The Bristol Cable - Edition 21

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Issue No21 - Oct-Dec 2019 Made free by members

“I expected total rejection” An Irish Traveller on coming out as gay Page 12

INVESTIGATION

FEATURE

CAMPAIGN

OPINION

VOICES

Strachan and Henshaw: The secrets of a burned out office building and chequered history of a rogue landlord

Bristol Energy: Is it time to shut it down?

Burning our waste: Green energy or greenwash?

Plus more on the Cable’s campaign: #FightForFairAir

Navigating masculinity in a society that views black men as harder, colder and more aggressive

Meet the Hartcliffe kids campaigning for free bus travel

Page 9

Page 15

Page 16

Page 38

Page 36

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“ Bristol’s media and

culture sector needs to change: We need to expand our ideas of what culture is and who gets to create it... ”

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

Roseanna Dias Creative Producer and Bristol Cable director

As a director of the Cable, a readerowned paper, I believe we play a vital role in democratising media to serve community and not financial interests.

Rife Magazine how paid initiatives which up-skill and connect people into industries impact on representation and the stories we tell.

This autumn, the Cable launched a new paid position for someone looking to get into journalism – our Early Career Journalism Placement. This is an opportunity for new voices to enter the arena on their terms. I've seen firsthand at Rising Arts Agency and

We looked for people with fresh ideas and perspectives, not qualifications or connections.

So watch this space, because next edition this new member of the team will put pen to paper and produce must-read journalism for you.

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DEAR READER,

Opinion: Falling vaccination rates > p.39

CREDITS

Massive thanks to the 2,000+ members who make all this possible!

- and all contributors, sources and contacts.

The Cable is celebrating its fifth birthday! It feels like a long time since we were working out of a living room back in 2014. We’ve come a long way: establishing the Cable as the city's investigative outlet; achieving changes across the city through our campaigns; and even training up new journalists.

This progress has been made possible by the 2,000+ members who decided to take a punt on a new model for local media. Cable members are supporters, owners, readers, sources, advisors and journalists. Their continued support, both financial and otherwise, allows us to spend months investigating stories that matter and produce journalism that is genuinely in the public interest – serving people not private profit, and platforming new ideas and rarely heard voices.

But we can also do more and better. There are still injustices and wrongdoings going unreported in our city. To investigate them, amplify more voices and explore ways to make Bristol a fairer place, we need more members. Both to increase our capacity to serve the city, but also to show that a new way of doing local media can work.

In such insecure times, politics can leave us feeling powerless and the media leaves us divided and outraged but not sure what to do. The need to band together and find alternatives is now greater than ever.

If you read these pages and think our journalism is worth supporting, then become a member for just the price of a coffee per month: thebristolcable.org/join

If you have a story, please get in touch: content@thebristolcable.org thebristolcable.org/got-a-story 07533718547 14 Hillgrove Street, Bristol, BS2 8JT Media coordination Matty Edwards, Lorna Stephenson, Alon Aviram, Hannah Vickers, Adam Cantwell-Corn Production coordination Matty Edwards Sub-editors Alex Turner, Arvind Howarth Social media Matty Edwards, Hannah Vickers

Print advertising Kerry Mead - advertising@thebristolcable.org

The Cable team

Tech team Mat Alborough, Will Franklin Marcus Valentine - xtreamlab.net

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THEBRISTOLCABLE.ORG/JOIN There’s always more to the story, with your support we can tell it

6-8 News in brief Bailiffs on the backfoot, demand for homelessness support and the rise of Avon's reforestation drive 9-11 Investigation: Health and safety breaches, rogue landlordism and dodgy activity 12-13 Cover story: Coming out as gay in a community where it’s taboo 15 Feature: Bristol Energy: A shrewd investment or a waste of public money?

16-17 Campaign: How green is waste incineration? Plus more Fight For Fair Air campaign news 18-19 Investigation: An anti-slavery order was made against this local boss. Here is evidence it is being breached 20-21 Photo essay Documenting Bedminster’s Dean Lane skatepark through the ages 23 Interview Life, art and hip hop with Kilaze 25-27 Investigation Bristol teachers are leaving due to stress, but what can be done?

30-31 History Facing down the far right with music, pickets and ballots

Distribution coordination Lucas Batt Distribution team: Dave Marsden, Scatha Jones, Neill Talbot Jenny Stringer, Cari Bjegovic, Robert, Ella, David and Debbie Porteous

32-33 History The complex legacy of Bristol’s first woman MP

Workplace coordination We don’t have a boss as the Cable, we organise ourselves!

People: Cait Crosse, Lucas Batt, Hannah Vickers, Mat Alborough Development: Adam Cantwell-Corn, Matty Edwards Forums: Will Franklin, Cait Crosse Resources: Alon Aviram, Lorna Stephenson Partnerships: Adam Cantwell-Corn, Alon Aviram

34-35 Strength in Numbers What’s the council done for us?

Front page photo David Griffiths - david-griffiths.format.com

Contents 4-5 What the Cable’s been up to recently

Membership Cait Crosse, Lucas Batt

36 Voices Meet the kids calling for free bus travel for children 37 Opinion Why we need to talk about school exclusions 38 Opinion My experiences of being a young black man in the 21st century 39 Opinion Measles is back, and it’s not just because of the anti-vaxxers

Special thanks to…

Katharine Quarmby, Mike Jempson Directors: Kate Whittle, Abdi Mohamed, Robert Triggs, Noelle Rumball, Roseanna Dias, Kate Oliver, Yuliya Kosharevska, Nathan Fitzpatrick, Phil Chamberlain, Alain Demontoux Thanks to the Reva and David Logan Foundation, Luminate and the Centre for Investigative Journalism for their continued support.

The Cable is printed on 100% recycled paper fibre produced in King’s Lynn.

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Print design Laurence Ware - laurence-ware.com

To a better Media!

CO-OP UPDATES

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the BRISTOL CABLE

THIS IS WHAT THE CABLE HAS BEEN UP TO RECENTLY

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The Cable is a 100% reader-owned new model for media. We are building a community of members who fund and steer the Cable to pioneer a new approach; owned by communities and free from corporate influence.

Along with our journalism, this is what we’ve been up to over the past couple of months.

Like what you see and want to be part of the Cable community? You can join for just £1 per month at thebristolcable.org/join

Chav Solidarity At this event, free for Cable members, author D. Hunter read from his new book Chav Solidarity, described as “part autobiography, part meditation on trauma, class and identity, part one finger salute into the face of respectability politics, but mostly an articulation of the contradictory heart of chavvy sh*t heads across the UK”.

Read more online: As well as a quarterly print edition, we publish regularly online. Our most recent stories include the impact of cuts on Bristol’s social workers, the problems around Bristol airport’s planned expansion and the latest on the council’s new van policy. For these and more, check out our website:

THEBRISTOLCABLE.ORG

Opening up the media with an Early Career Journalist position We are committed to pioneering a new model for media. This means a radical shake up of who owns it, what journalism is produced and by who. This vision cannot be met until the media is reflective of the diversity in the society we live in.

As a young organisation that started off with zero financial resources, we know how hard it is to get a foot on the ladder in this business. That’s why we’re proud to have opened up a position for a paid Early Career Journalist as part of our Media Lab programme to open up the media. When too many corporate publications will have people writing crap for free, Cable members have made this opportunity possible. Thank you.

Find out more online and stay tuned for updates.

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CO-OP UPDATES

The Manchester Meteor team get to work

This is a crisis.

But there are opportunities.

But there is good news: The first step to resolving a crisis is recognising it! There’s a growing and diverse movement that has done just that and is taking matters into their own hands. One great example is the Manchester Meteor – a new media co-op which the Cable recently supported to get up and running.

Across the sector, we are involved in conversations to reimagine and build a media that genuinely serves the public interest, including at the level of government. Earlier this year, we participated in Dame Francis Cairncross’s government initiated review into the future of quality journalism. Recommendations include a tax on the likes of Google and Facebook to fund non-profit journalism and to give organisations like the Cable charitable status. Now the challenge is to see these reforms happen and guard against the corporate media hoovering up all the benefits!

The mobile phone footage went viral, globally. Ras Judah Adunbi, a respected member of the local community, and former race relations advisor to the police, was Tasered in the face in 2017 by Avon and Somerset police officers in a case of mistaken identity.

The incident horrified many and triggered a citywide conversation on institutional racism and police heavyhandedness. But eventually the news cycle moved on, and police officer Claire Boddie was acquitted at criminal trial and cleared of misconduct.

The Cable is proud to be a commissioning partner supporting the team behind I Am Judah, an independent production to tell the story of the incident, and the context behind it. The film is currently being produced, Cable members will have exclusive access to the film when available.

Harnessing the knowledge of members and the public

Teacher Turnover, page 25

Getting the Cable shipshape and in Bristol fashion

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There’s no blueprint for what we are trying to do at the Cable and we’ve encountered many challenges over the five years we’ve been going. Over the past year we’ve been developing our strategies, identifying our weaknesses and building the best structures to carry out the vision of creating journalism fit for the 21st Century!

Our community of 2,000+ members and the wider public hold a lot of knowledge and experience crucial for great journalism. In the last print magazine, a call-out for information regarding the massive fire at the Strachan and Henshaw building led to people getting in touch with info on the dodgy goings on behind the blaze. Check out page 9 for the full story.

Also in this edition, page 25, is an investigation on the crisis in teaching. Cable members with direct experience working in the education sector came forward to share their stories.

Following our previous investigation into isolation in schools, we are also now collaborating with Creative Youth Network to help young people at risk of exclusion from mainstream education to produce journalism.

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First, the bad news: As a whole, the public trust journalists less than estate agents to tell the truth, and many of us are switching off completely. As fewer and fewer people pay for journalism and advertising revenue is sucked up by the tech giants, the conventional business model for quality journalism is failing, badly. Into the void has stepped fake news, sloppy churnalism and too often, nothing at all, meaning power isn’t held to account and information isn’t shared.

I AM JUDAH: The Cable gets behind grassroots film

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NEWS IN BRIEF

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Bristol’s CO2 emissions over the last decade

Bailiffs on the back foot as council makes progress on ethical debt collection

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Adam Cantwell-Corn Tens of thousands of people in the city have faced the dreaded knock of bailiffs working for Bristol City Council. But progress is being made to reduce the aggressive and counterproductive debt collection practises, specifically council tax.

Last year the council announced a more ethical approach prioritising early intervention and support for struggling citizens.

This followed a five month campaign by the Cable to

Outstanding schools not being reinspected

by Ofsted Cable analysis of historic inspection data found that of the 15 schools that were reinspected since 2012 after receiving a rating of ‘Outstanding’, 11 (73%) were downgraded to a lower rating.

There were 28 schools rated Outstanding since 2012 that have not been reinspected. For example, Brentry Primary School has not had a full inspection since 2007.

In 2012, the coalition government changed the law so that schools rated outstanding, apart from pupil referral units and special schools, were exempt from routine inspection. But the Department for Education recently announced the removal of this exemption. An Ofsted spokesperson said: “This is something that Ofsted has long argued for, so we're pleased the government has made this announcement.”

#bootoutbailliffs that investigated the heavy handed use of profiteering private bailiffs by the council and the ineffectiveness of pushing people further into debt.

While bailiffs haven’t been ruled out completely, in September 2019 the council approved a £600,000 two-year investment in the initiative to improve practices for all debt owed to the council.

In 2018, unpaid council tax stood at about £7 million.

The council have recognised that debt can lead to family

breakdown, homelessness and people turning to payday loans just to stay afloat. Through early intervention, improved processes and better use of information, including joined-up use of data across-and signposting to-relevant services, the council states it is taking a “citizen centric” approach to debt collection.

Following the #bootoutbailiffs campaign, Cable members voted for us to campaign on air pollution.

Go to page 16 to get the latest.

CO2 emissions in Bristol have fallen by more than a third in the last 10 years. Between 2007 and 2017, total emissions decreased from 2,510 kilotonnes (kt) to 1,588.

In November 2018, Bristol City Council became one of the first councils to declare a climate emergency and commit to being carbon neutral by 2030. The UK government has recently changed its 2050 target from an 80% reduction on 1990 levels to net zero on all greenhouse gases.

CO 2 emissions in Bristol, kilotonnes, 2007 vs 2017 2007 1,053.8

866.2

578.9

2017 498.5 563.7 517.3 Industry and Commercial Domestic Energy Road transport Other transport

The last time Ofsted ratings were given for all primary, secondary and special schools in Bristol. (Each block represents one school) Inadequate Requires Improvement Good Outstanding

Brentry Primary School has not had a full inspection since 2007

2007

2008

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2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

The number of schools rated ‘Outstanding’ that have not had a full inspection for seven years.

Source: Department for Education

Data analysis: Will Franklin and Lucas Batt

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Alex Turner

Illustration: Sarah Redrup

people over to the new system prematurely even though they will be worse off.

Claimants have to wait five

account, it was instead diverted to pay another debt.

"Those debts had accumulated as a result of universal credit," Ioannou said. "It’s a vicious cycle – they will be unable to pay rent or any other expenses, so are being left practically destitute."

Councillor Craig Cheney, Cabinet member for Finance, Governance & Performance, said: “Since the rollout of Universal Credit we’ve seen the rent arrears of tenants steadily increase, putting already struggling families and individuals under greater undue stress. The enforced delay in people receiving their benefits creates immediate issues for tenants and the offer of repayable loans to cover it leaves clear challenges for those put in that position”.

“Tenants have access to a wide range of support services including debt advice, money management support and referral to Future Bright, which offers free career coaching, training and support to help residents and citizens to develop the skills and confidence needed to progress their career and improve their pay.”

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Alcohol admissions at highest levels ever Matty Edwards Bristol has recorded its highest ever number of hospital admissions caused by alcohol, following a previous 12% increase in the last five years.

Reducing alcohol-related hospital admissions has been identified as a priority by public health, but 2018/19 estimates were at the highest rate yet seen, according to a report to Bristol City Council’s People Scrutiny Commission. The figure was 839 per 100,000 people – an increase of 4% on last year.

According to data from Public Health England, between 2012/13 and 2017/18, alcohol admissions in Bristol rose from 721 to 810 per 100,000 people, an increase of 12.3%, while national level remained the same. In real numbers, there were 3,156 admissions in 2017/18 in Bristol – one every three hours.

