Bristol Cable - Issue 31

HOW CAN WE BUILD HOUSING FIT FOR THE FUTURE?

Rethinking regeneration: could co-design help transform Bristol's estates?

Not your average newspaper. Reader-owned. Join us: thebristolcable.org/join

DEAR READER,

Winter’s almost upon us and it's pretty bleak out there. So we figured Cable readers might appreciate some journalism that goes beyond reporting on the harsh realities facing many of us right now, and spotlights some solutions to big problems.

The cover story in this edition is all about empowering council tenants to help rebuild the city’s housing estates so they’re fit for the future. Can a radical project in Knowle West provide a model for regeneration at scale? Find out in the first installment of our year-long solutions journalism series: The Future of Cities.

Opinion: Childcare costs are preventing countless ambitious women from fulfilling their potential p.39

Massive thanks to the 2,600 members who make all this possible!

And to all contributors, sources and contacts.

If you have a story, or a tip-off please get in touch: content@thebristolcable.org thebristolcable.org/got-a-story

07533718547 | The Station, Silver Street, Bristol, BS1 2AG

If housing’s your bag, then we’ve also got the scoop on how a local lettings policy is changing the rules on who gets social housing in Lockleaze, as hundreds of new homes come to the area. But can it work? Transporting you from north Bristol to down south, we’ve been getting out into Knowle West to shine a light on community-run green spaces, which are becoming increasingly important amid plans for new housing developments.

In the culture section, Bristol-based producer and vocalist Grove talks punk, power and vulnerability, and tells how a mould and slug problem in their flat helped inspire a track called ‘Fuck Ur Landlord’.

We’ve also been speaking to the city’s independent businesses bracing for another challenging winter as customers start tightening their purse strings, what with the cost of living and energy crises, as well as an innovative approach to funding community responses to food insecurity.

As always, thank you to all the Cable who make these pages of investigative, independent and indispensable journalism possible: thebristolcable.org/join

The Cable team

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There’s always more to the story, with your support we can tell it

Media team

Matty Edwards, Aphra Evans, Sean Morrison, Alex Turner

Print production coordination

Matty Edwards

Production team

Hannah Vickers, Arvind Howarth

Design & layout

Laurence Ware laurence_ware_design

Print advertising

Alison Fraser, Michael York

Tech team

Mat Alborough, Will Franklin Marcus Valentine xtreamlab.net

Special projects team Eliz Mizon, Sam Kinch, Lucas Batt, Will Franklin

Fundraising Lucas Batt, Sara Szakadat, Eliz Mizon

Distribution coordination

Lucas Batt, Dave Marsden

Distribution team Dave Marsden, Neill Talbot, Lucy Sessions, Matt Violet, Luke H Workplace coordination

People: Lucas Batt, Sara Szakadat, Mat Alborough

Workplace: Sara Szakadat, Will Franklin

Front page illustration Laurence Ware & Paper Rhino

Contents

What we've been up to Our eighth birthday, and a new series

News in brief

The best of recent Cable reporting you might have missed

News

The discrimination blind people face when getting around the city

Filwood In Focus Green shoots for hope in Knowle West’s community green spaces

Lockleaze In Focus Local houses for local people, but will it work?

Interview What's next for the alternative economy after the fall of the Bristol Pound?

13

Feature

Renewed calls for better cycling infrastructure after spate of incidents

Cover Story: Future of Cities

The first story of a special new series. How do we involve people in building the housing of the future?

Photo essay

Inside the queer ballroom subculture

Investigation

Sent to prison for begging?

Worries around use of anti-social behaviour injunctions

Feature The customers fighting back against online business after being ripped off

History What was healthcare like before the NHS?

Special thanks to… Mike Jempson

Culture Meet producer and vocalist Grove, who chats punk, power and vulnerability

Culture

How can Bristol’s music venues cope in the energy crisis?

Culture

A powerful story of overcoming breast cancer

Opinion

Innovative community action to tackle food insecurity is more urgent than ever

Opinion

A nursery worker on the impact of childcare costs on working parents

Elected Directors: Julia Beasley, Laura Williams, Yuliya Kosharevska, Alain Demontoux, Mandy Rose, Yasha Maccanico, Nick Plant

Thanks to the Reva and David Logan Foundation, and Luminate for their continued support.

Welcome to our 31st edition! It’s all change at the Cable in the last few months.

CABLE NEWS

We’ve said goodbye to a number of staff, who brought a lot to the organisation and will be sorely missed! But we’ve welcomed three new staff members: Sam Kinch, our new Community and Events Organiser; Eliz Mizon, our new Communications Lead; and Alex Turner, a new journalist – all long-time Cable members who we’re delighted to have on board.

We attract talent like this because of our success – and yet, in this economy… the Cable is always fighting to survive. Every year is an achievement in a precarious media landscape, and we manage it without pop-up ads, clickbait, or rabid columnists.

We can only keep going with your support (and that of your friends and neighbours). Join us!

More Cable events on the horizon Happy 8th birthday to us!

Our new events organiser Sam Kinch has been busy meeting Bristolians around the city, and expanding our events programme so we can connect with and provide for our members more often.

Through hosting more events, we can engage, empower, and ensure value for members, delivering moments to connect with each other, in addition to our independent, investigative local journalism. We plan to run at least one event for members every month. These might look like:

• A quarterly print edition launch party,

• An Area in Focus event, to discuss issues crucial to a specific neighbourhood,

• A screening, a skills-share, a solutions forum, etc.

If you have any ideas, or might like to be involved in putting together a community event, get in touch: sam@thebristolcable.org

We’ve launched our new solutions series!

In our last edition we announced our new solutions journalism project The Future of Cities, made possible by funding from the European Journalism Centre, which allows us not only to report on some of Bristol’s problems, but also existing solutions to them. And our first article is in this edition!

Housing is the first of three areas we’re reporting on for the project. Over the last few months we’ve been researching solutions to the housing crisis with the help of specialist reporters and local experts. Our first story explores how involving residents in the design process of housing regeneration projects can help build estates of the future without displacing council tenants, or leaving them feeling disempowered.

The following two themes will be how people move around cities, and how cities are resourced. So keep your eyes peeled for more in-depth reporting on solutions over the next year, and how you can be involved in making them a reality for Bristol.

To celebrate our 8th birthday this autumn, we had a big party at Strange Brew! Thank you so much to everyone who came and celebrated with us.

We had a blast. It was rejuvenating, and a relief to finally be able to celebrate with our community in person again, at our first inroom event since 2019.

We were already happy to host Owanj, MĀDŁY and t k - but we were so honoured to hear them speak from the stage about why they support us, including Cable backstories we didn't even know about…

Jemal told the crowd how important our coverage of Hurricane Maria’s impact on Bristol's West Indian community had been for him – he was involved in producing a piece for us in 2017, when the Cable was the only local outlet to write about it. And it turned out Isla was working with Adam, one of our founders, in a city kitchen while he was investigating the lead story for our first edition back in 2014 –on exploitation in the catering industry. The Cable community extends far and wide!

A new 'Cable' for Leicester

The Great Central Gazette, an upand-coming co-op in Leicester that models itself on the Cable, has just launched a crowdfunder.

The problem, according to Gazette founder Reece Stafferton, is that the average newsroom’s dominating voice has become advertising income: "A newspaper’s revenue is proportional to the number of website clicks it receives. Journalists write dozens of pieces a day

to get our attention, and they use clickbait and strikingly non-local subject matters to do so. That isn’t sustainable." Nor does it serve the public.

The solution is the co-op model, where members get to vote on how the operation is run, and which allows for "slow, quality news created with sensitivity, calm and care" that works for the public interest of the community that owns it.

This member-focus allows the Cable, and will allow the Gazette, to hold power to account and work with the community to fix big issues. If you know someone in Leicester, let them know.

THEBRISTOLCABLE.ORG/JOIN

NEWS IN NEWSBRIEFIN BRIEF

Bristol mums on low incomes have told the Cable of the "dread" and insecurity they feel about the city's overheated private rental market.

Alex Turner

the months of stress she recently went through finding somewhere after having to leave her long-term South Bristol rental. "You've got people moving from London, they'll see a two-bedroom house for £1,500 and be like, 'We'll pay two grand'," said Carlene, who runs a cleaning firm but also receives local housing allowance (LHA).

Fire safety in high-rises, a major national concern since the Grenfell Tower disaster five years ago, has been back in local headlines after 30-yearold Abdul Jabar Oryakhel fell to his death from a burning Easton flat. Public authorities have said the blaze at Twinnell House was accidental, and fire-stopping measures performed as they should. But residents have reported alarms not sounding, and criticised the council for not addressing concerns over conditions in the 16-storey block – including that sprinklers have not been installed af-

ter a 2019 pledge to do so. All Bristol's council high-rises will be safety-inspected in the wake of the fire, under regulations stemming from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

For months now the Cable has been reporting on life in a nearby tower, Lansdowne Court. We'll be following up in the aftermath of the tragic incident, and examining fire safety measures across the city’s 62 high rise blocks.

If you have information or insight to share, please get in touch: content@thebristolcable.org

Recent research from the Bureau for Investigative Journalism revealed that just one two-bed home affordable to people claiming housing benefit was advertised on Rightmove in the Bristol area during July. Two-beds, which are often occupied by small families, are the most common property type that people receiving housing benefit rent. The grim statistic will be no surprise to anyone who knows Bristol’s rental market. But with the Bureau's data, which extends well beyond the city limits into South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and BaNES, underlines how unaffordable the region has become.

Carlene, 43, who has a young son, told the Cable of

LHA is the housing benefit paid to private renters as part of universal credit. Its rate, which varies from area to area, originally reflected the cost of renting a home in the cheapest 50% of local markets.

But repeated freezes and soaring prices have seen a gulf open up between LHA rates and the average cost of a home. The Bureau put the average monthly shortfall on a two-bed in Bristol at £375, one of the highest in the country.

While it's now unlawful for landlords or agents to discriminate against tenants because they claim benefit (so-called no-DSS clauses), the Bureau also found some were effectively still doing so. Kingswood motherof-two Sarah, 38, said she is terrified of her landlord kicking her out. "I work hard but feel I've got no security – because on paper I'm just a single mum on benefits," she said.

Blind and partially sighted people say they and their guide dogs are still being refused taxi services in Bristol, despite recent law changes meant to strengthen their rights

"More education is desperately needed in healthcare settings" about how to respond to monkeypox, according to Carl Williams, who was told by doctors in Southmead hospital he was the first patient with the rare disease to be admitted there.

In a frank first-person piece, Carl recalled the days of agonising symptoms – and baffled doctors – he had to endure before being admitted to the North Bristol hospital, where care was better. Neither Carl – who spent 23 days in isolation – nor his partner, know where their infection came from.

"My advice to others is be cautious, because the first signs of monkeypox can be flu-like symptoms, such as a fever, headache, muscle aches and tiredness," Carl said. "Most importantly, if you have something which you could pass on, whether that is an STI or Covid or monkeypox, we shouldn’t be afraid of letting people know."

