow, Gloucester and Newport. Services include the 73 Bristol–Cribbs Causeway. Railway station The area is not served by a railway station. The nearest, Patchway, around to the west. There are plans to re-open the nearby Henbury Loop Line to serve both the Cribbs Causeway area and the future development on the Filton Airfield site. Progress of expansion In October 2014, plans to expand the shopping centre were revealed to the public in a public exhibition, including a 120-bed hotel, a new bus station, a multi-storey car park, a pedestrian link bridge over Merlin Road and 150 apartments, with the proposed expansion to increase the shopping centre by more than a half. Construction work was expected to start in 2017 and anticipated to open by 2021. After deferring the Mall's £300 million expansion plan in February 2016, South Gloucestershire Council approved the plans in November 2016. Sports facilities Plans to build an ice rink, dry ski-slope, and indoor "ski-diving" facility were presented to the public in June 2015, with the Bristol Post reporting that the planning request was placed on 9 December 2015, with the intended site being next to the Vue cinema. On 7 April 2017 architects Atkins Walters & Webster reported that South Gloucestershire Council had approved the leisure development plans, which comprised "an ice rink, a sky-dive and ski centre, a hotel, a drive-thru coffee shop, retail, a restaurant and a car showroom", with the intention of including a "green corridor that enables future provision of the proposed pedestrian bridge to link to an expanded Mall Shopping Centre". Atkins Walters & Webster stated their "key aim is to create a permeable layout that links the Filton Airfield site to the wider Cribbs Causeway network". In July 2019, the Bristol Post reported that plans for a dry-ski-slope facility had been "shelved", as the company due to deliver it, Skiplex, had gone into administration – and the developers were focusing on delivering the new ice rink. The ice-rink opened on 25 October 2021, after some delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the new home rink of the Bristol Pitbulls ice hockey team, who played their first game at the rink on 30 October. See also Nearby attractions Aerospace Bristol The Wave, Bristol Wild Place Project Bristol shopping centres Broadmead Cabot Circus The Galleries, Bristol References External links Original website of Cribbs Causeway website