This comes as major new research measures for the first time the mas-

sive burden on the NHS of drinking in Britain. The study found an estimated one in five patients in UK hospitals use alcohol harmfully, and one in 10 are alcohol‐dependent. Alcohol‐related conditions are estimated to cost the NHS approximately £3.5 billion a year.

A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “Alcohol addiction is one of the biggest causes of premature deaths and the best approach to tackling it is through not only supportive treatment, but earlier interventions.

This is not for Public Health alone and is being done in collaboration with partners across health services, education and social services.

“On a practical level we have commissioned a Recovery Orientated Alcohol and Drugs service (ROADs) that provides a range of services for those facing drug or alcohol addiction. This service provides advice on a range of topics from rehabilitation and detoxing to general help with reducing the use of harmful substances. In addition, we are also working with the NHS to develop alcohol care and outreach teams aimed at providing support to patients and families within and outside of hospitals.”

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Bristol City Council tenants on universal credit now owe almost £1,000 each in rent arrears.

A recent council report revealed that more than 2,000 people living in local authority housing and claiming the new benefit were in debt – £960 on average.

That figure, prepared for the August housing management board meeting, marked a rise of £16 per tenant compared with data provided to the Cable back in January 2019. Now, nearly four in five tenants on universal credit are in arrears, totalling about £1.7 million.

Universal credit rolls all benefits into one monthly payment, but its rollout across the country has been highly controversial. It has been linked with rising use of food banks, and the Department for Work and Pensions has been recently criticised for transferring

weeks before they receive their first payment, meaning many immediately fall behind with their finances. Others get into difficulty as a result of problems navigating the government's IT system, called the 'journal', or because of direct deductions from their monthly payment to cover historic debts, which can leave claimants almost penniless.

MIchelle Ioannou, financial inclusion officer at advice agency Talking Money, said the volume of people seeking advice with problems to do with the benefit had risen by half this year.

One particularly appalling recent example involved a family who had fallen into arrears with the council due to universal credit delays, which were exacerbated due to a government employee's error over their child benefit payments. "[The mistake] showed ignorance around other benefits outside of universal credit to begin with," Ioannou said. When Talking Money negotiated to get the money, which was urgently needed for rent, paid back to the family's

NEWS IN BRIEF

Universal credit problems leaving some Bristolians neardestitute as debt misery grows

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NEWS IN BRIEF

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Calls to buy out Southmead Hospital from crippling PFI contract

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Matty Edwards The government has banned the NHS from using Public Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts for any future building projects – and yet North Bristol NHS Trust still has to pay £1.75 billion for Southmead Hospital.

The trust is currently paying about £50 million a year as part of the PFI contract, and annual payments will rise until the agreement ends in 2046. A new report by thinktank the IPPR has proposed a way out of paying these eye-watering sums for hospital trusts.

PFI is where private companies provide public services and infra-

Photo: Paul Townsend

structure, but it has been criticised for offering poor value for money in the long run.

The new Brunel building at Southmead Hospital was built by construction giant Carillion at a cost of £430 million and opened in 2014. In 2018, Carillion went bust, and then Chancellor Philip Hammond announced the government wouldn’t sign any more PFI deals.

Analysis by the IPPR found the initial £13 billion of PFI investment in new hospitals will end up costing the NHS a whopping £80 billion by the time all contracts come to an end. £55 billion of that is still to be paid by the NHS.

North Bristol NHS Trust started payments in 2014 and by 2046 will have paid £2.05 billion.

The IPPR is urging the government to legislate to let trusts buy out such contracts and bring them into public ownership, while boosting the NHS’s capital budget by £5.5 billion so it can afford to undertake projects without PFI. The idea of enfranchisement allows trusts to continue contracts when they’re acceptable, but provides a way back into public ownership if the deals are bad value.

In 2013, Northumbria Healthcare tTrust used money it had borrowed from Northumberland

Council misses temporary accommodation target as demand for homelessness support rises

Bristol charity fundraising to reforest 34 acre site

Matty Edwards

Lorna Stephenson

Almost 4,500 Bristol households went to the council for homelessness support in 2018/19, as freezes to local housing allowance and rising private rents took their toll.

Meanwhile, as of April 2019, there were 524 households living in temporary accommodation in Bristol – as Bristol City Council missed its target to reduce this figure.

4,461 households approached the council for support – a 23% increase on last year. The top three routes to homelessness were people whose last home was a private rented tenancy, due to domestic abuse and not being able to stay with family or friends any longer.

The Cable reported in July that less than 10% of Bristol’s private rented housing is covered by local housing allowance (LHA) – the housing benefit for private tenants frozen in 2016.

On top of this and the lack of

social housing and unaffordable private sector rents, people are struggling with the impact of the welfare reform, increases in the cost of living and precarious employment.

These worrying statistics come as Bristol City Council has pledged to eliminate rough sleeping by 2027. A council spokesperson said: “We are working hard to move households from temporary into more settled accommodation but the lack of affordable accommodation is one of the biggest issues facing the city.

“A lack of social housing remains a major problem but in Bristol we’re working with a variety of partners to accelerate all forms of house building and are on course to hit the target of 2,000 homes per year (800 affordable) by 2020, while also increasing access to affordable private rented properties.”

Thirty four acres of unused farmland could be reforested by a Bristol charity, in an attempt to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, increase the site’s biodiversity and mitigate flooding of the river Avon.

"It's a really interesting and beautiful piece of land, very diverse in habitat, it ticks all the boxes of what we want to do,” said Nikki Jones, founder of Avon Needs Trees.

The charity crowdfunded over £20,000 in just two months, as supporters have undertaken sponsored challenges to raise money, including a Bristol University professor who kayaked from Reading to Bristol.

The land, located between Chippenham and Calne, is currently mainly unused pasture, with ten acres remaining of the ancient woodland that would once have covered the whole area. The landowner has agreed to sell the land

county council to buy out its PFI contract, which reduced its repayments by £3 million a year.

A North Bristol NHS Trust spokesperson said: “Our Brunel building at Southmead Hospital is an incredible facility which was possible due to PFI. Along with our amazing staff, it has been highly praised by inspectors who recently rated the trust as Good overall, with Outstanding Care.

“There are many benefits from our current contractual arrangements but if there were changes to PFI rules we would of course have to consider them very carefully.”

for £325,000. Avon Needs Trees are hoping to get grant funding to provide the bulk of the money.

If fundraising is successful, Avon Needs Trees will reforest the land, and are hoping the site will host projects such as a forest school as well as provide habitat for rare and endangered species of bats, woodland butterflies and nightingales.

The Committee on Climate Change has said 1.5bn trees are needed by 2050 for the UK to meet its net-zero carbon target. Currently, England has only 10% forest cover. In the year to March 2019, only 1,420 hectares of trees were planted against a target of 5,000.

“We're way below our targets for tree planting. The UK is one of the most deforested countries in Europe,” said Jones.

Find out more or donate: crowdfunder.co.uk/avonneedstrees

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INVESTIGATION

The chequered history of a rogue landlord and Speedwell’s burnt out tower Five months after more than 40 tenants lost their businesses in the devastating fire at Speedwell’s Strachan and Henshaw building, ‘The Office’ tower is being turned into flats. The Cable digs into former owner Alan Dykes and his past run-ins with the law WORDS ALON AVIRAM

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A

plume of jet-black smoke carried asbestos fibres over Bristol on the evening of 3 May 2019. Anxious neighbours watched as the Strachan and Henshaw (S&H) building became an inferno, awed by the scale of the fire towering over East Bristol. A drone captured footage of the fire from above, but that was as close as firefighters and police would get to investigating the scene.

Over the next week, the building was declared unsafe to inspect by a

specialist team and returned to the owner. And so, despite being treated as a potential case of arson, a search of the building was ruled out. It was, as one tenant sighed, a case of “the bigger and more dangerous the fire, the less scrutiny it receives”.

With no forensic evidence in the case, investigating authorities had their hands tied. They relied on nearby CCTV after all the building’s footage burnt in the fire. It took more than two months to interview 43 potential witnesses but, to tenants’ frustration, no evidence

of arson emerged.

Avon Fire and Rescue Service (AF&RS) would record the cause of the fire as unknown. And Alan Dykes, the building’s landlord until 2018, could breathe a sigh of relief that he had sold the site. Before The Office blaze, a spate of fires and health and safety breaches has bedevilled his property portfolio over the years.

Out of the ashes Only five months after the site was written off as too dangerous to enter,

scaffolding and builders can now be seen creeping up the sides of the S&H tower, while adjacent buildings remain a wreck. It is being converted into 71 flats after Bristol City Council granted planning consent in January to a company called Douglas Homes Ltd, which had originally applied two years earlier.

The damaged building complex had housed more than 40 small businesses. The main tower was infamous for its Swingers Club and as a Hells Angels’ haunt for ageing bikers who ran tattoo parlours and security.

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INVESTIGATION

10

Long a local eyesore, and a thorn in the side of the local authority for health and safety breaches,‘The Office’ as it was known, was home to hard grafting mechanics, upholsterers and tradesmen benefiting from cheap rents, often paid in cash. Some homeless people had lived onsite, and as police would find in January 2019, a cannabis farm was hidden away in the building.

Many of the businesses destroyed in the blaze had no insurance.

“My livelihood is gone, my business has gone,” said Michael Dubique, mourning the loss of his upholstery and furniture business.

Car mechanic Jason Pittaway also lost everything. He had just returned to work after an absence of three months while donating his kidney to save his son’s life.

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Rumours swirling It’s difficult to know what really happened that spring evening in May. Among former tenants and builders on the site, speculation is rife. Some who claim inside knowledge have kept schtum rather than sign police witness statements.

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“You’ll struggle to find anybody to point the finger or tittle tattle about anything,” one tenant remarked.

Some offer all manner of sinister explanations, but others claim more innocent causes.

Detective Inspector Roger Doxsey from Avon and Somerset police told the Cable: “There have been multiple theories and speculation throughout this investigation around who was at fault for the fire. What is now really clear is that there is no evidence to support that this was a case of arson.

The theories around criminal motivation due to insurance gain or swift eviction of tenants do not hold up to scrutiny”.

Some were quick to point the finger at the bikers. But one Hells Angel told the Cable that this line of enquiry doesn’t add up. “There were about four of us who had our vehicles stored there and we’ve probably lost between us £60,000. So, anyone who’s putting the Hells Angels’ names forward is talking a load of shit.”

One thing is certain. Bristol has an insatiable hunger for housing. And a potentially more lucrative residential development is underway on site, although hampered by the need for

The tower is being turned into flats, adjacent buildings remain a wreck

structural repairs and the removal of asbestos.

Stricken Strachan and Henshaw Roll back to 2018, one year before the fire. The building had been sold by a Mr. Alan Dykes to a Dubai registered company.

“The ‘Old Kingswood Boy’ was at the right place at the right time and the banks loaned him money,” an old friend said of Dykes. Over decades, the 71-year-old built a multi-millionpound property portfolio of industrial and residential sites in Bristol and South Gloucestershire. He is believed to have upwards of 300 tenants, but local authorities have been kept in the dark on exactly how far his property empire extends.

Working out of a dilapidated portacabin on his Bridge Road industrial estate, he doesn’t project the image of cash rich landlord. “He wears a rope instead of a belt,” an ex-tenant said of his former landlord, who has a reputation for cutting corners with the upkeep of flats.

An internal South Gloucestershire Council investigation in 2018 into Dykes’ properties said it did not have the resources to undertake a full review into his many residential properties.

The report went on: “There is a history of non-compliance with housing standards in Mr Dykes [sic] rented properties”.

“The Private Sector Housing Team have appointed a new housing officer with a strong enforcement background and this officer has been tasked with handling all future complaints relating to Mr Dykes [sic] properties.”

Records obtained by the Cable reveal that South Gloucestershire

Council transferred to Dykes and his company £250k for tenants on housing benefits last year. This made him the fourth largest recipient of taxpayer-funded rent in the county. This is despite Dykes’ name being well known to local councils, and to Avon Fire and Rescue Service as a major rogue landlord.

A series of unfortunate fires At the Speedwell tower block, swingers were hoping to see in 2019 with a bang, but by the time Big Ben struck midnight there were 60 firefighters dousing the flames consuming the Office.

An investigation found not only that an electrical fault had sparked the fire, but also that the building had its own cannabis farm. Little did firefighters know they’d be fighting an even bigger blaze five months later.

The Cable understands that four major fires had occurred at Dykes’ properties since 2012, even before the two at the Speedwell tower block. Although police have not declared the fires connected in any way, a pattern does seem to have emerged. At first, several of the fires were treated as arson but then recorded as accidental; no prosecutions followed.

In February 2019, 300 containers on Dykes’ Bridge Road Industrial Estate in Kingswood caught fire, with smoke again contaminating Bristol’s skyline. The fire began in drums outside a recycling company based at the site. Two teenage boys were interviewed but no-one was ever charged.

A fly tippers' dumping ground on the Douglas Industrial Estate in Kingswood, also owned by Dykes, had caught fire in 2015. This followed another blaze on the same site around three years earlier. And, also in 2012,

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Strachan and Henshaw fire in May 2019 Photo: Faygate, PA

Under investigation 2013. Bridge Road Industrial Estate, Kingswood. Acting on information

In our last issue, we launched a public appeal for information on this story. We were taken aback by the number of people who shared their stories, trusted us with sensitive documents, and opened new lines of enquiry.

The journalist puts pen to paper, but Cable articles are made possible by the people who speak up. Thank you.

Want the Cable to continue investigating this story?

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received, 50 police, fire service, environmental health and council officers swooped on the site. The landlord was found to have failed to manage asbestos, alongside fire safety issues including dangerous electrics, waste offences and sleeping accommodation with inadequate protection. Cannabis with a street value of £60k was being cultivated in one of the units.

Operation Suspension Bridge Road Industrial Estate, which cost taxpayers £16k, concluded: “Cash only deals are frequent, both tenants and landlords carry out structural changes with no references to safety law or building regulations.

Businesses trade (some with toxic/ hazardous materials) with a lack of regard to their duty of care, the environment or the law.