Katy Watts, a lawyer with human rights organisation Liberty, was living in Bristol when Edward Colston's statue was toppled in 2020. It's an image "that has stayed with me ever since", she wrote in a piece responding to a ruling that defendants in similar future cases will not be able to use the human rights defence that saw the 'Colston 4' acquitted

of criminal damage.

Had the judgment, which followed an appeal by then-Attorney General Suella Braverman, been made before June 2020, it's much more likely the four would have been convicted.

"It’s concerning to see the government continue to make moves to curb our right to protest," Katy wrote, referencing the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act passed this year. "The sight of people being carted off by the police for expressing their views following the Queen’s death should ring alarm bells for all of us. Protest is a fundamental right, not a gift from the state."

Alan Dyte, 84, has a guide dog, Jeeves, to help him get around as he is blind. He regularly takes taxis to get where he needs to go because it’s easier and less stressful than public transport, but like many blind and partially sighted people, struggles to get taxis to take his dog.

In July 2021, a V Cars driver allegedly refused to let Jeeves in the back of the car, insisting he went in the boot.

“My dog jumped out and ran away when the boot was being closed,” Dyte said, adding that the driver refused to help get Jeeves “because dogs are dirty”.

Dyte took the V Cars driver to court, aided by the city council’s licensing team, last December. He won a tribunal, which involves claimants and defendants putting cases forward. But he subsequently lost the case in the magistrates’ court, where both parties have legal assistance.

is responsible for enforcing breaches of local policy. Drivers are only exempt from carrying dogs if they prove they are allergic to them.

But Alun Davies, Bristol Sight Loss Council’s engagement manager, told the Cable there’s a long and ongoing issue of taxi drivers refusing to accept blind people and their guide dogs.”

He said the Sight Loss Council regularly hears of guide dog refusals, but that often victims don’t report it. Davies believes this is because of the difficulty proving reports and the low rate of prosecutions. Data provided by Bristol City Council suggested that only seven formal complaints had been made over the last five years, with five resulting in enforcement action.

‘It feels like the council don’t want to prosecute drivers’

Marc Gulwell, 35, sight loss team manager at local charity Sight Support West of England, said: “Personally, it feels like the council don’t really want to prosecute drivers.”

Gulwell has had two experiences he believes required more council action than the “slap on the wrist” the drivers involved received. In April 2021, he said a V Cars driver refused to let his guide dog in the car and, despite being informed of the law, drove off.

And last December, Gulwell said he was left waiting for two hours in the rain for a Zoom car in an unfamiliar area. The driver drove off once he saw his guide dog. When Gulwell complained, he said, he was told the driver had “dogphobia”.

Taking the driver to court had been an emotionally draining process and Dyte decided not to appeal to the crown court. His mobility issues mean he has to keep using taxis, but he told the Cable he regularly changes companies to mitigate bad experiences – and drivers still refuse to take him.

“There’s no point in complaining, because it’s just that one driver, you can’t prove it, and when you take it to court like I did, they treat you like an imbecile,” he said.

V Cars did not respond to a request for comment.

Positive law changes – but not enough enforcement

The Equality Act 2010 requires taxis to carry guide dogs, without charging extra, and since July 2022 new legislation prevents drivers from refusing bookings from any disabled person because of their impairment, including blind and partially sighted people. But concerns remain about how

well the laws are being enforced, with gaps between numbers of reported incidents and prosecutions.

Bristol Sight Loss Council, part of a network of organisations that advocate for the needs of blind and partially sighted people, told the Cable it has been working with Bristol City Council for two years on this issue but has seen little progress.

The council’s licensing department

“Waiting two hours, it’s annoying and frustrating,” he said. “I ended up having to cancel a work appointment and just had to go home. I was so angry and upset.”

While the council investigated both cases, neither was taken to court. “I don’t want anyone to lose their jobs or their licences, but we need fairness and equality,” Gulwell said. He added that drivers often don’t accept jobs because they see ‘guide dog’ in the description, shrinking the pool of available taxis.

A Zoom Cars spokesperson denied refusing guide dogs. They said the firm works with the Sight Support charity and pays drivers a £5 incentive for journeys with guide dogs. “We have worked hard to find dog-friendly drivers in our fleet,” the spokesperson said.

The Bristol Sight Loss Council said it would like Bristol City Council to publish evidence of what it is doing to improve the issue.

A council spokesperson said that when reports of discrimination or other serious behaviour issues with licenced drivers are proven, it can revoke licences and refuse applications for new ones. •

Blind people facing ‘ongoing’ discrimination by taxi services, local organisations say

How Bristol's overheated rental market is shutting out families on housing benefits, and other stories you may have missed

Rowenna Hoskin

“I ended up having to cancel a work appointment and just had to go home. I was so angry and upset”

'Dread and insecurity' of renting in this city

'First monkeypox patient' in Southmead hospital speaks out Government 'tearing up protest rights' over Colston 4

High-rise fire safety in the spotlight after Easton blaze

sophia_checkley

Knowle West’s gardening revolution

AREA FOCUSIN Filwood

3. Let's Grow Community Allotment: ‘A hands-on approach is really valued’

As you look across the Let’s Grow Community Allotment, you are greeted with an outstanding view of Bristol.

At the end of last year, it was unclear what would happen to this beautiful spot, after the charity that ran it, Knowle West Health Association, said it could no longer afford to do so.

But fortunately, the Knowle West Alliance, a collective of local residents and organisations, came together to save the space and took it on in June 2022.

Since then, the Alliance member organisation re:work and a local family of volunteers have been making the site safe again.

In September, local people were invited to see what has been done to the site, and it has been transformed from an overgrown space into a food-growing paradise.

It includes three large polytunnels, one of which is currently full with pumpkins for the autumn season.

There is also a chicken in part of the allotment, which will soon be joined by some friends to provide fresh eggs for the community. And there are plans to restore an old pizza oven so it can be used for cookery classes.

have passed away.

Campaigns to save treasured green spaces around Filwood from development have deservedly gained attention in recent years. But just as importantly, residents have taken it upon themselves to reclaim smaller plots of land, which are now thriving for the community’s benefit provides important play space.

den is on land sandwiched between three streets, opening at the end of July 2022, after a local residents group took just months to transform the former dumping ground.

Nor is it the only local green space that Carol has been involved in safeguarding. Twenty years ago, the local campaigner successfully fought for Filwood Playing Fields to be protected by a trust, meaning it can’t be built on. She also set up the Let’s Grow Community Allotment when she was chair of Knowle West Health Association in 2012.

Charlie Watts

Knowle West may be known for its sprawl of red-brick social housing. But the estate, which sits above Bedminster on a raised plateau, should also be celebrated for having some of the best green spaces in Bristol. The Northern Slopes, a nature reserve just to the north of Knowle West, has spectacular views across the city.

As does the Western Slopes, a nature haven that forms the western boundary of the south Bristol council estate, which Avon Wildlife Trust describes as a “vital wildlife corridor”. Meanwhile

Filwood Playing Fields, in the south of the estate, is protected by a trust and

But recently, much of the green space that has been central to the identity of Knowle West since it was created in the 1930s has come under threat.

To the fury of local residents, developer Lovell Homes wants to build 157 homes on part of the Western Slopes, while plans for a further 34 homes on part of the Northern Slopes have also been approved in the face of opposition. There are also concerns about an £8.4m youth centre proposed on green space in Knowle West.

Community efforts to come together and fight for green spaces at risk of development have gained deserved media

attention. But at the same time, new community gardens have been created at previously neglected sites – which is fitting, considering much of Knowle West is built around garden city principles, with comfortable houses separated by green space and trees. The Cable visited three such green spaces, which have been revitalised thanks to recent community action.

1. Belfast Walk: From dumping ground to community garden

As you enter cul-de-sac Belfast Walk, you do not expect to find an entrance to a hidden garden. The Knowle West Community Gar-

A path takes you around the site, which has a fish-filled pond as its centrepiece, with fresh fruit and veg growing all around it.

Carol Casey, the interim chair of Filwood Residents Association, says she thought it was important to create the garden to prevent the site from being developed.

“It’s a space that can be used by children and adults with clean air, and there aren't many of them around the area now,” says Carol, who was born and raised in Knowle West.

The site at Belfast Walk had been neglected for years, and was an overgrown mess when the residents association took it on at the end of 2021.

Now though, it is a wildlife haven full of fruit trees, which have been planted in memory of local people who

For Carol, the positive impact green space can have on wellbeing is why it is so important in Knowle West. “Mental health issues are huge on this estate,” she says. “It gives space for people to go unwind, and also to learn new skills.”

2. Inns Court community & Family centre: Returning land to historic use

A medieval tower stands proudly above the community garden at the back of the Inns Court Community & Family Centre.

“It’s a beautiful spot, and I just thought, it’s crying out to be nurtured,” says horticulturalist Chris Boddington, who, with a team of volunteers, has created the Inns Court Kitchen & Wildlife Garden.

Grape vines climb up pillars in the garden, a greenhouse is full of tomatoes and a potting shed is in the making.

Every week, the garden is used by

both a men’s and a women’s group –and it has also started to be used for vocational courses.

“The whole idea is that volunteers come along, do as much work as they want to, enjoy the sociable side of it and get some produce to take home,” Chris continues. “We live in a very alienated society where people are separated from each other, and round here it’s hard to get healthy food as well.”

Gardens such as Inns Court go beyond just addressing the difficulties people can face accessing fresh produce, he adds. “You cut out all that transportation, all that packaging –we're growing organically, there's no pesticides.”

Before the area at the back of the centre in Inns Court was transformed in March 2021, it was full of overgrown grass and weeds. But now it is enjoyed by local people as much as it is by wildlife including bees, beetles, and butterflies.

“Everybody needs reasons to get out of their house and mix with other people, and this is what the garden is all about,” Chris adds.

The 15th-century stair tower that looms over the garden was once part of a manor house when the Inns Court was farmland. So it is fitting that food growing is happening in this area again, as it would have centuries ago.

“The community allotment is a tranquil and beautiful place,” Lucy Holburn, network development manager for the Alliance. “It offers something special in the heart of the city, amazing views and a place to just be. We know how much it means to a lot of people who have used it over the years.”

Lucy highlights the fact that a number of local green spaces are being saved in the area as a result of positive community action. She adds: “People can just get on with it, and I think in Knowle West that hands-on approach is really valued.”

Let’s Grow first opened in 2012 and is part of the wider Springfield Allotments site, which is made up of 38 plots.

“Knowle West was designed as a garden city [where] people had the opportunity to grow their own in big gardens – that spirit still exists and green spaces like Springfield offer opportunities to connect with nature, growing and community, so those skills get shared,” Lucy continues.