“The culture within the site appears to emanate from the landlord and results in a situation that has a very serious impact on local residents and their quality of life, as well as very real concerns that a serious incident with potentially serious consequences for human health or for the environment could occur. There are also concerns that some of the units may be used for criminal purposes.”

The landlord, Arcade Plus Ltd, is directed by Alan Dykes.

The visit by the authorities wasn’t Dykes’ first and wouldn’t be his last. Two years later in 2015, Dykes pleaded guilty to five health and safety offences at the S&H site, was

Wayne Bruand

On 5 April 2018, a year after a planning application had been submitted to convert the S&H tower block into flats, Dykes sold the freehold for £1 to a company registered in Dubai – Douglas Homes Housing Incorporated. Despite the sale of S&H, two tenants said they continued to pay Alan Dykes rent until the fire in May, while others paid men working for the new owner in cash.

Dykes also sold a large slice of land and buildings on either side of Moravian Road, Kingswood to the same company in Dubai. In September 2019, police would seize 1,000 cannabis plants worth £1.1 million at an industrial unit on Moravian road.

Dykes’ sale of large chunks of land for £1 each naturally raised eyebrows among tenants. The Cable understands a private property valuation calculated the required repairs were in excess of the S&H building’s value, hence the token sale price.

When the fire in May broke out, councillors and local residents were puzzled as to who owned the Dubai company behind the S&H freehold.

The secretive jurisdiction does not publish information on company directors or shareholders. But the Cable understands that Wayne Braund, Dykes’ long-time business partner, is the majority shareholder of the offshore company.

And as the S&H tower in Speedwell gets a facelift from Douglas Homes, Braund and Dykes are also involved in another lucrative development of more than 300 homes in Kingswood.

However, could costly insolvency proceedings in the High Court, a director disqualification order, and a case currently before Bristol Magistrates threaten to throw their plans off course?

Follow the Cable’s continued investigations to find out: thebristolcable.org Neither Alan Dykes or Wayne Braund have so far responded to the Cable’s request for comment.

Do you have information?

Contact journalist Alon Aviram in confidence: alon@thebristolcable.org 07533718547

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

CT Pallets saw thousands of their pallets go up in flames on the Bridge Road estate. This was initially treated as arson by investigators, but no one was ever charged.

This series of fires placed Alan Dykes on the radar of emergency services, councils and environmental health officials.

sentenced to eight months in prison and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £7,660. Then in 2016, he was fined £15,500 by Avon Fire & Rescue for not complying with fire safety rules at the Bridge Road site.

“I thought that after prison he’d be scared of going back in again, he’d change his ways and stop messing around, but it never worked,” a former business associate of Dykes told the Cable.

As if to confirm his reputation as a rogue landlord, County Court papers reveal that Dykes was up to his old tricks. In 2017 he was fined more than £10k for failing to keep a tenant’s deposit in a deposit protection scheme, as required by law. A source who was involved in litigation with Dykes told the Cable that when deposits were taken, they were rarely, if ever, held in a protection scheme.

In the early 2000s, Dykes contributions to the public purse caught the attention of somebody other than the HMRC. Andrew aka ‘Ginge’ Wylde, a relative of assassinated Brink’s-mat gangster John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer, obtained Dykes’ company papers and threatened to pass them to the Inland Revenue unless he was paid £15,000.

All this took its toll on the ‘Old Kingswood Boy’. In recent years Dykes decided to take a backseat, making room for a younger and more ambitious associate to manage much of his property portfolio.

The mystery offshore buyer

INVESTIGATION

“I thought that after prison he’d be scared of going back in again, he’d change his ways and stop messing around, but it never worked”

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COVER STORY

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“I have known boys forcing themselves to marry women, or take a darker route”

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Photo: David Griffiths (david-griffiths.format.com)

‘Most families find it shameful’ Finding pride in a community where being gay is taboo It took over a decade for James to come out to his family.

Some Irish Travellers never get the chance to WORDS HANNAH VICKERS AND JAMES LAWRENCE PHOTO DAVID GRIFFITHS

J

ames was 18 when he told his mum he was gay. He did it by text, then put his phone on flight mode and didn’t come home for two days.

Coming out can be a daunting experience for anyone, but James had more reason than most to be worried about his family’s reaction. He’s an Irish Traveller, and being gay is still taboo in many Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities.

“I expected total rejection, to be honest with you. I thought: ‘I am going to be shunned from the family.’”

James, now 22 and living in north Bristol, had known he was gay since primary school but homosexuality is rarely discussed in his community.

“It takes a lot of confidence for somebody to come out as gay,” he tells me. It’s not unheard of for LGBT+ people in GRT communities

to keep their sexuality a secret their whole lives, some coming out to their families only to be pressured into marriage, or disowned.

Many experience bullying and abuse. There are Traveller groups on Facebook, James says, dedicated to shaming young people in the community.

But Irish Travellers traditionally marry in their teens and James wasn’t seeing anyone yet. “I thought: ‘I’m going to have to come up with some options here because I’m coming of age now, and it’s getting suspicious that I’m not with a girl, I’m not settling down.’” So, despite his nerves, he sent the text, and waited to see what would happen.

When he turned his phone back on, he had a dozen missed calls and an anxious mum wondering where he was.

“She doesn’t care about my sexu-

ality, she was more worried about me staying out all night.” Her reaction gave him the confidence to come out to the rest of his family over the next few weeks, though she tried to persuade him to wait.

“My mother was scared for me, she didn’t want me to come out immediately, in case I got bullied. But after bottling it up for all those years… I wanted to let all my family know.”

‘You get used to hiding your ethnicity’ Despite Irish Travellers gaining ethnic minority status in Ireland in 2017, and the UK in 2000, the discrimination continues. It’s only 50 years since ‘No Travellers Allowed’ signs were outlawed; pubs and shops still regularly refuse to serve people from GRT communities. “You can’t

do normal things; it’s like you’re segregated from the community,” James tells me when we first meet.

He’s wary of criticising his community and chooses words carefully when saying anything that might be taken badly. They get enough flak from elsewhere, fuelled by a media that demonises them for the sake of page views: “They portray us as thieves and fighters,” he says – and he doesn’t want to aid the stereotyping. But he’s also determined that the fear shared by many LGBT+ people in GRT communities must no longer be hidden.

“It is a very unspoken subject…

Most families find it shameful being LGBT, they try to keep it very secret.

I have known boys forcing themselves to marry women, or take a darker route.”

GRT communities have the worst health outcomes of anyone.

Life expectancy as a Traveller is a decade less than the national average and the lowest of any ethnic group.

James points out that as the average age a Traveller man lives to is 61.7, he’s practically middle-aged, and that maybe there isn’t much point in the pension he’s just signed up to, given that he’s not expected to live to retirement age.

Mental health is at crisis point among GRT communities. Poverty, unstable housing, low expectations in education, low employment and health outcomes, as well as daily discrimination, all contribute. The Times reported this month on high rates of suicide and self-harm in the community. One in ten Traveller deaths are from suicide, six times the national rate, and seven times that for men in the settled community.

And for Travellers who are keeping their sexuality a secret – or who come out to their families only to be disowned, made homeless, beaten up or pressured into marriage – things can look even more desperate.

The Travellers Times, a news site made for and by people from GRT communities, launched a campaign in 2017 to raise awareness. “It’s good

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“My mother was scared for me” James says that although social media is full of RIP videos for young Travellers, it is “shaming them while they’re alive”.

“It’s important that support comes from within the community because youngsters’ mental health is horrible, you’re hearing about suicide nearly every couple of days.

It’s shocking.”

Attending Bristol mental health charity Off The Record’s LGBT+ group, Freedom, helped him, but his reaction when his friend suggested it was defensive. “I instantly said I wasn’t gay,” he remembers.

His friend said he could go as an ally, which James says “was a perfect excuse to go”. The one-to-one confidential sessions allowed him

Pride over prejudice But there are signs things are changing. James went to Pride in London this year; for the first time Travellers had an official place in the parade.

“Going to Pride – meeting people from my own community, having official representation – was just phenomenal,” he says. Organiser Tyler Hatwell, a Showman and psychotherapist, tells me that around 20 people went from a mix of ethnic and cultural GRT communities: “We had Irish Travellers, Romany Gypsies, Roma, Showmen, New Travellers, and Boaters all together as Travellers,” he says. “That's three ethnic groups that had never been officially part of the parade before!”

As well as an opportunity for them to celebrate and “say you can be both a Traveller and not straight,” the parade allowed them to meet and start building a community.

Tyler is hopeful that the group will be community-led – too much is run for GRT communities by nonGRT organisations.

Tyler agrees that being an LGBT+ Traveller can be an isolating experience. “It's easy to feel like you don't fit in with the traditional Traveller world because of your sexuality or gender, and that you don't fit in with LGBT spaces because of discrimination.”

After the march, Tyler heard from a Traveller who said he wasn’t ‘out’ and there was no way he could have gone. But ”the fact that we had gone and represented had really helped him feel more comfortable with himself,” says Tyler. “That's what it's for.”

Travellers were officially represented at Pride for the first time in 2019 Photo: Joseph Mitchell (www.josephmitchell.org) / Traveller LGBT Pride

At our last interview, I ask James what advice he’d give to other Travellers who are considering coming out, and his advice is sobering.

He says it’s important to get confidential one-to-one support, and then to be careful when and how you tell your family.

“Put yourself in a safe situation, make sure you have friends you can stay with, a safe space to go afterwards just in case. It’s good to be open with your family, but you need to make sure it’s the right time to tell ADVERTISEMENT

them, and you need to make sure that you’re in a safe situation yourself.”

Most suicides are preventable.

If you are concerned about someone, or need help yourself, please contact One Call Away Gypsy/Traveller depression/suicide confidential support 07748997617, or on Facebook: One Call Away.

You can also contact the Samaritans for free, at any time of day or night, on 116 123. You don’t need to be suicidal to call.

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to let people know we are here, we do exist. And we do face a lot of stigma,” says James. “These are things that people need to know.”

Having to keep his sexuality a secret took an inevitable toll on James’s mental health. He didn’t see being openly gay as an option, so for a long time he couldn’t imagine a future where he could be himself.

He spent a lot of his teens angry and feeling trapped. “I was thinking: ‘what do I do with my life? Do I marry and be unhappy for the rest of my life?’ I was very depressed.”

to express himself in a safe space and not feel judged.

Discrimination comes from LGBT spaces too. “You get used to hiding your ethnicity,” James tells me. “You wouldn’t want to date outside the community because of it.” While he’s quick to point out he doesn’t keep his ethnicity a secret as he’s proud of who he is, it’s not something he’ll say straight away. And when he does tell people? “‘Oh I wouldn’t have thought you were a Traveller, you’re too well mannered’… ’You can’t be a Traveller, you live in a house’... And the worst, yet most popular comment is: ‘Oh yeah, but you are a nice Traveller – not the P***y kind’. That comment I have heard several times and it’s the most hurtful.”

COVER STORY

Too often the press trades on lazy stereotypes and stokes division to sell papers.

Bristol Cable members have made it crystal clear that a different type of journalism is needed, one that gets under the skin of issues that are too often skimmed over.

That’s why we amplify the voices of people too often ignored, handing them the pen to tell it how it is.

Don’t just complain about the media. Own it. thebristolcable.org/join

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FEATURE

Time to pull the plug on Bristol Energy?

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The council keeps tapping taxpayers to prop up its energy company. Private Eye’s energy columnist weighs in WORDS OLD SPARKY

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Tough market It’s easy to understand elected members’ motivation to offer cheap energy to their residents, based on the idea that if you decide not to pay dividends, top salaries or bonuses, you can cut costs and

pass them on as savings. They also assumed residents would quickly switch to ‘their’ local supplier. Unfortunately, life isn’t so simple.

Besides the certainty of price trends reversing, we warned there were other reasons for councils to think twice. For starters, they ignored how tough the energy market is (think someone with no retail experience setting up a general food store in opposition to the big supermarkets). And whereas small private players would simply go bust when costs went up, a publicly-owned supplier could keep burning through further subsidies from taxpayers.

Energy is a notoriously complex business, too, requiring a wide range of high-end technical and commercial skills. Understandably, local councillors don’t typically have these skills, or even realise what’s involved.

‘We won’t be cheapest!’

Nonetheless, plans continued to be hatched for publicly-owned local energy supply companies – notably in Nottingham, London and (at devolved government level) Scotland, as well as Bristol. We warned against them every time. Whether as a result of our comments or other advice, both London and Scotland reconsidered, and today continue to explore less ambitious energy schemes that don’t involve becoming fully-fledged, licensed energy market players.

Just two – Bristol Energy (BE) and Robin Hood Energy (RHE) in Nottingham – went the whole hog.

RHE decided to offer its services to other local authorities on a ‘white label’ basis: the client council sets up a local marketing ‘brand’ (such

as Ram Energy in Derby) to attract business in their area, but RHE does all the complex energy market stuff as the licensed supplier in every case.

RHE now has 10 such clients, to whom it pays commission per customer won. However, it’s unclear how financially successful or sustainable this is and RHE has been back to Nottingham council several times for additional financial support.

Bristol Energy hasn’t extended its business model in the same way.

It started with a chair and CEO recruited expensively from the ranks of experienced energy industry players, and right from the offset disarmingly stated “we won’t be the cheapest!”. This was made abundantly clear when Bristol City Council tendered for its own energy requirements – and Bristol Energy did not win. For many, this rather negated the whole point of the exercise.

Money down the drain Like all other new, small players in the sector, Bristol Energy has been hit by rising wholesale energy prices – which started to turn in 2017. The firm’s planned profits are nowhere to be seen.

BE’s 2018-19 reported turnover, £76.2 million, was similar to what RHE had achieved 12 months earlier. But there the similarity ends. On headcount, wage bill and directors’ fees, numbers at BE were double

“Small private players will simply go bust when costs go up, but a publicly-owned supplier can keep burning through subsidies from taxpayers” that of RHE’s, and its total administrative costs even more. BE’s bloated business model has made cumulative losses of £35 million.

Market conditions have been killing off small private energy suppliers in large numbers recently. But as we warned, council-owned suppliers like Bristol Energy can, and do, simply keep tapping council tax payers for more resources.