The site is also part of the Northern Slopes, three areas of green space with meadows, hedgerows and woods. A group of local people, the Northern Slopes Initiative, maintains, conserves and enhances the space. Lucy Wyatt, the Initiative’s chair, says: “It’s a vital green space for wildlife and people now, but the more we can do, the better we can make it.” •

Gardening projects in Filwood

2. Horticulturalist Chris Boddington, who helped create the garden at Inns Court

1. Local resident Sean Casey at Belfast Walk

3. Steve Griffiths, one of the volunteers at Let’s Grow

AREA IN FOCUS Lockleaze

area's being built up to push people out," adds Robins, 48. "You question anything that's being put in Lockleaze – is it for Lockleaze people?"

Now, the council is hoping a change to the rules for new social housing in the area can provide an answer to these questions. Half of all new affordable homes for rent on the various sites, dozens of which are due in the coming months, will be set aside for people in housing need who have a connection to Lockleaze.

People in Lockleaze make up at least 700 out of the 18,000 on Bristol’s social housing waiting list, and the council hopes its policy can help some of them stay close to family, work and other support networks. In the face of Bristol's ever-worsening housing crisis, can it make a difference?

Making the case

The Lockleaze local lettings policy originated not from the council but local people themselves, via Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust, the charity that runs the Hub community centre on Gainsborough Square.

Local housing for local people in Lockleaze: can it work?

Hundreds of new homes are coming to Lockleaze, but the developments have not been popular. Can a change in the rules on who gets new social housing in the area bring benefits for locals?

Lockleaze is changing fast.

On Romney Avenue, graffitied hoardings advertising Bristol City Council's housebuilding firm Goram Homes surround a vast cleared site that will hold 268 new homes.

A five-minute walk, across Gainsborough Square onto Constable Road, reveals the Shackleton Heights development springing up on land where demolished council homes once stood. Stroll round the corner and the roofs of new homes off Bonnington Walk are rising, directly behind the back gardens of older ones on Landseer Avenue. In all, around 1,000 homes

across 30 sites are in the pipeline.

Not all of this has been welcomed.

The 185-home Bonnington Walk scheme, previously a cherished local green space, attracted particular opposition from residents who feel change is often inflicted on Lockleaze without involving them.

"Investment in this area only started since the new houses [the Cheswick Village development northeast of Lockleaze] have been built," says Neil Robins, a train driver who's lived by the Romney Avenue site for 20 years.

"You see things like [the new sports centre] round the corner, which locals can't afford to use, and it feels like the

For five years, the neighbourhood trust has worked with residents to explore possibilities for developing community-led housing in Lockleaze. A site at the junction of Turner Gardens and Constable Road, which was acquired through the council's land disposals scheme and recently approved for 19 homes by planners, will be the first tangible fruit of this work. But community surveys also made the case more broadly for new homes in the area being targeted towards local need.

"The general sentiment has been that housing isn't going to be delivered, if it is delivered, it's unlikely to be affordable, and if it is affordable, it's not going to be for local people," says Alex Bugden, the neighbourhood trust’s community housing project manager.

About 200 people helped develop the local lettings policy through surveys and focus groups, according to Bugden, which fed into a draft document. Discussions between the trust and the council intensified, with officers deciding in 2021 to trial the policy for all new housing developments in Lockleaze.

Under the policy, which was finalised in spring 2022, all social and affordable homes built in community schemes like the one at Turner Gardens will be allocated to people with a

local connection and in housing need. Among the bigger developer-led schemes, the ratio will be 50% of social and affordable rent homes – but only the first time they come available, or if the initial tenants move out within the first year. This measure is broadly similar to an earlier, smaller local lettings policy covering Lawrence Weston, set up in 2016.

Local quirks

Significantly though, Lockleaze’s policy also covers older council homes with three bedrooms or more, where a household moving out takes a home on one of the new developments. Where this happens, the older home will also be prioritised for people with a local connection.

The rationale is that the policy can help people by making use not only of the unusual number of new homes coming available in Lockleaze, but other quirks of the area.

The existing council estate has a high proportion – about two-thirds – of large semi-detached houses, ideal for families. But many of those houses are home to people who've lived in them for decades and are now 'under-occupying' after children have gone.

The council, which offers its highest ‘Band 1’ rehousing priority to people

How the policy works

People can qualify for the Lockleaze local lettings policy in several ways – provided they have already been judged to be in housing need via Bristol City Council’s banding system:

• The simplest route is being a current resident, for at least two years without a break.

• Being able to demonstrate having previously spent two continuous years living on the estate, at some point within the last two years, also qualifies as having a local connection.

• People who have worked in Lockleaze for two years are also eligible for the local lettings policy.

• So are people who are homeless or living in temporary or supported housing, who can show they lived continuously in Lockleaze for two years.

willing to vacate homes with two or more spare bedrooms, found there was a greater proportion of households in this situation in Lockleaze than Bristol as a whole.

The same analysis, done in late 2020, found rehousing applications from Lockleaze households had double the level of need for four-bed homes compared with applications from the whole housing register (5% vs 2.5%).

These kinds of "discrepancies" make a local lettings policy viable, says Liz Dewing, a council project manager who's been leading on the nuts and bolts of the Lockleaze scheme.

‘I can't deal with all this now’ Maria Perrett, a Lockleaze local who is the neighbourhood trust’s community engagement lead and also chairs a residents’ planning group, says she's confident the scheme can make an impact.

She mentions local families who have had to leave Lockleaze, because the only suitable properties to rehouse them were on the other side of the city, making getting to school and work a struggle. Other, older people sometimes discuss how they have difficulty managing their homes, which often have big gardens, Perrett adds.

"One lady said, 'I'm not ready to go into a gated community, but I can't deal with all this now'," Perrett says. "She thought it was fascinating that by meeting her own needs, she could also help a family."

Perrett acknowledges though that not everyone in the area is switched on to the policy or will fancy moving – something that a morning’s door-knocking on the estate confirms.

On Landseer Avenue, 69-year-old retired chef Keith Williams says he'd consider downsizing from his home of more than 20 years. But only, he adds, if the council can find him a house swap in a picturesque bit of Cornwall (something that’s theoretically possible but not likely).

"This house is better than the crap they build nowadays, and better than a lot of the [existing] ones on here," he says. "Why would I move?"

While few people we speak to have a clear idea of what the lettings policy is about, most are generally in favour.

"Of course I am, 100%," says Neil Robins. "I've seen it a lot, people getting moved over to Hartcliffe or somewhere, where they know no one at all."

‘This could be popular everywhere’

A review of how the local lettings policy is doing, which will help inform whether to bring in similar rules elsewhere, will begin a year from when

the first homes are let under the scheme.

"I won't say it's a silver bullet – we all know the reality is more complicated," says Tom Renhard, Bristol City Council's cabinet member for housing.

Call out

LOCKLEAZE IN FOCUS

"Obviously, we'll need to look at how many people move within Lockleaze, but it's also about the knock-on impacts."

Initial analysis of a much wider survey by the council on housing allocations suggests similar moves could be popular "everywhere", Renhard adds. He mentions St Pauls as another possible neighbourhood that could work well, given its well-defined limits, engaged citizens and new housing developments taking place.

"Lockleaze is a good example of partnership working with the local community, where they've really influenced something the council is doing," Renhard says.

The coming months and years should demonstrate whether the council’s response can give something in return to Lockleaze, and other communities in Bristol.” •

The Cable wants to tell more stories from different parts of Bristol. That’s why we’re focusing on a new area in each edition.

Last time it was Filwood and now it’s Lockleaze. If you live in the area, we want to hear from you so that we can tell the stories that matter to you.

Live in Lockleaze?

• What do you love about your area?

• What would you like to change about your area?

Scan the QR code or Text/ Whatsapp:

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Alex Turner

“You question anything that's being put in Lockleaze – is it for local people?”

New homes off Bonnington Walk are being built on longstanding green space, just behind existing social housing

A large cleared site at the top of Romney Avenue awaits 268 new homes, around half of which will be affordable

Maria Perrett and Alex Bugden of Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust, which developed the concept of a local lettings policy with residents

clusive by what we were asking of people.”

She says the model also asked too much of the small, independent businesses who joined.

“We were saying, ‘please change your supply chains and train all your staff on all these ridiculous payment methods’… it was an administrative burden on them.”

‘An experiential journey’

“[Bristol Pay] is about taking people on an experiential journey, so they can see the impact they’re having. But we’ve got to capture people where they are, and that’s, you know, shopping in Tesco.”

The aim of the payment system would be to challenge existing payment providers – like PayPal – who extract money from the local economy through transaction charges.

“Those little, tiny transaction charges, in a city like Bristol, add up to something in the region of £60 million a year,” Finch tells me.

need to keep the local currency dream alive’

The Bristol Pound’s managing director on the rise and fall of the project, and why we should keep experimenting

Sean Morrison

Diana Finch’s radio has a few dents in it. It’s the victim of her frustration when she hears politicians talking unchallenged on the airwaves about the need to maximise economic growth.

“When I was a kid I used to close my eyes and try to think of a colour I’d never seen before,” she says. “It’s impossible, right? It’s very difficult to imagine something you’ve never experienced before.

“And that’s kind of the problem we have thinking about money and value. It’s always about markets and employment and growth, but what about different ways of looking at the world?”

Not surprising from the managing director of the Bristol Pound.

The community currency, launched a decade ago, set out to challenge our current economic system, which Finch says “damages the environment, perpetuates inequality and suffocates high streets”.

Giving sterling a run for its money

The Bristol Pound quickly emerged as the standard-bearer of community currency in the UK. At its peak, one million Bristol Pounds were circulating in the city through hundreds of businesses every year.

The idea was to keep money in the local area, rather than it landing in the pockets of large multinational corporations, and encourage people to spend cash and run their businesses more sustainably.

The currency could be spent at participating businesses, or between businesses, in return for goods or services.

Members could use the Bristol Pound – in cash or online – on buses and trains, groceries, and to pay council tax.

Despite its relative success, Bristol Pounds were removed from circulation last September after the Community Interest Company (CIC) failed to secure the funding it need -

ed to survive. Finch is making herself redundant but will try to keep the vision alive, voluntarily.

She has now launched Bristol Pay, a payment platform that will build on the work and vision of the Bristol Pound, incorporating learnings from the company’s first experiment.

But what went wrong with the Bristol Pound?

“There were several things,” says Finch, who got involved with the CIC in 2018, and whose role was essentially to ‘save’ it. “But number one on my list was our tone of voice and our marketing.”

The team’s “rather strident communications” sometimes sounded judgemental, she says.

Only about 0.02% of Bristol’s population used the currency. And of its users, about 80% of them had a degree, and many of them were in management roles.

“We were making it kind of ex -

Bristol cyclists’ experiences of intimidating driving underline the need for segregated cycle infrastructure

“But with Bristol Pay, the transaction charges that the businesses pay will directly fund voluntary sector services in the city – after school clubs, mental health support groups...”

“And this works not only for little indy businesses, but works for Tesco as it’s a chance for [chains] to evidence their social value.”

Members would also have a variety of ‘wallets’ on the Bristol Pay app, showing both the money they hold and the various token schemes they are able to sign up to.

“The tokens will count things that money doesn’t count – getting people to consider their ability to grow social and environmental capital.”

One example is a community token scheme that would recognise acts of kindness: a friend might give a token to a friend who helped them in the garden, or to a neighbour for lending them their power drill. Without funding, though, the platform can’t be built.

“We’re trying to keep the organisation going for at least another year, working voluntarily,” says Finch, who also wants to leave a legacy for the Bristol Pound.

She hosted the Way Out Economics conference in October, which brought together ‘new economy’ thinkers to discuss how to tackle challenges facing the economy.

“I failed to save the Bristol Pound,” she says, “but there’s plenty that needs doing in the world of alternative economics. We need to create a narrative and vision for this work, and get these ideas off the ground.” •

t started on Filton Avenue.”

Nathan Barnett, a 24-year-old software developer, had been cycling home from work when he encountered an aggressive taxi driver.

“There wasn’t enough room to overtake me,” he recalls. “So he pulled up next to me and started shouting. I told him to fuck off. I carried on and he drove off.”

That might have been the end of it –had Nathan not bumped into the taxi again. “I went past him and that’s when he pulled out and tried to run me off the road. I rode onto the pavement and got behind another car. He had his window down, yelling at me.”

Things then took an even more disturbing turn. “He threatened to put me in his boot. It was like some terrible comedy sketch.” The driver gave up and drove off. Nathan shrugged off the incident, but he has no doubt it would have shaken a novice. “In a way, it was fortunate it was me and not a new cyclist.”

Bristol became the UK’s first ‘cycling city’ in 2008, an accolade which came with a £11.4m grant to develop cycling infrastructure. It generally has higher cycling rates than many cities, but they could be even better. A survey by Bristol Cycling Campaign of 1,200 people, a third of whom didn’t cycle regularly, found that people’s main reasons for not cycling more were concerns about road safety, bike theft and personal safety.

Aggressive exchanges seem common on Bristol’s roads. In October, a van driver avoided jail after punching unconscious a cyclist who clipped his wing mirror. Bristol Cycling Campaign

cle network … segregated wherever possible”. The council said it would publish that after the West of England Combined Authority unveiled its Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP).

The LCWIP, published in 2021, proposes several cycling routes fanning out from Bristol city centre, segregated where possible.

Campaigners cautiously welcomed WECA’s plan. “The LCWIP describes a number of mostly radial routes to the centre that predominantly follow major roads,” Pond says. “That’s great, but these need to be in the context of an entire cohesive network.”

The council says Bristol has over 75 miles of segregated cycle lanes,

But the council hasn’t published its new cycling strategy yet, and the concern for many is that without it cycleways will remain disconnected and unsafe.

Pond says Bristol’s new cycling strategy must also include measures like secure bike parking and cycle training. “We helped create the last cycling strategy back in 2015. We’d be happy to help again.”

A council spokesperson said:

“Since writing the transport strategy we have had to respond to a number of issues, including COVID-19 and the government’s emergency Active Travel Fund. Our resources have been focused on dealing with those issues and drawing up plans to use

launched a petition calling on the council to take action for safer cycling after thousands protested the city’s lack of safe bike lanes. The petition has reached the 3,500 signature threshold for it to be debated by full council.

Francis Tocher, a PhD student liv ing in Westbury Park, was injured in an accident in March. “I was leaving a roundabout at the third exit,” he remembers. “Some guy came on from the second exit, failed to give way and hit me. I got a bit of whiplash and small fractures to my left elbow.”

Francis has also had close passes with buses, but emphasises this is not drivers’ fault and is often down to poor junction design.

He believes Bristol’s large junctions need segregated cycling infrastructure. “Quiet back roads don’t bother me,” he says. “But the high-stress, complicated junctions in the city centre have large amounts of traffic.”

Many agree with Francis. A study by cycling charity Sustrans found 82% of respondents thought cycleways segregated from traffic and pedestrians would help them cycle more.

Ian Pond of Bristol Cycling echoes this: “We accept not everyone can cycle and cycling isn’t appropriate for every journey. But with 47% of people in the UK owning or having access to a bike, if we’re going to persuade more people to cycle, they’ve got to feel it’s safe. “That means continuous, protected cycle corridors across the city, which allow everyone to see it’s safe, easy and reliable to cycle.”

In its 2019 transport strategy, the council committed to creating a new Bristol cycling strategy, which would aspire to build a “comprehensive cy

‘If we want more people to cycle, we need to make it feel safe ’

Alex King

‘We

andycartr

How can we make housing fit for the future?

Introducing our new Future of Cities project: exploring solutions to major problems facing cities, from Bristol and beyond

In an ever gloomier world, more of us are regularly doomscrolling or even avoiding the news altogether. Arguably, the Cable plays its part in that too, given our commitment to exposing wrongdoing and injustice.

This is why we want to write more about solutions to the problems we face in Bristol – and in other cities like it. People need to know more than just what’s wrong – we need to know how we can fix it.

Over the next year, the Cable will investigate solutions to Bristol’s problems. As part of a major project called The Future of Cities, we will ask: How can we develop cities fit for the future? This doesn’t mean puff pieces or fluff; our reporting will be as challenging and rigorous as ever, but also more constructive and hopeful.

Bristol faces the same challenges as other

COVER STORY

cities: housing insecurity, food and fuel poverty, and unequal access to public transport. We will examine these three topics, one at a time, starting with housing.

Why is this important? With half of the world’s population currently living in cities – a number expected to increase to more than two-thirds of people by 2050 – solutions for sustainable development must be found in cities. And perhaps more importantly, they need to be shared.

We will uncover the roots of these big problems cities are facing, ask if successful solutions from other cities can be applied to Bristol, and amplify grassroots solutions being pioneered closer to home.

Over the last few months, we’ve been researching solutions to the housing crisis with the help of specialist reporters and local experts. And so we’re excited to bring you the first story in this series: How social housing regeneration projects, co-designed with local communities, can empower council tenants to help build the estates of the future.

We live in one of the most centralised countries in Europe. Local councils’ powers are severely limited, and their scope for action has been further weakened by the last decade’s cuts to central government funding. This is why we will be looking at solutions on a range of levels, from what community action can achieve, to what councils and other organisations can do and, ultimately, what requires action at government level.

The housing crisis can feel overwhelming, and there is no silver bullet. It must be a patchwork of solutions working together to make affordable and secure housing a right for all. After you’ve read the main story, there are also ways to get involved and have your say. There will be much more to come in the next few months on housing and the built environment, before we move onto the next topic: public transport.

The Future of Cities project is funded by the European Journalism Centre’s Solutions Journalism Accelerator, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

When trust in the media is so low, and traditional business models are failing, we not only want to pioneer solutions journalism for our members and readers, but also so that other local papers can learn from us.

The end goal is more quality local journalism that leaves us feeling empowered as readers, instead of doomscrolling or switching off altogether. We produce journalism worth supporting. But, ultimately, it’s only through more local people becoming members and directly supporting the Cable’s work that we will be able to sustain this in the long term.

So if you’re already a Cable member, thank you for being a part of everything we do. If you’re not yet a member, join us and 2,600 others to find out what reinventing local journalism looks like: thebristolcable.org/join

RETHINKING REGENERATION: COULD CO-DESIGN HELP TRANSFORM THE CITY’S ESTATES?

It’s crunch time for many of Bristol’s post-war housing estates. Could the city’s crop of radical co-design projects provide a model for delivering regeneration at scale?

Ella Jessel and Sean Morrison

Toni Gray and her three-year-old daughter live in a bungalow in the back garden of her parents’ council house. It was built as part of a radical housing project in south Bristol recognised for its co-design approach. The 25-year-old, who had been living with her mum and dad while on Bristol City Council’s housing waiting list, had a say on her new home’s size and layout, and helped the building firm put it together before moving in in June.

“We sat in the garden and figured out what we wanted… We drew it up and I had a lot of input in all of it,” Toni tells the Cable. The bungalow has two bedrooms, a bathroom and an open-plan kitchen and living area.

“It’s great because I needed my independence and space, but mum is still close by. It’s much better for the little one.”

Toni’s was the first of two new council homes to be built in people’s gardens in Knowle West – a low-density, 1930s council estate – as part of a pilot run by community interest company We Can Make. The company, which is now working with the council on plans for 14 more homes, uses a co-design approach to development that it says empowers communities “to do housing on their own terms”. Co-design is championed by community-led schemes like We Can Make because – if done right – it can yield powerful results. But they tend to be small projects in neighbourhoods where land exists to build on.

Council tenant Toni Gray, left, helped design and build her new home

With the demand for council homes growing fast, the local authority is ramping up its house building efforts. But the city’s brownfield sites are limited; meanwhile, some existing council homes are in desperate need of repairs.

A shrinking budget only adds to the complexity of the problem. As does residents’ low level of trust in regeneration, which to some has become a byword for the displacement of communities.

If done right, co-design — where developers work with, rather than for the people who will live in the homes being built or refurbished — is an approach that can help maintain trust with communities, and deliver good-quality homes.

In other cities co-design is crossing into mainstream development and councils are trialling the approach as they attempt to get residents on board with major estate regeneration. So as Bristol City Council considers rebuilding and upgrading its social housing – under plans unveiled in 2020 that have so far failed to get off the ground – can co-design help it create the city’s council estates of the future?

CRUNCH TIME FOR POST-WAR ESTATES

Toni and her parents opted into the We Can Make scheme by volunteering their back garden. The council-owned land was then transferred to a community land trust on a long-term lease, and the plans for the site were drawn up according to

an evolving ‘community design code’.

The code is being developed collaboratively with the Knowle West estate’s residents. Its aim is to speed up the process of gaining planning approval, while ensuring the homes being built work for the local neighbourhood.

Melissa Mean, We Can Make’s managing director, says the group's process of “gentle, opt-in densification”, is about truly understanding community assets and learning what local people can bring to a development.

“With this, we’re able to bring in relationships of trust, understanding… That’s when the real magic of co-design happens,” says Mean. “We held very, very early engagement with the community about what kinds of things are welcome here.”

The fact Toni has known Mean since she was a child might have helped, too. She went to an after-school music group at Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC), where Mean is head of arts and where We Can Make is based.

“Toni has grown up with the media centre, and she’s been involved every step of the way,” Mean says. “She has been to all the workshops, worked with architects on the design of her home, right through to self-finish. She’s really proud.”

“Communities can feel a bit under siege with a development just kind of put to them,” Mean says.

“Generally, they get asked to be involved quite late in a process and it can feel a bit like a tickbox exercise.”

“What’s different here is we’re asking things as a community and trying things out,” she adds. “Be-

said it would identify estates most urgently in need of regeneration to make them low carbon, low energy and safe. Some homes could be demolished, it said at the time.

Since then, while some estates that were deemed to be among the poorest-performing have had external upgrades carried out, the programme hasn’t got off the ground.

In fact, the council hasn’t embarked on a major housing estate regeneration project for two decades.