Notwithstanding the costs and losses, during 2019 Bristol City Council has increased its ‘investment’ and funding of various kinds to Bristol Energy by more than £9 million, to a total of nearly £38m, blowing away a limit that had earlier been set at £31m.

Good money after bad? With no other obvious natural advantages in the market, when does anyone decide enough’s enough?

‘Old Sparky’ is an energy industry insider and writes a column, Keeping The Lights On, in each issue of Private Eye magazine.

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our years ago, wholesale prices of gas and electricity were steadily sliding: good for consumers, and also an opening for new energy suppliers.

Established companies, the much-reviled ‘Big 6’, had bought energy on long-term contracts (to match their sales commitments), at prices that were becoming ever less competitive. A new player could use a different strategy: making sales at prices that undercut the Big 6, but buying the energy in small amounts, just a day or so ahead of making deliveries, at ever falling ‘spot’ market prices.

As prices continued to fall, a rash of new suppliers entered the market to exploit the opportunity.

At Private Eye, we warned this couldn’t go on indefinitely and that when prices inevitably turned, these new players buying only short-term energy would be hammered in the market.

We’d also encountered local authorities mulling plans to become suppliers on this unrealistic basis.

In 2015, for instance, we reported that Cheshire East councillors were asking consultants how a new supplier could “remain permanently below Big 6 energy prices” – a naive aspiration in a world where prices can turn in a matter of weeks, and price wars can last for months. Another council looking to get on board was Bristol.

CAMPAIGN

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Campaign Update

Why do we need to Fight for Fair Air? Cable members voted in their hundreds earlier this year for us to campaign on air pollution. In Bristol, it is estimated to contribute to 300 excess deaths a year.

We’ve been covering the causes, solutions, and what’s being done in Bristol. For more stories on Bristol’s air pollution check out thebristolcable.org/fairair

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Action on traffic…

At the time of writing, Bristol City Council announced their longawaited Clean Air Plan to address illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) has been delayed for a third time. The government had given the council an extended deadline of the end of September, but the council announced their extension was negotiated until November. The council claims this delay won’t affect implementation. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, government figures released in October show that almost no progress has been made in tackling the crisis, with 83% of reporting zones still breaching the threshold of NO2 pollution – including Bristol.

Ur-burn living…

As the nights draw in, unfortunately the city’s wood burners will be lit. Domestic wood burning accounts for nearly 40% of particulate pollution, which is linked to severe health impacts from cradle to grave.

On the topic of woodburning, G Brothers pizza restaurant in Bristol contacted the Cable about a previous article on the impact of wood burning by pizza restaurants on air quality.

G Brothers have pledged to work to bring down their particulate emissions. While wood fired pizza ovens still emit huge amounts of harmful particulates, any action to reduce this should be welcomed.

Changing how we talk about tackling pollution “If the water that was coming out of the taps in Bristol was killing hundreds of Bristolians each year, then I would guarantee you there would be an outcry,” says eminent air pollution scientist Dr Gary Fuller of King’s College London.

It’s not just urgency that needs to be conveyed. Would Bristolians be more accepting of low emission zones if there was less focus on charging drivers? Dr Fuller says: “We don’t want to charge people to drive a dirty vehicle in the city, we want them to not drive the dirty vehicle in the first place. By presenting it as a charge, it obscures the whole purpose of the scheme.”

Dr Fuller adds our national conversation around air pollution is too fixed on vehicle emissions. It could have been different if the EU and UK had adopted the World Health Organisation’s guidelines for legal levels of particulate matter – the PM2.5 threshold being an annual mean of 10ug/m3. Bristol’s figure? 10ug/m3.

Read the full interview at thebristolcable.org/fairair

Burning waste in Avonmouth: green energy or just hot air?

A new waste incinerator is being built in Avonmouth, but critics say the industry is polluting and a climate catastrophe WORDS LORNA STEPHENSON ILLUSTRATION SCOTT LUÍS MASSON

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vonmouth’s long-suffering residents are exasperatingly familiar with the ugly side of waste.

With numerous waste processing plants in the area, there are ongoing frustrations with flies, dust and explosions – and concerns about pollution.

As well as various plants which sort and process recyclables, the docks are where hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste meets its final end, by being burned.

Incineration as a waste disposal method has rocketed in the last decade, following a move away from heavily-taxed landfill; the UK now has over 40 incinerators for municipal (black bag) waste, up from 23 in 2010, with 18 more in the pipeline around the country. Even though plastic waste and recycling are in the spotlight more than ever, a total of 11million tonnes of rubbish went up in smoke in 2018 – and the amount is rising.

Each year, 175,000 tonnes of waste – three quarters of which is brought from London nightly by train – is burned in a Suez plant in Avonmouth docks. Next year, waste behemoth Viridor will open its new 350,000 tonne capacity incinerator down the road, which will burn black bag waste from the west of England.

But the industry is under increasing scrutiny as communities around the UK oppose plants on their door-

steps, and controversy surrounds their environmental impact through emissions of air pollutants and the carbon cost of burning our waste wholesale.

At the same time, the energy harnessed from incinerators is touted as a ‘low carbon’ form of heat energy; including in Bristol’s plans for ‘district heating’, a cornerstone of the city’s move to carbon neutrality – which it hopes to achieve from direct emissions by 2030. So is energy from waste a clean and crucial industry, or an environmental nightmare?

Emissions Companies such as Viridor use ‘green’ language to describe their operations. The Avonmouth plant, Viridor says, “will use safe, environmentally sustainable and reliable technology to divert 320,000 tonnes of waste from landfill”. The waste is called ‘non-recyclable’ or ‘residual’ – but is it really?

“Well, people put anything in their black bags, including a lot of stuff that could be recycled… stuff that shouldn't go in there because technically it’s illegal to put it in there...You've got all sorts of nasty toxins going through those burners,” says Julian Kirby, a researcher with Friends of the Earth. “Nobody is splitting open those black bags and checking what's inside and taking out the stuff that shouldn't be going into an incinerator.”

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UKWIN, “42 incinerators in 2015 emitted a total of nearly 11 million tonnes of CO2, about five million tonnes from fossil fuel sources such as burning plastic. That was associated with a cost to society of £325m just for that year.” That number includes the climate cost but not potential health impacts caused by the particulate pollution released.

“These plants are a considerable step back in terms of being carbon polluters. They are not green energy.

That is an absolute lie,” says Kirby.

Energy recovery or greenwash?

Not everyone agrees that energy from waste is undesirable. Harnessing the heat produced by the plants – ‘energy from waste’ (EfW) – is sold as a ‘low carbon’ heat source, or even, in the words of the European Union and waste industry operators, ‘renewable’ energy.

Few incinerators are currently utilised as energy sources, but the government is pushing for more.

According to a Department for Environement Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson, “We set out in our Waste and Resources Strategy that we will work closely with industry to secure a substantial increase in the number of ‘energy from waste plants’ that are formally recognised as achieving [energy] recovery status, and will ensure that all future plants achieve recovery status.”

As well as connecting the incinera-

tor with its district heat networks, as part of its ambitious carbon reduction plans, Bristol City Council plans to use other energy sources, such as heat from the Floating Harbour.

“Whilst we recognise that EfW plants generate carbon emissions, we cannot ignore the potential benefit of re-using this wasted heat to replace that generated from fossil fuels, thus reducing those emissions,” a council spokesperson said. The Viridor plant is expected to produce enough energy to power tens of thousands of homes.

Policy context and the bigger picture While recouping energy that would otherwise be wasted makes sense, shouldn’t the focus be on reducing the amount we need to burn anyway?

“Across the country we are seeing a growing desire to clean up our environment, with people wanting their waste to be recycled and not ending up in landfill or being incinerated,” a DEFRA spokesperson told the Cable.

“The government is fully behind this vision, and is already working to reduce, reuse and recycle more to move towards a truly circular economy where we extract the maximum value from our waste.”

Sounds good. But if less waste is produced, what will happen to the UK’s numerous plants? According to a 2017 report by Bristol-based en-

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Also, incineration doesn’t completely prevent landfilling: the burning process reduces the volume of the waste by two-thirds. The resulting ash needs to be landfilled, along with the highly toxic ‘fly ash’ that is produced in the filters of the plants’ chimneys.

Given the fuel is our rubbish, it’s not surprising that some rather unpleasant chemicals are produced (despite significant advances in the cleanliness of modern incinerators compared to older plants). Analysis of self-reported emissions from incinerator operators released last year suggests they are significant emitters of particulate matter (PM) and carbon dioxide.

PM is linked to a range of serious health impacts, from respiratory problems to miscarriage and dementia. UKWIN (UK Without Incineration Network) also exposed how an Environment Agency loophole allowed incinerator PM emissions to go unmonitored. Almost all incinerators meet the reporting threshold for PM, but only five reports were made in 19 years.

UKWIN found that based on incinerator operators’ own emissions reporting for the year 2015, the PM pollution released into the air was equivalent to the emissions of more than a quarter of a million 40-tonne lorries travelling 75,000 miles (120,000 km) per year.

The incinerators also emit significant quantities of carbon. According to Shlomo Dowen, coordinator of

CAMPAIGN

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on trati illus

vironmental consultancy Eunomia, there will be an overcapacity of incineration by 2020/21. Many local authorities have entered contracts up to 30 years long with incinerator operators.

Furthermore, the powers already invested in the Environment Agency to prosecute companies who don’t enforce the ‘waste hierarchy’ – the rule that disposal of waste should be a last resort after reuse and recycling – haven’t been used once. There wasn’t even an investigation into clothes retailer Burberry, who were exposed in 2018 as having incinerated £28 milion of unsold stock in one year.

But campaigners and politicians are pushing for more ‘stick’ and less ‘carrot’ when it comes to waste disposal. Earlier this year a cross-party selection of MPs, many from constituencies where new incinerators were planned, called for action on incineration.

Along with a pause in the construction of new plants, there are calls to introduce a tax on incineration like there is on landfill, which would encourage recycling and prevent overcapacity getting worse.

One MP who has been at the forefront of incinerator opposition for many years is Shadow DEFRA Minister, Labour MP for Stroud, David Drew. He says so far it’s been difficult to challenge the issue on a scientific basis, partly because the industry is able to “control experts”.

While the emissions are undeniable, the dispersal of them is not well understood. The industry has been able to hide behind research which shows that for people living in proximity to incinerators, they are likely to have a “very small” health impact.

Now working with a group of eminent scientists, Drew says of new research soon to be released: "We are now at the stage where we will challenge their inability to deal with the particulate [emissions]."

“At the very least, you've got to look at the technology, you've got to look at the environmental impact, in a much more physical way, rather than just say 'No-one's ever been able to prove that its been unsafe'," he says.

As a society, we are waking up to the need to reduce the waste we produce, but is it happening fast enough?

INVESTIGATION

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Revealed: An anti-slavery court order was made against local boss Lopresti.

Here’s evidence it may be being breached.

The ice cream boss was banned from managing staff after an investigation found workers living in slave-like conditions WORDS ADAM CANTWELL-CORN AND ALON AVIRAM

Caught on camera The Cable has obtained CCTV from a Bristol restaurant favoured by Lopresti. Combing through the footage, which spans two months after the STRO was made by the court.

Lopresti is captured on multiple occasions arriving and leaving with two men, who have been identified as workers in the Lopresti ice cream and property business.

One man, Daniel*, is known to work in Lopresti ice cream vans that have been a common sight across the city. The other man, James*, appears with Lopresti on seven different occasions and is understood to carry out repairs on dozens of

CCTV of Lopresti with workers for the business

Bristol properties owned and rented out by Lopresti. The footage suggests these are far from social visits.

James is often seen wearing workman’s overalls, and rather than sit in the restaurant he takes his drink to sit and wait in Lopresti’s van while Lopresti finishes off his wine or beer.

While the CCTV indicates that Lopresti may be involved in the

“directing or supervising the day-today activities of staff ”, further corroboration was needed to determine the possibility of a breach of the court order. A surveillance operation conducted by the Cable has gathered more evidence to this effect. This is a record of our findings: *Names have been changed to protect anonymity

Case notes on a possible court order breach

Aug 2

be a criminal offence to breach the orders’ conditions.

In recognition that workers would be at risk of exploitation under Lopresti’s control, one of the conditions was the indefinite ban on Lopresti “directing or supervising the day-to-day activities of staff ”.

Now, CCTV footage and a surveillance operation conducted by the Cable indicates a possible breach of this condition and grounds for the police to investigate further.

Responding to these allegations, a lawyer representing Salvatore Lopresti said: “Since the making of the STRO [Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order], Mr Lopresti has complied with, and continues to comply with, each and every term of the order and the publication of any suggestion to the contrary will be regarded by the family as libellous.”

An Avon and Somerset police spokesperson said: “I can confirm that we have received information and will be carrying out enquiries to establish whether there has been a breach of the court order.”

08:05

Aug 7

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here is evidence suggesting Salvatore Lopresti, the local businessman and landlord accused of ruthlessly exploiting workers and tenants for decades, may be breaching an anti-slavery court order made against him, a Cable investigation using CCTV and surveillance has found. Police have said they will investigate.

In May 2019, Salvatore Lopresti, 75, was due to face Modern Day Slavery charges at Bristol Crown Court. The charges followed a Cable investigation spanning five years, which relied on dozens of sources and a reporter going undercover in the well-known family business.

The investigation, and a subsequent police operation, found men under Lopresti’s control being paid pennies per hour to do gruelling work for years on end, and living in exposed outhouses unfit for human habitation just off Bedminster Parade. Many others who worked for the prominent local ice cream business were paid well below the minimum wage, and tenants in his large property portfolio complained of intimidation and horrible conditions.

The slavery prosecution was discontinued following a dementia diagnosis for Lopresti, meaning he was legally unfit to stand trial for charges that could have seen him sent down for years, if found guilty. Recognising that Lopresti still posed a threat, Avon and Somerset police sought a legal order that would prohibit him from a range of activities. In issuing the Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order (STRO), the first in the police force area, the Judge said: “I’m sure that there is a risk that you will commit a human trafficking or slavery offence,” and warned that it would

09:40

By using a log of Lopresti’s properties and speaking to sources, a south Bristol address has been identified as James’s home. James hasn’t done anything wrong, but we want to find out where he lives so we can monitor his relationship with Lopresti and possibly speak to him.

A Cable journalist knocks at the door. James opens but doesn’t want to speak to us. He insists that he is contracted to Lopresti’s wife. This confirms that he still works for the business, and lives in this property whose ownership was recently transferred from Salvatore to his wife.

Sitting close by to Lopresti’s large Long Ashton house, we pick up his wine-coloured Ford Transit and follow him to Stillhouse Lane, the location of the ice cream business’s warehouse, just behind Bedminster Parade. This was the location where two men were held in slave-like conditions

by Lopresti and paid less than a pound an hour. The Crown Prosecution Service alleged that one man, a Polish national, was held in conditions of forced labour from 2009-2016 and was also assaulted here.

Sep 5

11:07

We have a possible address for Daniel and want to confirm he lives there without giving ourselves away. A Cable journalist knocks on the door and then walks around the corner. Daniel opens the door in full view of another Cable journalist standing across the road.

This property was recently transferred to Salvatore’s wife. We now know that both James and Daniel still live in properties owned by the family.

Sep 10

09:25

With Daniel driving, both men proceed back towards the city.

Due to an unusual route and erratic driving through residential roads in the Ashton Gate area, we suspect our cover has been blown and peel off. Shortly after, the men are seen pulling into the ice cream warehouse at Stillhouse Lane.

Aug 23 Sep 5

A member of the public calls the Cable office. He says he can see Lopresti apparently supervising a worker at one of his properties. A Cable reporter rushes to the scene but they’re gone by the time he arrives. Information like this from the public has been vital to the investigation over the years.

10:30

10:20

An unknown male drives Lopresti to Daniel’s address. Lopresti is photographed entering the property and leaving shortly after. The unknown male and Lopresti drive back to Stillhouse Lane. Though this property has been legally transferred to Salvatore’s wife, this suggests that he is still the acting landlord of Daniel. If true, this could breach another anti-slavery order condition; the prohibition on Lopresti accommodating staff who work in the business.

14:05

Sep 19

14:58

Daniel is again seen working in the same ice cream van at Eastville Park. The council later confirm that the Lopresti ice cream business does not have rights to operate at this location. A council spokesperson said that all councilowned pitches operated by the Lopresti business have been revoked due to the exploitation of workers, as revealed by the Cable in May 2019. For the previous five years, Lopresti vans had a near monopoly on sites across Bristol. Now they have none but this van is continuing to operate.

10:30

Daniel is again seen leaving the Stillhouse Lane ice cream warehouse driving an ice cream van. the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

Aug 13

Aug 9

Shortly after arriving at Stillhouse Lane, Daniel, one of the men identified with Lopresti in the CCTV, is seen leaving the warehouse driving a Lopresti ice cream van, confirming he is still involved with the business. We follow the van to Eastville Park where he sets up to sell ice cream. The Cable has spoken to many people who have worked in these ice cream vans over the years. Every one has complained of being paid no more than £3.50 an hour, including the Cable’s undercover reporter.

11:00

11:15

Daniel and Lopresti are at Stillhouse Lane preparing Lopresti’s van. We follow the van to Daniel’s address where Daniel loads up building materials and scaffolding planks while Lopresti waits.

They then drive back to Stillhouse Lane and unload.

12:15

Salvatore Lopresti is sitting in the ice cream warehouse on Stillhouse Lane. Shortly after, Daniel arrives, and drives Lopresti in his van to his Long Ashton home.

Both men are photographed in Lopresti’s garage. Lopresti, who is known to severely underpay workers, opens the garage to reveal two luxury cars with personalised license plates; a 1978 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and a 1997 Ferrari Spider.

There’s always more to the story – as long as we can keep on reporting.

Bristol Cable members voted for investigations over click-driven

INVESTIGATION

Aug 7

19

Daniel pulls out of Stillhouse Lane, drives in an ice cream van to Eastville Park, and sets up by the playing area for another stint selling ice creams.

reporting. That’s why we could investigate the Lopresti story over five years, and persisted despite many obstacles and legal threats.

Unfortunately a lot more injustice like this exists in our communities.

Join the Cable and along with more than 2,000 others lift the lid on exploitation in Bristol

THEBRISTOLCABLE.ORG/JOIN

PHOTO ESSAY

20

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE SMASHING YOUR TEETH ON CONCRETE...

Bedminster's Dean Lane skatepark through the ages

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

WORDS DANIEL HIGGINSON PHOTOS TOM SPAREY, ALISTAIR KERR,

JACK FENTON, DANIEL HIGGINSON

B

uilt in 1978, Dean Lane skatepark sits in the heart of Dame Emily Park in Bedminster.

Known locally as The Deaner, its crusty DIY transitions are built into a hill, making going fast mandatory not optional. The cracks and imperfections make it much tougher to skate than modern skateparks, but this has helped create its reputation. “Nothing meaner than the Deaner,” as locals say.

Living locally to The Deaner, I always wanted to make a film about it’s rugged history. During my research, I learnt the park was once the site of a coal mine where a serious accident in 1908 killed eight people and led to the mine being shut down. The Smyth family who owned the park then donated it to the council for the benefit of the people.

And now, over 100 years later, people come to the south Bristol spot from all over – the south west, Wales and rest of the UK. There have been so many characters across the generations that have devoted a chunk of their lives to skating and socialising at The Deaner. You can’t talk about Dean Lane skatepark without mentioning Spex.

He was 10 when the park opened. “I skated there every day,” he says.

He was famous for skating fast and high all around the park. He still lives locally and now can be found carving it up on a longboard alongside his two kids who skate The Deaner daily.

Making the film was like a weird treasure hunt. There is no shortage of archive content out there, it was just a matter of persuading complete strangers to rummage around their attic for an old VHS tape they hadn’t

thought about since childhood. One scoop was getting hold of the amazing footage of the opening of the epark from the BBC archives.

Another highlight was managing to play an old VHS tape for the first time in years. The forgotten tape belonging to Sqeez D’Souza was a brilliant clip of him and Spex skating back in the 80’s. I then had the pleasure of showing it to Spex and

his son Bear, who were buzzing to watch it together.

Beyond this reminiscing, making the film highlighted all the benefits of a public skatepark in the heart of a city. A hub for exercise, community, friendship across generations, and expression. Despite its rough exterior, The Deaner brings nothing but fond memories. Even when you’re smashing your teeth on the concrete.

The film Nothing Meaner: The History of Dean Lane Skatepark will be available online, and shown at a screening at House Of Vans on 14th Nov in London. You can find out more by following @fix.up_ on Instagram or @DIYBristol on Facebook.

21

PHOTO ESSAY the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

1

3

2

6

5 4

7

1. Clev Ryan, 2018 Local ripper Ryan Price doing a backside boneless during a recent Birdhouse skateboard tour. The banked walls make it the perfect spot for a demo.

2. Chris Wright, 1983 Chris Wright, also a backside boneless 35 years earlier. Alistair Kerr was another contributor who dug out amazing unseen photography dating back to the early 80’s.

Photo: Tom Sparey

Photo: Alistair Kerr Photography

3. Dame Emily Skatepark Opening, 1978 Jack Fenton heard I was making the documentary and he developed some old slides his Grandad had taken, and there was no mistaking the distinct transitions of Dean Lane.

Photo: Jack Fenton

4. Benny HardFlip, 2019 Benny was stoked about the film and keen to get some tricks on camera. This hardflip only took a few tries and is known as an NBD (Never been done).

Photo: Tom Sparey

5. Spex, (unknown) Spex lent me his old stash of images for the film. He had a reputation for getting higher on his airs than anyone else out of the 3rd bowl.

6. Spex, 1982 This wooden quarter pipe with metal lip made a racket when you skated it. Spex was infamous for skating it after building the flat deck himself so he could do hand plants.

Photo: Alistair Kerr Photography

7. Spex and his son Bear, 2019 Spex and Bear looking through old pictures and magazine cuttings. It was great to see him share so many memories with his youngest son.

Photo: Daniel Higginson

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"Every track is born out of my experience”

INTERVIEW

heavy dose of reality. “As a king, not the king,” he says.

The album artwork for Trapped In features Kilaze as an Egyptian pharaoh, yet he’s not lording it over an empire with jewels and all. He’s sitting in an old Vauxhall Corsa outside a block of flats, with a police car not far behind. Similarly playful and powerful art appears on his most recent album ART of KIMO, including the Mona Lisa with an Afro comb.

23

'Born out of experience'

Rapper Kilaze is a stalwart of the city’s music scene both through his own releases and his support of homegrown talent. Two decades into his career, he’s still got ‘so much to talk about’ WORDS ADAM CANTWELL-CORN PHOTO DAVID GRIFFITHS

“I

do art, hard.” I’ve never heard art talked about like that before, but it's a good description for the way Kaya ‘Kilaze’ Bowen approaches music.

We’re in Owen Square Park, just behind Easton Community Centre, and we’re deep into hip-hop, art and life. For this son of St Pauls and Easton, you can hardly separate them.

From his first stage appearances at 11 performing Lauryn Hill’s Killing Me Softly, to spending lunch money on the latest tracks from across the Atlantic, and releasing album after album, to supporting young homegrown talent, Kilaze is a stalwart of Bristol’s hip-hop scene.

Through his music you get a vivid picture of the city over the years, and rich stories of life’s trials

and tribulations.

Kilaze’s music isn’t the same as much of the shit hip-hop that plagues the airwaves (with some honourable exceptions), and he’s got something to say to up-and-coming rappers. “Don’t go in the studio and make an album about how hard you are and how much money you’ve got… it’s getting repetitive,” he says.

“At some point, I genuinely get disheartened.”

'I got so much to vent' Rather than dealing in vacuous boasts, Kilaze’s music has, in the tradition of Grandmaster Flash’s 1982 breakthrough The Message, got something to say. Peppered with samples – Nelson Mandela, Bristol’s former city poet Miles Chambers

and an audio clip of the police Tasering family member Ras Judah – it touches on issues at the intersection of personal and political.

Take the album Trapped In, from earlier this year. Self-described as “really personal, because I make albums that cater to whatever I’m going through at the time”, it features songs like My Environment that are unfiltered accounts of a Bristol invisible to the authors of the seemingly endless ‘Best City’ articles.

“I got so much to talk about, so much to vent,” Kilaze says – and you can feel it in his raspy, raw delivery with lines like “dark nights and dark fights, fucked up when arrested, knowing that time you were sat in the cell is nothing impressive… but the brothers don't get this.”

It’s not all downers though – there are plenty of tracks that defy easy stereotyping as ‘conscious hip-hop’, and explicit verses on sex and smoking weed. And all of it is delivered with the bravado of the MC that has run deep through the hip-hop tradition.

But while Kilaze styles himself as a king, it’s not in the conventional way and comes complete with a

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

Bristol’s ‘king in a Vauxhall Corsa’ talks hip-hop, art and life

“Every track is born out of my experience,” Kilaze says. A lot of that centres around Easton, including the park we’re sitting in, from seeing dog races up and down the Bristol and Bath Railway Path to a fair share of violence. “I can’t tell you how many fights I’ve seen in this park,” he says.

Kilaze has himself run into trouble now and again but, he says, “My maturity kicked in when I had my daughters.” Having grown up without a father, he swore to not let that happen to his own children.

Kilaze has mixed feelings towards his home neighbourhood. “There’s some times when I wake up and fucking hate this place, because I haven’t got where I want to in life.

But at the same time I love it.” It comes out in his music with lines like “Fuck all the preaching, I was raised in Easton but I don’t see no leaders around this region, because they are too scared to speak it”.

Another big theme is struggles and experiences – both those specific to being a young black man, father, and son, and those of a wider community. As the Cable goes to print, it is Black History Month.

With tracks such as Genocide of a Generation, which invokes the tragic story of Marlon Thomas, the young black Bristolian who remains in a coma following a 1994 racist attack, what does Black History Month mean to Kilaze?

He exhales. “I hear the same thing every year, ‘Why is it just a month?’ and so on. But we really got to appreciate what we got and celebrate that time. And utilise that time.”

For Kilaze’s part, he gives back all year round, and has done in various forms for 10 years. His regular show on community radio station BCFM – Bristol Homegrown – platforms up-and-coming local music talent so they too can do art, hard.

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25

Overworked, undervalued, out the door... Bristol teachers are being made sick with stress WORDS MATTY EDWARDS ILLUSTRATION LOUIS WOOD

“I

felt I was at the point with teaching where I had no other choice – I was going to get unwell if I continued working at the college. I was going to have a stress-related health problem.”

Sophie* left teaching last year just five years after qualifying. With staff cutbacks adding to an already high workload and under pressure from the “obsession” with grades at her college on the outskirts of Bristol, she found herself working 70hour weeks. As a newly-qualified

teacher (NQT), she felt unsupported and didn’t get a pay rise in four years. “I felt I was going to burn out if I kept going,” she says.

Sophie’s story is not an isolated example. The Cable has spoken to teachers who have burned out after being pushed to their limits to get pupils good grades, and jump through arduous accountability hoops while schools are forced to get rid of the support staff around them. Teachers link many of these problems to reforms by the coalition and Tory governments, who

tried to drive up standards with academisation, more competition between schools and a narrow focus on academic performance.

Recent research by Ofsted found the “overall wellbeing of most teachers is low” because of high workloads, a perceived lack of resources, too little support from leaders, and unrealistic parent expectations. Meanwhile a study led by University College London (UCL) found one in four teachers works 60 hours a week, with the average being about 50 hours.

Resources stretched thin When teachers talk about workload, stress and burnout, the schools funding crisis comes up

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

louiswood.com

INVESTIGATION

Too many Bristol teachers are leaving the profession.

They tell us why.

Stress levels have an impact. According to government figures, one in three teachers in the south west who qualified in 2012 had left the profession by 2017. Earlier this year, the government launched a new strategy to ease teacher workload in order to prevent experienced staff from quitting. Research by the Times Educational Supplement suggests the south west will need 5,000 more secondary teachers by 2024 to keep up with pupil numbers.

In Bristol, figures newly obtained by the Cable under the Freedom of Information Act reveal worrying levels of teacher turnover. In some secondary schools in Bristol, our data shows, up to a quarter of teachers left during individual academic years. Across the nine schools we have data for, 432 teachers, including more than 100 NQTs, left their positions in the last five years.