Tom Renhard, the authority’s cabinet member for housing, turned down several requests to be interviewed for this article. But speaking to the Cable last summer, he did not rule out housing being razed and rebuilt as the local authority grapples with how to improve its homes.

Restating a promise made by his predecessor Paul Smith, he said council tenants would be fully consulted on any proposals, including having a veto over whether homes are demolished.

Renhard was clear he supported a co-design approach to regeneration, but no commitment was made. “We’re trying to bring communities with us,” he said. “That might mean taking a bit longer to get it right, and do something the majority of people are happy with, but ensuring that we go through a co-design process is more important to me.”

Involving residents in major regeneration schemes might feel like a mammoth task. But there are tried and tested examples of how to go about scaling up co-design across an entire estate.

Bristol could look to projects such as north London’s award-winning Packington Estate, which involved existing residents in its major rebuild.

cause of the scale of the [housing] crisis, we’ve got to try new ways of doing stuff.”

But the scale of We Can Make is dwarfed by the number of people living in social housing in need of repairs, or still stuck on the waiting list. Almost 18,500 people are on Bristol City Council’s housing waiting list, and more than 1,000 are in temporary accommodation waiting for somewhere suitable to live.

Under Bristol City Council's ‘Project 1000’ initiative, it’s aiming to build 1,000 affordable homes a year by 2024. The majority of homes in the newbuild programme are on brownfield and derelict sites.

The local authority’s attention, however, is also turning to its existing estates.

The council owns 28,000 properties, including 62 high-rises and 450 low-rise blocks. The scale of the challenge to maintain and modernise this council housing so it’s fit for the future, while getting residents on board, is huge.

It has been criticised over poor conditions of some of its housing, such as a sheltered housing block in Hartcliffe, Walwyn Gardens, where tenants have complained of freezing conditions and damp.

A report published earlier this year says £2.7m of upgrades will start at Walwyn soon and highlights how maintaining its large portfolio is a “significant challenge”, exacerbated by rising construction costs. It identifies a list of more than a dozen estates where major work is required.

Under plans for an “ambitious estate regeneration” programme unveiled in 2020, the council

“The residents didn’t want to get shipped up to the north end of the site next to the road,” explains Kaye Stout, the architect at Pollard Thomas Edwards (PTE) who led the regeneration’s design from 2009. “Our team said the first phase is next to the canal, let’s put all the residents there because, frankly, that will mean we will win.”

Not all the bidders were so astute. The selection day was “illuminating”, recalls Durbridge, with residents taken aback at a proposal to put a fake canal through the centre of the site and another that squeezed in so many homes the blocks were almost touching. “What they presented made you wonder if they had been in the same room as you.”

Ultimately, large housing association Hyde and PTE won the contract, and they set up a shadow estate board with a design sub group. It took 12 years to build, eventually completing in 2019. While not everything on the wishlist made it through, on the “big things” Hyde delivered, Durbridge says.

The term ‘co-design’ was not used at the time

but was there in all but name, says Stout, whose practice PTE has used the approach since the 1970s. The architect stressed how as well as being “fierce” campaigners, Packington residents were ahead of their time. Most of their demands would later appear in the London’s Housing Design Guide, a blueprint first introduced in 2010 for new homes across the capital.

Other factors played into its success. The scheme started before the era of austerity kicked in, with Hyde able to access £33m in central government “gap” funding to kickstart the project. Its affluent location also meant the private homes would fetch huge prices, though one of its many awards praises Hyde for resisting the “temptation to capitalise more than necessary”.

Packington’s status as an estate in transition between owners also played its part, presenting a rare opportunity for residents to step in and influence the scheme’s direction. Councils will usually take decisions privately on how many homes a regeneration will include, and which type of housing should occupy the site’s prime land, as these factors directly impact on a scheme’s financial viability.

Packington’s results are testament to what can be done if residents are allowed into the process. As Durbridge says: “People live on these estates, they know what works and what doesn’t work. It’s very arrogant that people think they know what’s best for you.”

RIGHT WRONGS, REPAIR TRUST

‘PEOPLE LIVE ON THESE ESTATES, THEY KNOW WHAT WORKS’

In 2003, Jan Durbridge returned from holiday to a letter explaining her flat on the Packington Estate was structurally unsafe and facing demolition. The estate, near Angel, was built in the 1970s by Islington Council using the same construction method as Ronan Point, an East London tower block that partially collapsed after a gas explosion, killing four people.

With buildings ruled unsafe, residents had two options: strengthen the existing buildings or demolish all 538 homes and rebuild them, in addition to 300 new private units. The estate’s tenants and leaseholders formed the Packington Reference Group (PRG) and took the “unanimous decision to pull it down”, says Durbridge.

But to pay for the rebuild, Islington Council had to transfer the estate to new owners. So the PRG met with interested landlords and drew up a wishlist of improvements. “Old Packington had been described as a sink estate. I don’t think it was, but it certainly had problems,” Durbridge recalls.

The old estate’s inward-looking layout encouraged anti-social behaviour, which meant a top ask from residents was to reinstate the site’s original Victorian street pattern. Tenants asked for the prioritisation of social housing over the 300 private homes cross-subsidising the scheme. Traditional brick and block construction, spacious flats and balconies that could accommodate a table were also on the wishlist.

From Blair to Cameron, over the past few decades politicians of all stripes zoned in on housing estates as symbols of wider societal problems, blaming modernist architecture for “designing in” poverty and crime.

But the regeneration schemes of the nough-

"Co-design can be a process of empowerment for local communities"

Hana Loftus, architect and planner

Toni and her daughter, 3, in her parents' garden where her new place now stands

The bungalow has two bedrooms and an open-plan kitchen and living space

Melissa Mean, right, is the director of the We Can Make project

Bristol City Council is considering demolishing and rebuilding some of its housing estates

ties did not deliver on bold promises of renewal. Instead, estates across the UK became battlegrounds, with higher land value cities like London some of the worst affected.

The Heygate Estate in south London was formerly home to around 3,000 residents before they were “decanted” and the buildings demolished, a cautionary tale for how destructive regeneration can be. It wasn’t just estates either, as private terraced houses across the North and the Midlands were bought up and demolished under New Labour's controversial Pathfinder initiative. Awareness about the marginalisation of council tenants’ voices has grown since the 2017 Grenfell fire saw residents’ repeated fire safety warnings ignored.

Against this backdrop, councils’ use of co-design as a regeneration ‘tool’ is rising, suggesting an effort to right past wrongs and repair trust. But experts fear co-design is sometimes used as lip-service to resident engagement.

“It’s become a buzzword,” says Hana Loftus, an architect and planner with extensive co-design expertise. “Ultimately, it’s not handing over or sharing power that meaningfully.”

A co-design approach fits naturally with the UK’s community-led housing sector. One example is Bristol Community Land Trust’s 12-home Fishponds Road project where residents even completed the homes’ fit-outs themselves. Its second, larger, project in Lockleaze adopts a similar “self-finish” approach.

Finding completed co-designed estate projects is tougher, but Anglo-Swedish architect Ralph Erskine’s pioneering Byker Wall estate in Newcastle stands out. Built to replace Victorian back-toback terraces in the 1970s, Byker is famous among modern architecture aficionados for its striking 1.3 mile spine of brightly coloured maisonettes.

Equally important, as Historic England notes in its Grade II listing, the estate took a “pioneering … approach to public participation”.

Yet, the original plan for residents to return wasn’t fully realised.

There are many reasons co-design on large social housing projects is hard, Loftus says. Among them are local politics, a lack of resources, and disillusionment from previous, failed regeneration attempts. The most fundamental, perhaps, is reconciling responsibilities to existing tenants and to building homes for the thousands of people sitting on council waiting lists, or in overcrowded temporary accommodation.

North London’s Barnet Council tried out co-design on their Fosters Estate after a bruising experience at another estate that culminated in residents accusing the local authority of “social cleansing” on TV.

Loftus was hired to lead the two-year co-design process and residents helped shape the scheme with the architect, pushing to retain the estate’s “park-like” feel. However, the council “lost its nerve” when the plans attracted over 200 objections, and after it was approved Barnet did not renew Loftus’ contract. This is common on co-designed estate projects, when the client doesn’t get the outcome they are

WHAT NEXT FOR OUR FUTURE OF CITIES SERIES?

STORIES TO COME

This is the first of four stories on the future of housing in Bristol and beyond. One of these will be an investigation into what rent controls could look like in Bristol and what we can learn from other cities around the world.

Towards the end of the year we’ll be switching our focus to the next topic: public transport – a vital aspect of building sustainable cities for the future. As part of this, we’ll be hosting a public event so you can join the conversation.

Find out more: thebristolcable.org/futurecities

HOW CAN I TAKE ACTION?

Learn how to co-design council estates of the future: A short film, playbook and podcasts will explain the ins and outs of We Can Make’s community design code and their journey so far. wecanmake.org

Find out where you can afford to rent: Check out an interactive tool we’ve built to show how much of Bristol is affordable to renters on different incomes, which is based on data we’ve been collecting since the start of the year.

hoping for, says Loftus. “They feel – we've done loads of really great engagement with our residents. So why are they still unhappy?”

Yet Loftus says this misses the point of co-design, which is to get the best design solution possible through involving residents, rather than making “everyone agree”.

Barnet Council said it was committed to maintaining a strong community on Fosters Estate and it had “learned a lot” from its co-design process. It added that its masterplan “demonstrates the

value of putting residents at the heart of decision making”.

‘A

PROCESS OF EMPOWERMENT’

Experimental projects like We Can Make in Knowle West and London’s Packington Estate show that working with local people can build trust and housing fit for the future. Loftus describes how at its best co-design can deliver more than that, becoming a “process of empowerment”.

“Communities have a huge amount of knowhow and creativity, and we’ve got to better tap into that,” says Mean, whose We Can Make project is expecting to build another four council homes in Knowle West by next spring. “That’s where new ideas are going to come from. And we definitely need some new ideas… The housing crisis isn’t going to be fixed by ‘business as usual’.”

Scaling co-design up from Bristol’s micro-sites to an estate with hundreds or even thousands of residents would be a challenge. But standing at the beginning of its new estate regeneration chapter, with a wealth of local knowledge and expertise to draw on, Bristol City Council has a chance to rewrite the rulebook. •

Join our discussion forum: Are you involved in housing in some way? Share your knowledge and shape the direction of our future coverage of solutions to the housing crisis.

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"It’s very arrogant that people think they know what’s best for you."

Jan Durbridge, The Packington Estate

London’s Packington Estate, which involved existing residents in a major rebuild

BRISTOL GOES TO THE BALL

The ballroom scene is a subculture that originated in the US, where queer Black and Latinx people walk a runway with prizes handed out for their performances by a panel of judges. The movement began largely in response to racism at established drag pageants.

This summer, Bristol hosted its first ball at the Trinity Centre, organised by Aysha Chamberlain from the Bristol Ballroom Community to "celebrate queer and Black and Brown excellence".