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

INVESTIGATION

26

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“I'm definitely considering leaving education. Two years ago, I had to take a week off with stress.

People are burning out and moving on” time and time again.

Throughout her time working at a college, Sophie witnessed cutbacks to “essential” support staff, from admin staff to teaching assistants. “Every time they made redundancies, our workloads increased dramatically,” she says, adding teachers had to teach outside their specialism.

More pressure also falls on the support staff left as colleagues dwindle. Jack* was a teaching assistant (TA) at a Bristol primary school until January this year, when he quit because the pressure got too much.

When Jack joined a new school in 2015, it was a great place to work, with TAs well paid and able to support teachers fully. “There were sometimes three or four adults in a classroom, so every child with special needs had one-to-one support,” he recalls.

But as cuts hit, the budget for children with special educational needs and disability (SEND), who Jack was supporting, was quartered.

Then came staff cutbacks. “The needs of our children went up; our staff went down,” Jack says. “People start leaving because they can't take it anymore. There were four permanent teachers off with stress longterm and everyone had to step in to fill the gaps.”

As education secretary, Michael Gove made it possible for unqualified teachers to teach in academies and free schools: “Ultimately, it put me in dangerous situations,” says Jack of his own experience, which ultimately led to his departure. “Being alone with a difficult kid, looking after a class with difficult children...

I'm not paid to be a teacher. [But] if something had happened, I'd have been held legally responsible.”

For those in leadership positions, funding cuts present a different kind of stress. Hannah* is on the senior leadership team at a Bristol

primary school. “Head teachers lie awake at night wondering how they're going to manage the budgets,” she says. “That's not right.”

“There's no way our current staffing structure can be sustained. And it's only getting worse. We don't know how we're going to fund our staff next year. These are people's careers and lives – and it’s pupils, at the end of the day.”

At Hannah’s school, many children have English as their second language; others come to school hungry, or are experiencing problems at home, such as domestic violence and drug abuse. “[Teachers are now being] social workers, they are language acquisition teachers, they are mental health workers,” she says. “I've noticed a real difference in stress levels. I struggle hugely morally with putting that pressure on my staff. And inevitably, the pupils don't get the best out of their teachers either.”

Hannah talks about particular funding pressures for SEND children. “They've pretty much cut everything,” she continues – which means the school has to take money paying for other staff positions to provide one-to-one support for the kids who need it.

All this takes its toll. “I'm definitely considering leaving education. Two years ago, I had to take a week off with stress. People are burning out and moving on. I hear all sorts of stories about heads coming for jobs because they're leaving education, and taking a big pay cut.”

Pressure to perform Almost everyone we speak to mentions the pressure to perform.

League tables drive schools’ behaviour to meet the desired outcomes of the government – but not necessarily the learners.

One Bristol Cable member, who was a senior Department for Education (DfE) policy official during Gove’s reforms, says league tables “seem to have created real, imagined and perverse behaviours, such as teachers’ performance being based on year-on-year improvements in pupil results; English, maths and science qualifications being prioritised over topics that may interest students more; and teachers focusing all their attention on students close to a grade boundary”.

Shaila Gosrani, a secondary

1 in 3

Teachers in the south west who qualified in 2012 but had left the profession by 2017 Source: Department for Education

4,500

The estimated number of extra secondary teachers needed in the south west by 2024 to keep up with growing pupil numbers Source: Times Educational Supplement

60 hours The working week for one in four teachers in England.

Source: Department for Education

108

Newly qualified teachers who have left in just nine secondary schools in Bristol between 2013/14 and 2017/18 Source: Freedom of Information data

maths teacher in Bristol, left her job earlier this year. “I think the atmosphere in the school was pushing me day by day, and then I had a panic attack and couldn't go into school. It's not the stress of standing up in front of children, but of constantly feeling undervalued.”

Shaila’s school, she adds, “was following the pattern of lots of schools by letting the pressure of Ofsted and league tables turn it into an exam factory”. At the same time, the numbers of staff who didn't get through their pay progression were rising every year.

Labour recently announced it would scrap Ofsted, and replace it with a two-phase inspection system where local authorities carry out “health checks”, which trigger more in-depth inspections should concerns arise. Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has said Ofsted measures poverty not excellence, and is fuelling the crisis in teacher recruitment.

There are signs under chief inspector Amanda Spielman that Ofsted’s focus is shifting from exam results to broader measures of quality education. For example, its new inspection framework measures how leaders are reducing teachers’ workload.

But fear of the regulator remains in some schools. William Brown, Bristol’s branch secretary for the National Education Union (NEU), told the Cable of schools making teachers jump through hoops Ofsted no longer specifically expects.

“For most teachers, that's a huge waste of their time. It's an imagined accountability practice. But there are many schools that still demand it.”

Brown adds that the ways schools are graded leads to damaging short-term thinking, where heads come in, make drastic changes, and focus resources on children whose exam results will boost their league table position.

This short-termism has a huge impact on teachers, says Hannah, recalling a recent Ofsted inspection.

“We needed to make rapid changes,” she says. “Holding teachers to account kind of spiralled, then you saw stress-related absence rocket. It was a necessary change, but if we’d had longer we could have helped people more – [it was] keep up or you're left behind.”

Sometimes, experienced teach-

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Number of teachers at start of academic year

Number of teachers who left

2013–14

64

11

2

Leavers who'd qualified in the last two years

2014–15

68

16

4 2015–16

71

16

6 2016–17 6 2017–18 11

ers can feel pushed out because they are on higher salaries and may be less accepting of change and increased workloads. According to school workforce statistics, only 14% of Bristol’s teachers are aged 50 or above – lower than many other local authorities.

Brown laments a loss of experience, citing one school that put several older teachers through unfair capability proceedings with impos-

Bristol Cable members did so much to inform our reporting for this story. Journalist Matty Edwards spoke to current and former staff from the Cable membership and beyond, adding invaluable insights and improving the story published.

Become a member today and support journalism in the public interest.

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62

sible targets until they left – only to be criticised by Ofsted for not having enough experienced staff.

The Cable spoke to two experienced teachers who recently left teaching. One took early retirement three years ago due to being “worn out, basically”.

The former teacher describes spending holidays doing marking and preparation, just to make it to the next term. “It was like a tsunami coming behind you. You're scared to look back, because you know this damn thing is coming for you.

Because you just haven't finished everything. There's no time.”

How to stem the tide?

Of course, teachers need to be held accountable so public money is put towards the best education system possible. The question is, how can it be done without increasing stress and crushing teachers in the process?

Bristol NEU has been trying to negotiate a workload charter with Bristol council – but with so many schools now academies and outside the local authority’s control, it has limited power to hold institutions to account. Outside the city, at Castle School in Thornbury, teach-

ers took matters into their own hands by striking in July, forcing the school to drop an increase in hours and agree to set up a workload charter.

Earlier this year, the government launched a new teacher recruitment and retention strategy, acknowledging the extent of its staffing problem – which is likely to grow because by 2025 there will be 15% more pupils in secondary schools than in 2018.

The proposals include providing early-career support and training to manage behaviour problems, slowing the pace of change in schools by restricting reforms to exams and the curriculum, and staggering bursaries to keep teachers in the profession longer. Starting teacher salaries will also rise from £25,000 to £30,000 by 2022, after minimal growth in recent years.

The former DfE policy official says these solutions “almost certainly” won’t stop teachers leaving, or recruit enough to fill gaps. Earlycareer support from local authorities was dismantled when schools became academies, he points out,

adding that staggering bursaries could make teaching less attractive in a competitive jobs market.

Beyond funding schools properly so teachers are less stretched – a pretty simple solution – the path to recruiting teachers, and stopping them burning out, while providing high-quality education, is difficult.

Unions suggest replacing Ofsted with self-evaluation and peer reviews. “If there was more of a trust, evaluate and collaborate-based approach, we'd have a much healthier education system where we could still measure things, and still hold people to account,” the NEU’s Brown says. “We wouldn't be churning our teachers through the meat grinder and spitting them out.”

Teachers insist workloads and the pressure to produce results must reduce, to let them get on with teaching. Sophie says changing the way we talk about target grades would lower pressure on pupils and teachers to perform. Slowing the pace of change – as the government proposes – is crucial, Hannah adds, to give schools breathing room to prioritise their pupils’ needs.

However we do it, it is essential to reduce teacher stress, because it feels like we’ve now reached crisis point. Government attempts to drive up standards while underfunding schools are failing – and the current situation, with teachers leaving in droves, is simply unsustainable.

Additional reporting

by Jonathan Morris *Names have been changed to protect anonymity

During a months-long investigation into how Bristol’s secondary schools are using the controversial form of discipline isolation, it became clear to me how teachers are being stretched to their limits and put under enormous pressure. With the help of Cable members who work in education, I set out to find out why so many teachers are leaving the profession and what we can do about it. After all, I’m sure I don’t need to convince you why educating Bristol’s children is one of our biggest priorities.

WHY I WROTE THIS MATTY EDWARDS

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

4

67

17

“It was like a tsunami coming behind you.

You're scared to look back, because you know this damn thing is coming for you. Because you just haven't finished everything. There's no time”

INVESTIGATION

Case Study: Oasis John Williams

Teachers who left the school, 2013/14 to 2017/18

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PEOPLE’S HISTORY

30

Forty years ago, the far-right in Bristol was faced down with music, pickets and ballots With far-right ideas on the rise again, Colin Thomas draws on first-hand accounts and archive material from a generation ago WORDS COLIN THOMAS PHOTOS JOHN KEOGH

“T

hey punched me, kicked me and banged my head on the floor.” When Paul Chamberlin went to a National Front (NF) meeting in Speedwell School in April 1977, he was appalled to see racist posters on the wall, and started tearing them down. Philip Gannaway, then the chairman of the NF in Bristol, acknowledged “some of our people

may have been over-enthusiastic in the way they ejected this individual.”

The NF, formed in 1967, was an amalgamation of the British National Party (BNP), the League of Empire Loyalists and the Racial Preservation Society. Some members had also been part of Oswald Mosely’s British Union of Fascists in the 1930s.

In Bristol’s 1973 local elections,

the NF stood in four wards, winning up to 17.7%. Two years later, some 100 supporters marched through Bristol, against the UK’s entry into the Common Market, Europe’s free trade area. Anti-fascist counter-demonstrators linked arms in an attempt to block the march but police, some of them on motorbikes, helped the marchers force their way through.

Despite significant resistance, the NF put forward 21 candidates in the 1977 Avon County Council elections – 18 of them in Bristol. Although all but one came last, it was clear they had significant pockets of support and were targeting areas close to St Paul’s and its Afro-Caribbean community. That November, they put up a civil servant named Andy Andrews for an Avon by-election, in what later became Ashley ward.

The same year, an unnamed member of the BNP wrote in a flyer: “An alien wedge in our City…which consists of St Paul’s, Montpelier and Baptist Mills, trying to expand outwards further and further.” The local Labour Party responded with its own flyer revealing the fascist backgrounds of the NF leaders, and organised a meeting at Sefton Park

school for groups opposed to the NF. When 50 NF supporters turned up for their own meeting at the same school, they had to walk through a picket of around 700 opponents, described by the Evening Post as “chanting, banner-waving demonstrators”. The peaceful singing of We Shall Overcome turned to rage when an NF supporter apparently made a Nazi salute, and the police arrested a young black woman who responded by trying to slap him. Bottles and stones were thrown, and David Shattock, Bristol’s assistant chief constable, was hit on the head. There were six arrests – all people opposed to the NF. Three months later, the local Labour Party organised a screening of an anti-NF political broadcast in the Metropole cinema on Ashley Road in St Paul’s. Joe Ashton MP presented the programme to 400-plus people, and this was the start of the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) in Bristol.

The ANL quickly grew to 800 members, with affiliations to local trade unions and even a Schoolkids against the Nazis branch. The Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) played a key role, and won wider support;

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PEOPLE’S HISTORY

More resistance despite electoral disaster Then, while chairman of Bristol’s NF Philip Gannaway was on holiday in Rome, he heard Pope John Paul I talk of “the importance of unity and peace among people”. The Pope died after just 33 days in office, but Gannaway said “there was something about the man, of tremendous warmth and sincerity, which touched me.” He and his brother Gerald resigned from the NF when they returned to Bristol.

But then Raymond Pearce, notorious for advocating for white vigilante patrols in inner-city Bristol, took over the chair. And two of Pearce’s allies were prosecuted for criminal damage to the office of community newspaper Bristol Voice.

Nationally, NF put up 303 candidates in the general election of 1979.

They held a meeting in Southall Town Hall which attracted a counter-demonstration by the ANL. The police responded with brutality and a young New Zealander named Blair Peach was struck on the head with a truncheon, and died.

The 1979 election was a disaster

for the NF and cost the party £50,000 in lost deposits. In Bristol, Labour did well in the local council elections.

But then, in the largest electoral swing from Labour to the Conservatives since the war, Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister. John Dennis, a key figure in Rock Against Racism, recognised, “We’d won the battle but lost the war.”

In April 1980, Bristol responded angrily to the institutional racism of the new Tory government. There were street battles with the police in St Paul’s, and a lesser-known riot by predominantly working class white youth in Southmead immediately after.

On 23 April, ANL members in Easton gathered around a mock-up coffin painted black to commemorate the first anniversary of Blair Peach’s violent death. At first, there were embarrassingly few at the meeting and organisers were concerned that the demonstration would be a flop.

But as the march proceeded through St Paul’s, led by the coffin and band X-Certs on the back of a lorry, numbers of supporters – black and white – steadily grew. By the

time it reached Bridewell Police Station there were some 500 people in the procession. The police, remembering the St Paul’s rising of 20 days earlier, closed the doors but were besieged within. Before the march moved off to Castle Park for speeches, the coffin was used as a battering ram against the Bridewell’s doors. A defiant chant of “No arrests” went up, and there were none.

A year later, the ANL office in London was closed down as the NF was no longer a significant force in British politics. Bristol ANL had wound up too, not with a whimper but with a bang.

This was not, of course, the end of fascism in Britain. Recently, Bristol’s antifascists, concerned by the re-emergence of far-right ideas and activity, have put out a call for resistance. Their words are reminiscent of the ANL of forty years ago: “We share common dreams as well as common enemies, and we are strong together.” The fight goes on.