Photographer Darren Shepherd discovered ballroom through the iconic film Paris is Burning. "For me, ballroom is the personification of queer resilience and queer joy," he says. "It's also very photogenic. It's been a longstanding interest of mine, ever since I became interested in photography.

"It was on the hottest night of the year," he adds. "So I fell for everyone who was walking. The audience aren't sat down, they're stood up, they're shouting. I was streaming with sweat taking the photos, but the atmosphere was electric." •

Aphra Evans Photos by Darren Shepherd

1. Mis Fortune from the Bristol Ballroom Community.

2. Judge Bambi Revlon shows how it should be done.

3. Maleeka serving face with assistance from Luke, both from Bristol Ballroom Community.

4. Aysha from Bristol Ballroom Community, the driving force behind Bristol's first ball.

‘A tragic reflection on society’: the Bristolians jailed for sleeping rough, and feeding pigeons

Civil injunctions used to tackle anti-social behaviour can end up punishing vulnerable people, to little good effect. Is there an alternative, truly restorative way of tackling anti-social behaviour?

Feeding pigeons on his balcony landed Nicholas in jail. He broke a controversial court order that experts say is being used as a “weapon” against vulnerable people, and is sometimes used incorrectly by authorities.

Nicholas’ bird-feeding habit attracted up to 150 pigeons at a time to his Bristol tower-block flat, with droppings and flies creating a health risk for him and his neighbours.

In 2018, he was served an antisocial behaviour injunction following an application by Bristol City Council. This required him to stop feeding the birds, and to keep council-installed netting on his balcony in place.

But Nicholas continued to breach this order – 13 times – and was brought before Bristol County Court in June 2020. The court heard he had also thrown bird feed onto neighbours’ balconies.

Nicholas got a 15-week prison sentence for breaching the order. He might have been a nuisance, but should he really have been put behind bars?

To explore that question, the Cable spoke to legal experts about the impact civil injunctions can have on vulnerable people, and whether their usage is justified. We also explored

non-legal, restorative alternatives with a Bristol-based charity.

‘A tragic reflection on society’

Last July, Ramon was found to have breached an injunction, which ordered him to stop begging on the streets of Bristol, on three occasions.

Even according to the sitting judge, Ramon’s case was a tragic one. He was left homeless, with significant mental health issues, after breaking up with his partner.

The judge admitted Ramon was guilty of passive – as opposed to aggressive – begging, but still sentenced him to six months.

He was one of 15 people brought before Bristol’s courts between October 2019 and May 2022 for breaching an anti-social behaviour injunction, according to data shared with the Cable by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (see box).

Four individuals received immediate prison sentences, totalling almost 11 months between them, for breaching an injunction. Nine got suspended sentences.

“They’re awful outcomes,” says Sarah Flanagan, associate at leading solicitor firm Hodge Jones & Allen.

“When we put someone in prison because they’re begging for food, what does that say about society?”

Putting someone in prison because they’re begging for food is

“a tragic reflection on society”, she adds, clearly disturbed despite her eight years’ experience as a solicitor.

“But people don’t even know about it. That’s the helpful thing for the government, that all these people ‘don’t count’. They don’t have a voice. They have to just survive.”

‘I’ve struggled to find suitable barristers’

Flanagan’s experience has highlighted a worrying trend: people are struggling to get legal representation for themselves or their loved ones. Of the 15 people brought before the court in Bristol, at least three had no legal representation. Dealing with multiple addictions and having had her children taken into care, Nadine was handed an injunction in 2020 preventing her from disturbing her neighbours. Following 13 alleged breaches, she was brought before court in October 2021. She received a 28-day suspended sentence after representing herself – because she was unable to access legal aid.

The Home Office told the Cable that access to legal representation is kept under constant review, and action is taken whenever gaps appear.

A key barrier for defence lawyers,

Two years later, the new Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act was introduced, including a new controversial measure: civil injunctions. As well as replacing ASBOs, these superseded an older type of injunction, which was used by councils and housing associations (not the police) but could only be served on over-18s.

If granted, injunctions can ban individuals from certain areas and require them to stop certain behaviours, like drinking in public, for a potentially unlimited amount of time.

Flanagan says, is that there is confusion about whether anti-social behaviour injunctions are criminal or civil matters: “The application of an injunction is a civil process, but once that injunction is in place, any breach of it is potentially criminal, even though the act which the person is doing is not itself a criminal offence.”

One of her former clients, in severe mental ill-health, had an injunction that required them to be courteous to their neighbours. If they weren’t, they could face a prison sentence. “It’s basically saying you need to conform 24/7 to a social norm,” she says, adding that the process can end up essentially “criminalising somebody for having mental health problems”.

In response to the Cable’s findings, a Home Office spokesperson said: “The Anti-social behaviour, Crime and Policing Act provides the police, local authorities and other local agencies with flexible powers they can use to protect communities and prevent harm. It is for local areas to determine how best to deploy these [anti-social behaviour] powers, however we expect them to be used proportionately and an injunction cannot be enforced without being granted by the courts.”

Bristol City Council declined to comment.

‘These orders are being used in ways that are completely incoherent’

Until 2014, ASBOs were often used by public authorities to tackle ‘anti-social behaviour’, a legal term encompassing a wide range of actions, such as public drunkenness, disturbing your neighbours and even begging. The infamous orders were scrapped due to their failure to tackle the underlying causes of anti-social behaviour and the fact that more than half were being breached at least once.

In 2012, Theresa May, then Home Secretary, pushed for reform, saying that “anti-social behaviour still ruins too many lives.”

ASBOs, surely you would want to show how much better it was working.”

The 2014 legislation didn’t just introduce new civil injunctions, but also other civil-criminal orders, such as public space protection orders (PSPOs), community protection notices and criminal behaviour orders.

“When they were introduced, I understand they were meant to be used in different circumstances,” Fraser says. “But what we have heard is that increasingly these orders are being used together, in ways that are incoherent and inconsistent.”

But they do not only target actual behaviour, but can also be enforced against a person who is only threatening anti-social behaviour.

They can also make ‘positive’ demands on an individual, such as requiring them to attend a drug misuse course. Breaches can result in prison sentences of up to two years for people over 18.

Andrea Fraser, a lawyer at UK law reform organisation JUSTICE, said: “In the run-up to the 2014 Act, [we saw] calls by the Home Office for a more flexible, victimfocused response to ASB.”

However, when civil injunctions and other similar civil-criminal orders were introduced by the 2014 Act, Fraser says there was also a decline in the publication of data regarding their use.

“Why was that?” she asks. “If you introduced this new tool which you thought was going to be better than

Broken system of antisocial behaviour laws Research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that someone is in court every eight days in the UK for breaching an anti-social behaviour injunction.

The Bureau analysed 156 judgments in England and Wales since the beginning of 2019, finding that injunctions had been handed out to elderly men playing dominoes in public and numerous people with serious mental health issues.

The research found 11 instances in which a person’s mental health issues were explicitly mentioned by the judge who handed down a custodial sentence.

New research published last month from Sheffield Hallam University found that some police officers were “turning a blind eye” to homelessness, whilst others used the PSPOs, alongside other formal powers, to actively “seek out people experiencing street homelessness”.

‘It is important to highlight the need for non-legal routes’ Fraser says there are now more than 20 different civil-criminal orders. JUSTICE has set up a 12-month investigation into their use.

“I think our recommendations will be a mix of how orders can be improved in terms of fairness, and also their effectiveness at protecting victims,” Fraser says. “It is also important to highlight the need for non-legal routes to tackle some of the issues civil-criminal orders seek to address, especially around issues such as homelessness.”

Bristol-based conflict-resolution charity Resolve West is one organisation exploring how anti-social behaviour can be tackled via non-legal routes. It supports communication between neighbours in dispute, for example, through joint meetings with experienced mediators.

One user of the service said: “I can’t fault the approach at all and further dealing with the police would not have been so positive for me as I would have been more frightened.”

Nina Bayandor, the charity’s deputy director, says most antisocial behaviour “tends to start with someone going about their life in a way that is different to somebody else’s, having different ideas about what is OK and what is not OK”.

Bayandor says it’s vital to give people autonomy during this process. “We’re of the mindset that it’s not helpful to apportion blame, it’s about supporting people to live harmoniously wherever possible.”

She believes involving the courts can sometimes “fuel the fire” of these types of conflict. “Going down the route of criminal justice can be an aggravating factor,” she says. •

Billy Stockwell

“When we put someone in prison because they’re begging for food, what does that say about society?”

Laurence_ware_design

The ripped off customers who fought back

People across Bristol are owed hundreds of pounds by a mysterious carpentry business operating on Facebook, and feel let down by the authorities’ response

Denise Roberts was pregnant, and keen to get some work done in her loft before her first child arrived.

She saw a Facebook advert for a business, Home and Garden Services, which quoted her £880. She had to fork out £250 upfront.

“We wanted it quickly because I was pregnant,” Denise tells the Cable. “He then asked for another £330 for materials, because the usual supplier wasn’t available.”

The job was booked in for just three weeks later in February 2022. But then things started going wrong. The tradesman cancelled and rescheduled, not once or twice, but three times, until Denise gave up and demanded a refund.

“I told them I’m pregnant, I’m on statutory [maternity] sick pay in the next few months,” she says. “They don’t seem to care. It’s a lot of money, I could really use it for the baby. It’s additional stress, you really need your energy on other things."

The refund was promised again and again, but it didn’t arrive. “I’m sleep deprived,” she adds. “I don't want to focus on it anymore but I don't want to give up. Especially with all the rising costs, it’s a lot of money to lose to scammers.”

But Denise wasn’t alone. “When the refund didn’t arrive, I thought, ‘I need to look into this’. And I found all these other people online with similar experiences.”

By this point, a few months later, other people who had been ripped off by the business had started organising.

When Denise was in hospital having her baby, four weeks premature, she spoke to another victim who was de-

termined to collect all the evidence of people being ripped off and report it to the police.

Their research uncovered a mysterious business operating multiple Facebook pages that had changed its name 13 times in three years. Even though there was no website and the phone number was never answered, there were positive reviews and real jobs being done. But they also discovered a clear pattern of taking deposits and material payments, booking and cancelling jobs, and then not sticking to their word when refunds were promised.

The Cable is aware of 14 people in the Bristol area who have had requested refunds – ranging from £70 to £750 – withheld by this business, which at the time of writing was operating under the name Every Day Carpentry Services. Sometimes refunds have arrived after weeks or months. But other people are still hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

You might think a detailed report would make a strong case for the police to investigate. But when one victim tried to submit evidence, including screenshots and bank details, to Avon and Somerset Police, they were told to contact Action Fraud, a national reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime.

Months later, despite multiple victims following this advice, there is no sign their cases have been passed onto the police for criminal investigation.

Fraud going uninvestigated

Fraud is the most common crime in England and Wales, costing the UK £137 billion a year. And there was

a surge in scams during the pandemic, when more people were using online services.