For more on this history grab a copy of Facing Up To The Fascists, a booklet published by the Bristol Radical History Group.

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they linked up Rock Against Racism, whose gigs featured Bristol punk band X-Certs, Reality and reggae legends Misty In Roots.

When the National Front put up a candidate – “Fanatical” Fred Turner – for a by-election in Clifton in 1978, he was prevented from speaking at a local school by a huge picket. The NF responded violently with attacks on ANL members and Full Marks, the left-wing bookshop and postal address of Bristol ANL. When Tom Archer, a freelance journalist and SWP member, heard pro-NF chanting at Bristol City’s stadium Ashton Gate, he responded by launching a Bristol City fanzine. He made a few hundred copies of The East Ender with the headline “Are we really a bunch of racists?” Alongside the City content, it read: “The NF are just using racist lies to get themselves power,” and, “IF YOU’VE HALF A MIND TO JOIN THE FRONT, DON’T WORRY – THAT’S ALL YOU NEED.” When he and friends handed the zines out to fans, they half expected a thumping, but they only got a few hostile comments – and a lot of support too.

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PEOPLE’S HISTORY

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Appalling or admirable?

The complex legacy of Bristol’s first woman MP Uncovering the elusive past of Lady Apsley, disability rights activist and fascist sympathiser WORDS MADGE DRESSER

I

t was in Herefordshire’s picturesque Eastnor Castle that I discovered, in a musty box of loose papers, a political memoir typed after World War Two by Lady Apsley, Bristol’s first female MP. For a history professor, searching for evidence relating to Lady Apsley’s fascist sympathies – and how they squared with her wartime work as head of the women’s section of the British Legion, and her later endorsement as an MP by Churchill – it was a thrilling find.

But my 'Eureka!' moment was ru-

ined when I noticed that chapters of the memoir, about the years leading up to the war, when the appeasement movement was at its height, had been mysteriously removed.

Their absence provided one more obstacle to establishing a clear picture of a fascinating, contradictory woman who has become a forgotten footnote in Bristol’s history.

Lady Apsley (1895-1966) served the city for only two years, after her husband who had previously held the seat was killed in an air crash in Malta in 1942. She won Bristol Central for the Conservatives in

1943 but, dismissed as a Tory loyalist widow with no distinctive views of her own, she’s been portrayed as a political lightweight.

Nonetheless, some of what she stood for now sounds oddly familiar. Apsley was part of the ‘submerged tradition’ of radical right-wing Conservatism, and harboured imperialist, racist and antisemitic views along with a hatred of Bolshevism.

But she was no fan of free-market capitalism and fought for the preservation of natural heritage in Britain, subjects that engage many progressives today. And her insistence on the importance of women’s roles as housewives and mothers, and on the need for fathers to help socialise their children, raised questions we are all still grappling with.

Outback memoir I first became intrigued by Lady Apsley when working on Women and the City: Bristol 1373-2000 – a book chronicling largely untold stories about Bristol women’s working and public lives.

I suspected there might be more

to her than the dismissive verdict delivered by history suggested. But there was little available evidence to challenge it. Even the wonderful exhibition on 100 years of women in parliament held at Portcullis House in 2018 said little about Lady Apsley.

Born into the landed gentry as Violet Meeking, she, like many women of her class, served as a nurse and ambulance driver during the First World War. She broke away from Edwardian conventions to become a passionate sportswoman, equestrian and later a qualified pilot.

In 1924, she and her new husband Allen Bathurst (soon to become Lord Apsley, and then a parliamentary private secretary) posed as poor English emigrants in the Australian outback in order to brief the government about conditions in resettlement camps.

The memoir of their adventure (written by her, though under both their names) is an engaging read.

You can’t help but admire their courage and willingness to endure hardship, or fail to note their genuine empathy for poor English work-

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Nazi visits

ers. But her unabashed celebration of British imperialism, her racist portrayal of indigenous Australians and her not-so-coded contempt for Jews also feature throughout.

Hunting accident to Parliament On their return to England, in 1925, Violet Bathurst indefatigably supported her husband’s budding parliamentary career. But tragedy struck their privileged existence in 1930 when Lady Apsley (as she was by then) was permanently disabled after a hunting accident that left her unable to walk and in constant pain.

Servants and a supportive husband undoubtedly eased her plight, but you can’t deny her dignified stoicism and her Herculean efforts to keep active in both her private and public life. When in 1943, she made her maiden speech to the Commons from her wheelchair and defied convention by making a passionate appeal for the better treatment of disabled people, she was met with cheers.

One of only 38 women MPs (out of a total of 615), she didn’t have the

star qualities of a Mary Astor or an Eleanor Rathbone. Still, Apsley took her parliamentary duties seriously.

Piecing together her contributions from Hansard and press accounts, I was surprised to find how many other questions she raised in the House and to how many debates she contributed. She lobbied hard for better provision for disabled veterans and for the right of single women in the armed services to get training and keep their jobs after the war.

Prescient perspectives Lady Apsley saw women first and foremost as wives and mothers.

Concerned to preserve the principle that fathers headed families, she was eventually persuaded to support Rathbone’s insistence that family allowances be paid to mothers only on the grounds of practical convenience.

Yet her eloquent insistence that the housewife was the “bedrock of the nation” anticipated 1960s and 70s radical feminist arguments that women are essentially different

Contradictory mix Many of the British elite saw fascism as less harmful to their interests than Stalinism. But Lady Apsley and her husband appeared on platforms with overtly fascist speakers, and were organising pro-

appeasement talks in Bristol as late as April 1939, well after Kristallnacht (the 1938 pogrom against Jews in Germany) and the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

True, she later became a stalwart of British resistance to the Nazis.

And certainly her administrative genius as head of the women’s section of the British Legion made an important, if undervalued, contribution to the war effort.

But opposition to Hitler and Mussolini only came after war was declared and bombs started falling. I was struck by how much the Apsleys and their friends cared about preserving hierarchy and property, and how little they minded about the virulent antisemitism and authoritarian repression underpinning fascism.

Swept from power in the 1945 Labour landslide, Lady Apsley became an embittered and increasingly reactionary figure, opposing the NHS and other aspects of the welfare state. Her formal political career ended in the 1950s.

But her life was a contradictory mix of the appalling and the admirable. Her diehard values, especially her racism, anti-Semitism and hostility to liberal rationalism, coexisted with a love of heritage, place and family values, anticipating views that have resurfaced in the wake of nationalism and political division today.

Dr Madge Judith Dresser FRHS is an associate professor in Social and Cultural British History at the University of the West of England and honorary professor in the department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol.

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Lady Apsley (in wheelchair), beside Queen Mary Photo: Bristol Post

My efforts to investigate this via her private papers were initially fruitless, with her grandson’s wife telling me that her mother-in-law had burned them. So I began trawling other collections – including private archives at Eastnor Castle, the residence of James Hervey-Bathurst, the grandson of Lady Apsley’s sister.

At the time of writing, many of the papers were in the process of being catalogued by archivists.

While the memoir I found was incomplete, some letters revealing her political views and social networks survived. These along with newspaper accounts of her public pronouncements and activities led me to conclude that Lord and Lady Apsley had more than a passing sympathy with Mussolini and Hitler.

They, like many people, had been appalled by the carnage and waste of World War One. Appeasement felt reasonable to a wide range of people on both left and right.

But like many British aviators they were also courted by the Nazis (her husband attended the 1936 Nuremberg rally – as Hitler’s guest).

Of her visit to a Nazi-run labour camp for unemployed Germans that year, Lady Apsley spoke admiringly of the “Nordic blond gods” residing there, whom she maintained had a better work ethic than their working-class British counterparts.

"I was struck by how much the Apsleys and their friends cared about preserving hierarchy and property, and how little they minded about the virulent antisemitism and authoritarian repression underpinning fascism"

PEOPLE’S HISTORY

Lady Apsley beside the Lord Mayor of Bristol Photo: America's Time Life group

from men, and that their particular contributions to society must be valued. Apsley also showed a prescient, albeit hunting-derived, concern about the need to protect green spaces in rural England – and lobbied for what we would call sustainable agricultural policies, including around composting and recycling waste.

I was almost beginning to warm to Apsley, in fact, when I was stopped in my tracks after finding in The Times a Bristol man in 1936 accusing her of being an apologist for Germany’s Nazi regime.

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What’s the council ever done for us?

Councils are no strangers to taking flak. For citizens, the local authority may be a byword for red tape, inefficiency and rageinducingly crap services. For the media, scathing inspection reports, windbag councillors, the wasting of public money and whistleblowers’ allegations all provide easy story fodder that can reinforce those negative public views.

Everyone loves to have a good moan about the council. But they still provide vital public services. Here’s a few. WORDS ALEX TURNER

In 2010, Bristol City Council had a revenue budget of £393 million - the amount of money used for day to day services.

The Tory-Lib Dem coalition immediately set about demanding devastating cuts across the board. Faced with central government austerity – exacerbated by mismanagement from its own officers – £200 million of cuts have been

40% £1.5bn £705k The percentage New government of Bristol City funding for social Council’s money care spending. budgeted this year The amount chancellor Sajid announced in short-term for adult social care. Javid funds for councils to spend This includes providing support for older people and those with learning disabilities and mental health issues, enabling people to live more independent lives and safeguarding others at risk of harm.

Like nearly all councils, Bristol has cut adult social care services, and has faced accusations of seeking to manage down some people’s care packages. But it has also increased its investment in homecare providers – part of an aspiration to keep more people living in their own homes – meaning care workers should receive at least the national living wage, currently £9 an hour. It is also experimenting with the use of assistive technology, which through the use of sensors and other devices can help people manage everyday tasks with less need for help from care workers.

on social care, as part of his September spending review.

The lack of adequate long-term funding for adult social care, which councils must provide by law, has become a national scandal.

However, spending review documents issued after Javid’s speech to the Commons revealed that a third of the cash can only be accessed by local authorities raising council tax specifically to spend on adult social care. The remaining £1 billion will be split between 153 councils, and is meant to pay for both adults’ and children’s social care, fuelling perceptions that the new funds are no more than a pre-election giveaway amounting to a ‘sticking plaster’ on a gaping wound.

Balancing the books

Caring under tough circumstances

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STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

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The estimated cost, over seven years, of upgrading and maintaining self-service kiosks that let citizens borrow books and reserve computers in libraries without help from a staff member.

Bristol City Council’s cabinet approved the scheme in May, though not without criticism that the money was only really worth spending at the libraries – currently three – that people can use after-hours.

The council’s U-turn in 2018 on plans to close most of the city’s 27 libraries was obviously welcome. Regardless of the raw numbers of people through the doors or books lent out, these are important public spaces that give people access to information and knowledge – and in some cases warmth – they would otherwise be denied.

Despite the decision on new technology though, that reprieve only lasts until the next mayoral elections. The council this year turned to residents to come up with ideas for its libraries’ future – but in 2020, cuts could still return.

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The number of children in care of Bristol City Council as of February 2019.

This year’s spending on services for children in care, who include those living with foster parents and in children’s homes, by Bristol CIty Council is estimated at £38 million.

Bucking national trends, Bristol has not seen the numbers of children taken into care – the most extreme and expensive measure social services can take – rise over recent years. The council is still overspending as it tries to find suitable placements – some children have, shockingly, been sent as far away as Glasgow and Cambridge – but is looking to reduce this by building more specialist accommodation for young people locally.

The number of children’s centres left in Bristol.

Nationally up to 1,000 children’s centres, which as well as day care provide early local support that can help families avoid getting involved with social workers in the first place, are estimated to have closed since 2009.

Bristol has kept most of its centres open. Yet as the Cable reported last year, £1.5 million cuts have left these preventative services spread much more thinly, meaning children wait longer to get help.

Homelessness and hopes

620 20

728 The number of people Bristol City Council prevented from becoming homeless in 2017/18.

In September the council approved a new strategy to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, aimed at contributing to a broad aspiration that everyone in the city should have a suitable roof over their head by 2050. It has also, in line with a central government strategy it fed into, committed to eradicating rough sleeping by 2027.

Whether or not those figures turn out to be pipedreams, the new strategy sets some shorter-term targets that should give some early indication of its success in the context of the ongoing housing crisis. These include cutting the numbers of households in temporary accommodation – 491 at the end of last year – and reducing empty council homes to 250 by 2020.

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What about the kids?

Through a mixture of savings and income generation the 2019/20 revenue budget is £376 million, meaning the council has the power to greatly affect people’s lives and the city.

There’s also the small matter of the council’s capital budget – £236 million this year – which goes on one-off outgoings

ranging from flood defences, to renewable energy investment, to helping new affordable homes get built. As demand in the city rises, the lack of slack in the system means scrutiny of all that spending has rarely been so important.

We may live in an age of hollowed-out services, academy schools and boarded-up public toilets, but local authorities are still responsible for duties often as important as those carried out by the NHS and emergency services. As such, councils, and the people who run them, should be vigorously held to account. But it’s also important to show a little love for the public services we all rely on. We had a leaf through some of Bristol City Council’s budget and committee reports to remind ourselves of what those are.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

made to council spending across all areas and budgets since 2010. They have been both in visible places, like closing the neighbourhood service points that meant people didn’t have to come into town to sort problems out, and less obvious ones such as laying off HR staff. The council employs 3,000 fewer people than it did 10 years ago, with knock-on effects across the authority and city at large.

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VOICES

Room 13 actors shoot their film.

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Photo: Room 13

Meet the Hartcliffe kids campaigning for free bus travel ‘Children are being deprived of feeling part of their city’

WORDS LORNA STEPHENSON

C

hildren and young people in Hartcliffe’s Room 13 studio are making waves with their campaign for free bus travel for children, and with good reason. For youngsters living on the outskirts of Bristol, travelling into the centre can be an infrequent event. Some children have never even visited.

Last year, Room 13 – a creative studio on the grounds of Hareclive Primary School run for and by children – launched a campaign to tackle the issue. They want free bus travel for children, to address the barriers they face to accessing what the city has to offer.

Development worker Ingrid Skeels says Room 13 has long been aware of the barrier transport poses to children in the area. A small project with the University of Bristol gave everyone in the studio some

time and space to look at it in more depth, she explains.