But locally, concerns have been raised by Mark Shelford, police and crime commissioner for Avon and Somerset, about cases not being investigated.

Data acquired by the Cable under freedom of information laws shows that £117 million worth of fraud has been reported between 2019 and 2021 in the Avon and Somerset area. Nearly 10,000 reports have been submitted to Action Fraud every year, but only one in ten were then referred to the police for investigation.

Even when these cases are referred to the police, positive outcomes for victims are rare. According to separate data from Avon and Somerset Police, in the last three years, there have been more than 2,000 investigations into fraud. The most common outcomes were ‘no suspect identified/ no line of enquiry’ (37%), and lack of evidence (13%). Only 8.6% of investigations ended up with a suspect being charged.

Taking matters into your own hands

Avon and Somerset Police was unable to say whether an investigation into Every Day Carpentry Services or related businesses was in progress. The Cable understands that a trading standards investigation is underway at Bristol City Council, but the local authority said it could not confirm or deny this.

Despite the dozen examples of withheld refunds the Cable has uncovered, the business does have positive reviews from other jobs. George Lai had his loft done by LT Services, as it was then known, in late 2020 with no issue. So he was shocked when he had his refund withheld from him earlier this year by the same company.

His experience follows the same pattern as Denise’s: a £450 deposit collected, more cash requested for materials, then the job scheduled six times and cancelled at the last minute.

George asked for a refund in May 2022. “First, he paid £45 and said he forgot the zero,” he tells the Cable. “The second time, he paid was another silly amount, £105, and kept making excuses for not paying the whole amount. I chased him again and he said he’d pay it soon. Eventually, at the end of August, he refunded all the money.”

“It was very stressful, something you can do without,” George says.

“It’s not just the money, it’s taken too much of my time trying to get money back from him, the number of messages. He tells you he’s going to sort it next week, next week.

“He’s trying to scam people,” he

adds. “I don’t think he’s taking on too many jobs. He’s making excuses.”

George has contacted Facebook to ask why it is allowing this business to advertise when there are so many public posts about people being ripped off, but unsurprisingly he hasn’t received a response.

In spring of this year, Chris Pope found the company, then called LT Carpentry Services, on Facebook and paid £700 deposit and materials fee, only for the job on his loft to be cancelled last minute or have nobody show up three times.

“We’ve only just got our house, I need to make room for our child who is coming in February [2023],” he tells the Cable. “It’s my mistake, I should have fact checked."

After multiple chasing messages, there was no progress. “I basically messaged them again, pleading with them, saying that I have a child on the way, but they ignored me,” he says.

“They get shamed so they keep changing the name,” Chris adds.“When we took it to the police, they couldn't be any less interested.”

Still waiting Chris decided to take matters into his own hands and threatened legal action through his solicitor. But at the time of writing, he’s still £700 out of pocket.

Denise was first offered her refund in March. After months of chasing she was told in September the business is no longer operating and her refund would be paid imminently. She did receive a payment, but is still owed £300.

The Cable put the allegations from customers awaiting refunds to the business, currently operating under the name Every Day Carpentry Services, and they said in response: “The business has tried to evolve through the pandemic with adapting to take on other works but unfortunately hasn’t made it and will be fully closed from this week due to this and any issues around the business sorted and closed!”

Shortly after the Cable contacted the business, customers started receiving messages: “We can confirm the business will be all closed from Wednesday next week and any outstanding refund jobs etc will be all completed and sorted out by this date.”

However, this deadline was missed for multiple customers, and at the time of writing, neither Denise nor Chris had been fully refunded. Even if refunds eventually arrive, this has been a stressful experience for those out of pocket. “I don't want other people to fall for the same thing,” Denise says. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.” •

Matty Edwards

A Facebook advert from Every Day Carpentry Services

A snapshot of all the times the business has changed its name

Photo: Izzy de Wattripont

The Castle Green Dispensary, early 1900s. Now almost completely forgotten, dispensaries provided a vital primary care service for the poorest

Ham Green Hospital was for many decades Bristol’s main isolation hospital for infectious diseases. It is now home to the Penny Brohn UK cancer care charity

Notice from the Bristol Evening Post from the 1930s. Before most people had access to a telephone, patients at Ham Green and other isolation hospitals were allocated a number and daily updates on each number’s progress would be published in the press

A history of Bristol's healthcare for the working classes

It's a myth that there was little or no access to free medical care before the establishment of the NHS in 1948 – but progress was slow, unequal and sometimes grisly

Eugene Byrne

to gain experience or because they felt it was a duty.

The Bristol General Hospital, originally just a house in Guinea Street, opened on similar lines in the 1830s, as did the Children’s Hospital – originally the Bristol Hospital for Sick Children and for the Outdoor Treatment of Women – which opened in 1866 and is the second-oldest paediatric hospital in England.

Until the mid-1800s, more people in Bristol generally died than survived infancy. Accidents and violence killed some, but far more died of diseases resulting from cramped living conditions, poor hygiene, inadequate sanitation and fluctuating food prices. The population could only be sustained by incomers from surrounding counties and further afield.

Waves of disease regularly carried away huge numbers, from plagues and the mysterious Tudor-era “sweating sickness”, to cholera in the 19th century, not to mention endemic diseases like smallpox. Before modern medical science, everyone thought human contact, overcrowding and ‘bad air’ caused disease to spread, which is partly why from the late 1700s wealthier citizens started escaping to the salubrious suburb of Clifton.

Bristol’s population rocketed from around 70,000 to around 330,000 over

the 19th century, partly due to medical advances but mostly thanks to improved sewers, clean drinking water, public health initiatives and reliable supplies of affordable food.

We now take such things for granted, as well as free-to-access healthcare, even if the system is now overstretched and underfunded. Our city's often grisly, pre-NHS medical history is worth taking a look back at, whether or not it makes you feel better about the wait to see your dentist.

The plagues

The 14th-century Black Death pandemic killed a large proportion, perhaps as high as half, of England’s population. Scraps of testimony from Bristol mention families self-isolating in their homes and grass growing in empty streets, with the death rate in the densely populated city almost certainly far worse than the national average. Plague was a regular visitor until the mid-1600s. Some outbreaks carried

off as many as 2,500 people, around a quarter of Bristol’s Tudor-era population. By then, there were preventive measures in place, including quarantine areas for travellers and goods from London during plague outbreaks. The Great Plague of 1665-6 was catastrophic for London, but Bristol got off lightly. It already had at least one “pest house” where isolating plague patients would be fed and looked after for free –an incentive for families to place them there. The rather discouragingly named “Forlorn Hope” was in St Nicholas Road, St Paul’s.

Voluntary hospitals

Before the 20th century, patients who could afford it were generally treated at home, while hospitals were usually for the poor. The Bristol (later Royal) Infirmary was one of the earliest ‘voluntary hospitals’ in the country, founded in the 1730s to treat people, usually free of charge. Funded by local benefactors, medical staff generally worked for free

Southmead was originally a workhouse with an infirmary, while Frenchay, now closed, was a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients opened by the council in 1921. During the First World War, both were used for war efforts before returning to civilian hands. Frenchay remained one of the region’s major hospitals until 2014.

Ham Green hospital near Pill was a former country house bought by Bristol City Council in the 1890s to use as an isolation hospital for infectious diseases. (Before this, patients had been kept on a ship moored at the mouth of the Avon.) It closed some years ago, but lives on in the folklore of many families.

Because visitors were forbidden, Ham Green allocated patients a number and each day the local press carried a report on the progress of each. That way, families with no access to a telephone could find out how their loved ones were. Treatment was free, because it was in the public interest to contain infectious disease.

Dispensaries, the forgotten primary care system

By the early 20th century, medical science was starting to make a difference. Hospital treatment was usually free,

but primary care cost money. By 1939, many families were covered by some sort of insurance, or a friendly society where people would club together to support each other, or were covered under the 1911 National Insurance Act. The issue of payment was confusing, and many schemes only covered the breadwinner, not the rest of the family. Working-class mothers would often go without paying for treatment in order to see their families fed and clothed.

The costs of seeing a doctor prompted dispensaries to open. Supported by donations, charities, religious organisations or local businesses, there were several in Bristol by the early 20th century, providing a GP service and medicine for the very poorest at low or no cost.

Sometimes there was a catch. The Bristol Medical Mission in Redcross Street, Old Market, required its patients to sit through a 20-minute religious service, with hymns accompanied by a harmonium player, before they could see a doctor.

Bristol doctors resisted the NHS

One of the myths around the establishment of the NHS in 1948 is that previously the working classes had little or no access to medical care. This was not true; by then, all but the poorest could see a doctor easily enough. What the NHS did was make a haphazard and confusing system of private, voluntary, charitable and insured medicine simple, accessible and free for all. There had been talk of setting up a health service that would provide free medical care for all since well before the Second World War, and in 1942, under Churchill’s wartime

coalition government, there emerged a cross-party consensus that something should be done.

It fell to Aneurin Bevan, health minister in the postwar Labour government, to set up the NHS, but this involved a massive amount of work to untangle and incorporate the existing doctors, hospitals, charitable and local authority services. The British Medical Association resisted fiercely. Some doctors simply resented the end of their independence – “the enslavement of a noble profession”, said one.

Doctors in Bristol were among the most resistant. At a meeting attended by 380 doctors from Bristol, Bath and Somerset at the Royal Fort in Clifton in February 1948, 366 voted against the terms of the National Health Service Act. But it came into being in July the same year. Bevan made a few concessions, notably through paying doctors on the number of patients they had rather than salaries, and by allowing private practice to continue. He was quoted as saying, “I had to stuff their mouths with gold”.

Bristol’s long history and great wealth produced a lot of charitable giving. In life and in their wills, rich people left large amounts of money to the community. By Victorian times, the city had a bewildering array of charities and old people’s homes. The voluntary hospitals and dispensaries supported both by ancient charities and fundraising drives were a part of this.

Big local industrial dynasties gave very large sums to local good causes, including the Quaker Fry family who made chocolate, the Wills family who produced tobacco products and mining magnate Handel Cossham who set up

an entire hospital. This local philanthropy started to fade with the welfare state, but mostly because globalisation cut the ties between companies and their hometowns.

Despite the massive strain that the NHS is under today, socialised medicine and the immense and continuing

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advances in medical science have made conditions that were killers only a century ago treatable. But a long-lasting trend for philanthropy among Bristol's wealthy meant that even in the days before the NHS, this city was probably a better place to be poor and sick than many others. •

AGGRESSION & TENDERNESS B

eth Griffin – better known as Grove – is sitting opposite me in the beer garden of the Cadbury, in Montpelier, nursing half an IPA. Wearing chunky black boots and a black hoodie against a chilly early autumn wind, they lean on the table, revealing a tattoo on each forearm.