“Although our project and film are place-based as the issue is so important in Hartcliffe, it is also relevant to children from lots of other areas of the city and, at the highest level, it is relevant to all Bristol children,” she says.

“Children as a group make up 25% of the city, but have no income or say over where they live, and a big need to access activities and experiences and to grow up feeling true citizens.”

Room 13 participants, Aaliah, 13, Gaby, 11, Freya, 13 and Lexica, 11, all from Hartcliffe, have all experienced problems with getting around town. “I don’t really go into town…” says Aaliah.

Lexica points out that it’s not just the children that suffer from expensive public transport: “NHS appoint-

“In London children are using the bus for free, why not here?” ments are being wasted and so are medicines and equipment because people can’t get children to their appointments. This is wasting money.

I’ve sometimes missed my physio appointments because when it came to it we had no money for the bus.”

To bring attention to the issue, Room 13 produced a film. With the kids starring as characters from bus drivers to mothers, the i-phone created short was funny but powerful.

A showing in a full council meeting in City Hall won praise, and laughs, from councillors and the public.

But behind the lighthearted approach is an important question of the role of mobility itself in social mobility – the rate of school leavers from Hartcliffe who go on to university is just 6%, whereas in well-off Clifton it’s 100%.

The girls the Cable spoke to have more immediate ideas of what they’d like to do if public transport was more accessible for them and their families. Freya’s keen to try out the Gromit Trail and go to the Hippodrome. Another thing she’d like it to “catch as many buses as you can in a day on a day rider to learn about all the different routes, go beyond town and see other areas in our city”.

Aaliah’s got plans too: “I went to a book shop a few years ago as a birthday treat. It was amazing – so I

would want to go back into town, go to book shops and to visit a Nando’s.”

On Mia’s list is Starbucks and swimming, and, along with Lexica, visiting family members who live in other parts of town. All enjoyed the process of working on the campaign and film, even Gaby who says she doesn’t like being on camera but did it because of how strongly she feels about the issue.

“Opportunities for children are being missed like dance classes, football, skate parks because children can’t get there" So what now? A meeting in June was well received by the council’s cabinet member for children, women and families, Helen Godwin, says Skeels.

The next ambitious aims are to push for a weekend of free bus travel next spring or summer, asking support from the council and First Bus, and asking that the mayor adds free child bus travel to his One City Plan – a far-reaching document produced by the council in January this year outlining what the city should look like in 2050.

But the young Room 13 campaigners will push for change much sooner than that. Watch this space.

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37

OPINION

‘This feels like prison’: we need to talk about school exclusions

BME children are disproportionately excluded from school. The system needs to change.

WORDS BRISTOL NO MORE EXCLUSIONS ILLUSTRATION PATCH PLUMMER

“T

There are also concerns about offrolling, where pupils aren’t formally excluded but are removed from a school’s roll, often to be homeschooled. A recent report by Ofsted found more than 100,000 year 10 and 11 pupils disappeared from schools in the last year, raising fears that they are being pushed out as schools try to improve their GCSE results.

Systemic inequities and violence fears Exclusions disproportionately affect specific groups, such as children from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds, according to government statistics. For example, Black Caribbean children are three times more likely than White British children to be excluded. Other groups, including Mixed Caribbean and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children have higher exclusion rates still.

Gender, family income and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) also play a role. An inquiry into school exclusions by the children’s commissioner in 2012 found that if you are a Black Caribbean boy on free school meals with SEND, you are 168 times more likely to be excluded than a White British girl without SEND. Such statistics are staggering and bring to light the impact and sense of injustice this practice has. A recent review of the situation by former children’s minister Edward Timpson was long-awaited, and we hoped it would highlight the systematic and systemic racial inequities that BME communities experience. That it did not was disappointing in the extreme.

Bristol, like other cities, also has problems with serious youth violence – with many of the young people involved at risk of exclusion or already

excluded. A report by the parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee report earlier this year identified school exclusions as one of the factors most likely to be driving the increase in serious youth violence, along with drug use, deprivation, social exclusion, and a lack of support services for young people.

“We can no longer minimise the significance of many factors involved in exclusions, including ethnicity and the impact of austerity.

It takes a village to raise a child, and a city – Bristol – to invest in our young people”

patchplummer.co.uk

Nationally, as permanent exclusions have gone up, so too has youth knife crime – which is also on the rise in Bristol: Avon and Somerset Police reported a 52% increase in knife crime between July 2018 and March 2019.

Why aren’t we doing something about school exclusions if we know excluded young people are at risk from involvement in serious violence? How much more evidence is needed before we wake up to the dangers that face young Bristolians when they are excluded?

Time for change No More Exclusions (NME) is a grassroots coalition movement that is seeking to bring about radical change to the education system. We are an unashamedly abolitionist movement.

Our members – many of whom are from education, but with other professions also well represented – aim to transform the system through advice, advocacy and campaigning, making it inclusive for all and ending the practice of excluding young people.

Bristol NME members wholeheartedly disagree with the presentation of data in the Timpson review, and subsequent reporting of it, and want to continue to highlight and work toward structural change so that the inequalities experienced within BME communities cannot be reported as ‘school based or geographical issues’.

We can no longer minimise the significance of many factors involved in exclusions, including ethnicity and the impact of austerity, nor can we continue to sit by and watch as data is misrepresented or sanitised. We want your help. It takes a village to raise a child, and a city – Bristol – to invest in our young people.

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hey’ve just given up on me, no one really cares.” “This feels like prison.” “At least at school I had mates, now who do I have?” “No-one helped me or my mum understand why it happened.”

These are the experiences of young people excluded from school, who I spoke to recently at a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) in Bristol.

Bristol’s schools are struggling to support their students with limited resources. We find ourselves with the unwanted label of being a high fixed-term (temporary) exclusion area. Bristol has low rates of permanent exclusions – 14 in all schools 2017/18, but has one of the highest rates for fixed term exclusions of any local authority in England – 5,179 in the same year.

But these figures don’t tell the whole story. There are also lots of young people who have been excluded and are now in PRUs. Currently the number of students in PRUs is higher than we would want. According to government statistics, as of January 2019 there are 130 pupils in PRUs and a further 200 in alternative provision in Bristol.

Many people may feel the needs of young people who struggle in mainstream education can be better met in one of the alternative provisions in the Bristol area, which includes PRUs and other alternative schools. But the bleak reality is that many alternative provisions are suffering the same cuts as mainstream schools – and are struggling to cope with the influx of students referred to them.

The latest headline figures coming from the Bristol Inclusion Panel highlight that many of Bristol’s alternative provisions are oversubscribed, demonstrating the depth of the problem locally.

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OPINION

38

Navigating masculinity when society stereotypes black men The biggest problem with a stereotype isn’t that it’s false but that it’s the only story being told WORDS DANIEL EDMUND ILLUSTRATION JOE WATSON-PRICE

stantly being judged. Either I was expected to fit in with how others believed black men to be, or I was told with surprise that I acted ‘different’. Sadly, common misrepresentations of black masculinity can also influence black men themselves.

co m

One that you can wear to an interview, a wedding or a funeral,” he advised. I understood from a young age was that it was masculine to care and be considerate to your partner and that presentation, especially for black men, was important.

Getting older and having to navigate

pr

ice .

The biggest problem with a stereotype isn’t that it’s false but that it’s the only story being told. While absent fathers and higher education dropout rates do impact the black male community, contrary to common portrayals, black manhood is not defined by these issues.

Another challenge for black men is the simultaneous fear and fascination many people have with us.

Much mainstream British media deems us ‘thuggish’ drug dealers or flashy athletes. England footballer Raheem Sterling was chastised in so n

life as a black man came with a particular set of challenges. Often the kind of masculinity I had witnessed from my father and other men in my family was out of reach. I came to realise that society frequently viewed black men as harder, colder and more aggressive. It felt like people listened to 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ one too many times and thought we all lived a gangster lifestyle, ready to steal and pistol whip on demand. I was con-

jo ew at

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H

ow do different groups interact with ideas of ‘manhood’?

How does society view masculinity? What are the implications for particular groups of people, or in my case, for a black man?

I grew up in a family of five with black parents. My dad is BritishCarribean, a Christian pastor who now leads Bethel United Church here in Bristol, and my mother is African-American. My dad is an openly affectionate man. Just like his father, he is into fashion, family, sport and travel. Growing up, my father kissed me, hugged me and told me that he loved me.

Even when I was in high school he would hug my brother and I and kiss us on the cheek.

At that age, we swatted him away in teenage disdain. My father’s relationship with my mother, while not without its challenges, was one of honour and teamwork. I was constantly shown examples of a man who loved and was able to be loved. He was balanced – this was my foundation.

A lot of what my father taught me about being a man was nonverbal; it was from watching him engage with my family and others.

He would also say certain lessons out loud. For instance, the day before my mother returned from out of town, my dad would do a deep clean of the house. While cleaning he would say, “Make sure your wife always comes back to a clean home.” This stood out to me, not only because he put such consideration into my mother but he also put it into my development as a young man.

“Every man needs a good suit.

the press for spending too much (of his own, taxed and legally earned) money. Sterling called this out as racist, pointing out that young white players flaunting their wealth don’t receive the same flak.

We are also frequently mythologised to have gigantic penises and be ready to mount anything that comes across our path. These myths have real life consequences for many black men.The popular Netflix special ‘When They See Us’ shows the true story of five black teenagers who were wrongfuly accused of assaulting and raping a 28-year-old white woman in New York, and sentenced to 5-15 years in prison. The story shines a light on the problematic mindset many in society have towards black men.

Vitally though, we are starting to see more diversity in the media. Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor is not only breaking moulds with his acting but also as a black British man. There are more spaces being created to bring together, inspire and encourage us, such as the Bristol and London-based organisation Mandem; places where we can relate to others experiencing similar situations, redefine masculinity for ourselves and protect the mental health of black men dealing with issues linked to our race.

So what is it like growing up as a black male? Sometimes confusing, frustrating and exhausting, but ultimately I find it to be a beautiful version of the male experience.

We have a unique opportunity to completely reform from the skewed space society tries to pigeonhole us in. As James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

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OPINION

Measles is back, and it’s not just because of anti-vaxxers

39

We need to take our message out of surgeries and into communities, says a Bristol pharmacist WORDS ADE WILLIAMS ILLUSTRATION LAURENCE WARE

T

tion coverage for most vaccines appears to be falling, with coverage rates lowest in inner-city and east Bristol.

Around 2,000 five-year-old children in the south west, a significant majority living in Bristol, may still need to receive their first dose of MMR, leaving them significantly more at risk compared with pupils who are fully vaccinated.

Discredited research So what’s going on? Well, in part the UK’s rise in measles cases is down to children who went unvaccinated 20 years ago after nowdiscredited research caused a scare about the safety of the MMR vaccine.

It was claimed by a doctor, Andrew Wakefield, writing in The Lancet journal, that the vaccine was linked to autism – but his research was found to be wrong, and Wakefield was struck from the UK medical register, subsequently moving to the US. Today though, ‘anti-vaxxers’, who spread false information about vaccines, continue to pose a significant health threat. They propose and share conspiracy theories, false scientific research and spread stories that feed distrust in governments and drug manufacturers. In today’s world of alternative truths, fake news and the repeated refrain, “do not trust the experts’’, the power of social media means the reach of this misinformation is pervasive.

Concerns about vaccine safety though are not the only reason

for non-vaccination. Looking at the spread of recent instances in Bristol, they show that the government and NHS urgently need to provide better-funded and resourced services that make it easier for parents to book appointments.

In a time of funding cutbacks, with the loss of community outreach workers, the most vulnerable and people at the bottom of the socio-economic strata inevitably bear the brunt.

Bristol has a proud history of standing up for equality and fairness – a postcode lottery around the uptake of vaccinations must not become established because we’re unable to design and deliver services that suit the people we need to reach in all our communities.

Examples exist of my NHS colleagues working with community groups, or calling parents to obtain verbal consent when busy lives have meant things have been missed out on forms or letters mislaid.

Pushing back against health inequality It’s also important we address concerns in cases where the antivax message seems very credible.

Looking through the news stories of cases, it becomes apparent that some of the people affected are from communities who traditionally have challenges accessing healthcare – and many have evidenced worse health outcomes.

As with so many other areas of life, as we look at health and

socio-economic standing, the more well-off you are, the better you do.

Looking after and seeking to protect young children forms part of our innate human behaviour.

When people choose not to vaccinate – for what seem like good reasons, based on misinformation, or simply because of a lack of information – they put lives at risk.

Inequalities in life expectancy have not improved. The gap between the most deprived 10% and the least deprived 10% of people in Bristol is 9.5 years for males and 7.4 years for females (2014-16).

The anti-vaxxers are trying to undo the social norms that mean vaccination is a choice to protect the whole community as well as the individual. But inadequately funded and targeted services, especially for the most disadvantaged or vulnerable people, fuel the same outcome.

Defending our societal values means not just standing up against the anti-vaxxers but looking after each other. We need to ensure that equal access to care and services is always protected.

Ade Williams is the lead pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy, Pharmacist of the Year 2018, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Patient Champion

laurence-ware.com

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 21

he Vaccination Act 1853 made it compulsory for children to be vaccinated against smallpox by three months old, with parents who failed subjected to a fine. It met considerable resistance and, years later, was amended.

By the 1860s, two-thirds of babies were vaccinated, and as a result there was a fall in the death rate due to smallpox. Even so, reports of deaths and outbreaks created doubts about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, and vaccination still met opposition.

Now, three years after the UK eliminated measles, it’s back.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has revoked our ‘measles free’ status after 231 cases were confirmed nationally, with numbers reaching a record high in Bristol last year at 69.

Measles is a highly contagious viral infection that causes a red rash and flu-like symptoms that can often result in permanent brain damage and death. Several schools in Bristol had to shut their doors after confirmed cases last year.

Interestingly, the idea of compulsion, as in the 1850s, is often championed as a rational solution to a resurgent problem. But without the political will to sacrifice personal liberties in this way, progress will be limited.

UK take-up of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine for children reaching their second birthday fell for the fourth year in a row in 2018 and is now at 91.2%, the lowest it has been since 2011/2012. Local immunisa-

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