“This one is unity in diversity,” they say, pointing to two conjoined crocodiles on their right arm, “which I think is just a great principle to try and live by.” The tattoo is an Adinkra symbol, used by the Akan people of Ghana to represent proverbs and aphorisms, which are frequently used in printing and textiles. “This is just a little sign of good living,” they continue, pointing to the symbol on their left arm. “That's kind of what I want to be coursing through the veins. Good, well-intentioned living.”

This neatly summarises Grove’s approach to life and music, encapsulating their belief in the strength that comes through collective endeavours. The non-binary artist has made a substantial impact in a short space of time with a number of releases – including the EPs Spice and Queer + Black – which unashamedly celebrate queer sexuality while taking aim at larger social forces through a frenetic mix of punk-tinged dancehall, garage and sprinklings of jungle. Underpinning this potent creative output is a quiet self-confidence, a fierce intellectual curiosity and a desire to understand the world around them. Grove’s music has found a natural home in Bristol, which has been their

Following an explosive first festival season, Bristol-based producer and vocalist Grove sits down with the Cable to talk punk, power and vulnerability

‘Each of us holds power’ The word empowerment comes up several times in our conversation and I ask them what they mean by it. “Again, something I've been thinking about a lot recently. Say power to one person, and they're like, ‘oh yeah, Elon Musk – he's powerful!’. But the form of power that I think about is this sense of shared power – power that everyone innately has.”

base for nearly five years, though they were born and grew up in Cheltenham. “Things make a lot more sense here, compared to Cheltenham. The older I got, the more I was like, 'none of this makes sense,’” they say of their hometown. Born to a Jamaican mother and Irish/English father, growing up in the town wasn’t always easy. As a teenager, their Black and queer identity felt at odds with the more monolithic culture the town had to offer.

They soon found themselves gravitating towards Bristol, lured by grime and dub nights, and events hosted by queer people of colour. Bristol’s more politically engaged culture also felt more welcoming. “It feels like the total opposite energy of [Cheltenham]. It feels like there's an awareness [of political issues], and also a wildness that I enjoy.” But despite feeling at home in the city, there are also aspects of its underground music scene that they find troubling. “I think there's quite a big problem with ketamine,” they say. “What I see at some drum and bass nights is: you walk in and it's like, ‘is anyone connecting with each other here?’”

They see the tendency for some young people to want to disassociate from reality as stemming from a mix of factors, including ecological anxiety and financial insecurity. “There is this impending doom that definitely plagues my mind. Luckily, I've wanted to seek out the tools to be able to deal with that in a way that doesn't involve narcotics and drinking.” This has resulted in both a deeply disciplined creative practice – they’ve already been in the studio all day by the time we meet –and an emphasis on forging connections with like-minded musicians.

CULTURE

Bob Vylan – who explore similar issues of race and class through the overlap of

This interest in the nature of power reflects a voracious hunger for knowledge. Despite having been deterred from going to university by sky-high tuition costs, they reference books on history and politics including Akala’s Natives, David Olusoga’s Black in Britain and Sathnam Sangera’s Empireland as having inspired them. “The trade union movement at the minute is something that I'm finding quite empowering,” they say, mentioning having taken part in a rally organised by the Enough is Enough campaign the previous weekend. “Growing up, you're taught that unions are not a good thing, they're nasty. But that's just pure propaganda.”

world. But I couldn't fully relate to pure

This political consciousness finds overt expression on unbridled tracks like ‘Fuck Your Landlord’, from 2021’s Queer + Black, initially born out of a personal experience when they first moved to Bristol with a landlord that painted over a mould problem. "There were slugs all over the floor because of the amount of damp in the house. And their solution was just to paint over the mould again.”

ment rather than degradation”.

Incensed by the poor conditions many renters find themselves in, they decided to donate all proceeds from the track to ACORN, a community union that campaigns for decent housing. It’s an example of how for Grove, issues of personal autonomy and wider political change are intimately linked: “Each of us holds power, and we just decide where our power gets allocated in what we spend our time doing.” The music they make charts the chaotic but joyous path towards empowerment, both for the individual and the collective: “Power is this infinite pool of everything. The more that you share it, the more it grows.” •

“What I see at some drum and bass nights is: you walk in and it's like, is anyone connecting with each other here?”

Singer songwriter Holysseus Fly on overcoming breast cancer at 25 and launching her career as a solo artist

Holly Wellington, 28, played her first headline show as Holysseus Fly earlier this month to celebrate the release of Marigold, her debut single as a solo artist. The track is about her brush with aggressive cancer aged just 25, which was what made her determined to find her creative identity as a solo artist.

RESTAURANTS AND VENUES BRACE FOR ANOTHER CHALLENGING WINTER

Circus and sustains itself by renting the venue out. Now they are facing not only an increase in energy bills, but also disrepair of the Passenger Shed above them is in such a state that the upstairs has been unusable for over a year due to leaks.

The news of a Cornwall pub introducing candlelit dining to cut energy costs should come as little surprise. Hospitality businesses were already under pressure from Covid forcing them to close and Brexit seeing off huge swathes of their workforce. Now, it's the energy and cost of living crises that pose the threat.

“Just over the road, Jamaica St Stores closed and they said it’s because of getting their energy bills through,” says Liam Stocks, manager of The Canteen in Stokes Croft.

“At our other site, The Old Market Assembly, it’s more than doubled. For a little gastro pub or something like that, it's just not possible.”

He worries that restaurants are particularly vulnerable to increasing costs, with gas burners on all day and suppliers raising their prices. “Our spirits have gone up way over 15% in the last six months, the price of beer went up by 10% over the last week,” he

says. It’s putting pressure on his profit margins, which were already slim, he says, because the business prioritises better quality local produce and a real living wage for staff.

It’s a similar story at The Bristol Old Vic. The oldest theatre in the English speaking world has seen their energy bills almost quadruple, while box office takings – the main source of revenue – have decreased by 20% to 30% since the pandemic.

“Last year our energy bills were around £47,000 a year, now they’re looking to top £200,000,” says executive director Charlotte Geeves. “It has a big effect on what we can offer to productions, but we’re determined to not pass these costs onto our customers. We know that everyone is facing a cost of living crisis and expecting people to pay more is not the right thing to do.”

Loco Klub, the maze of tunnels under Temple Meads, is a joint venture with theatre collective the Invisible

“The roof leaks are now starting to affect downstairs,” says venue manager Abi Hill, who conservatively estimates the financial loss of the closure upstairs at £3,000 a weekend. “That’s what's keeping me awake more than the electric – how many hundreds of thousands of pounds we've lost.”

Added to this is the risk of fewer customers this winter as the cost of living crisis bites, and the fear that she won't be able to raise staff wages despite wanting to match inflation.

“Being a grassroots organisation with very little funding, we’re in a really hard place.”

Searching for solutions

The team at Loco Klub is in the process of swapping out their lighting and other equipment for more energy-saving options, but Abi knows it’s not enough. A solution she’s more interested in is collective purchasing power.

She found out about an initiative from the government’s procurement organisation, Crown Commercial Service, which is open to third sector

non-profits like Loco Klub, who can band together to collectively purchase electricity at much lower prices than the market rate. It’s something they plan to apply for when the next round becomes available.

The team at the Old Vic count themselves lucky to have enough cash reserves to see them through a couple more tough years, and with a push towards renewables seeming like one of the few viable options, the theatre is now looking to diversify its energy sources.

“We’ve been looking at installing solar panels on the roof – this would earn us around £250,000 over a 25 year period – mostly through savings but also in a small amount of dividends,” says Geeves.

Ultimately, she acknowledges, the government’s support package for businesses with energy costs – which will last for six months starting this October – makes it hard to plan beyond the short-term: “The current support is great, but we need to know what’s going to happen beyond that so we can prepare ourselves.”

A Network Rail spokesperson said they have been doing extensive surveys to assess the structural condition and fire safety of the Passenger Shed, and are working on securing Listed Building Consent for repairs. •

‘IT MAKES YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT TO LEAVE ON THIS EARTH’

In 2019, Holly played in a few bands, was fully immersed in Bristol's music scene and was about to go on her first tour as vocalist and keys player with local collective Ishmael Ensemble when the doctor gave her the unexpected diagnosis of stage two breast cancer.

What followed was a year of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. She didn't go on that tour and the momentum she had been building as a musician, music teacher, painter and promoter ground to a halt.

But not entirely. Over tea in her living room in St George, Holly explains how she would start to feel better in the weeks after a chemotherapy appointment. The stars aligned when she had recovered enough to perform with Ishmael Ensemble at Glastonbury 2019.

“I got the Beyoncé treatment. I got driven in and out – that never happens,” she laughs. “I was completely hairless. There's this video of me saying, ‘I will be back to this magical place, I will get through this.’ In a lovely turn of events, I played with Ishmael Ensemble at Glastonbury this year on West Holts stage. The dream gig.”

It was a career highlight for her, and one of the biggest crowds the band had played to.

The interim between those two Glastonbury appearances was turbulent. Stared at in hospital because she was so young, Holly started to embrace the rubbernecking by dressing in wigs and platform boots for her appointments. But she was also left immunocompromised by her treatment, and retreated to a remote Perthshire village in Scotland to shield during the pandemic.

Her physical recovery from cancer was only half the battle: “I think it really hit me afterwards, and then I fell into this pit of fear of recurrence, fear

I was going to die young, fear I hadn't done all of the things I wanted to do.”

It also made her start to think about her legacy, the impact she wanted to have on the world: “I thought, ‘I can't die now, I haven’t even made my first solo album yet.’”

On a solo mission

Time lost to illness and recovery left Holly determined to pursue what she’d had in mind for years: finding her creative identity as a solo artist. She won a grant from Young Lives vs Cancer (also known as CLIC Sargeant) to start work on her debut record, which is out in 2023.

The single launch for Marigold, the first release from the forthcoming EP, took place at Crofters Rights earlier this month. “I tried to make (the show) a Grammy performance even though I don’t have the resources for it,” she jokes.

She describes her performance as a mixture of James Blake and Lady Gaga, moving between “super intimate emotional vulnerable moments at the piano” and “super extra showmanship vibes”. Marigold is more the former, with a skeletal track of stripped-back piano and percussion which leaves her vocals and storytelling centre stage.

The single is named after an image her mother and aunt saw while praying for Holly when she was unwell: “They saw marigold flowers on my chest, and that has stayed with me because they protect my chest and keep me safe. Marigolds symbolise life and hope and strength, and the light that lives inside a person.”

Holly is now throwing herself into the world of solo gigs, performing as Barbara Streisand with drag crew House of Savalon and starting an 18-month artist development programme with Sound And Music, where she will write her second record.

“This is really just the beginning. When I first got diagnosed, there wasn’t anybody that I could see living the career I wanted, having overcome something like that,” she adds thoughtfully. She has set her mind on becoming that person, to show, as she puts it, “that it is possible to live your best life when shit hits the fan.” •

Just as customers tighten their purse strings, independent businesses are being hammered by rising costs

Aphra Evans

Aphra Evans & Joe Skirkowski

Abi Hill, Loco Klub's venue manager, with programming manager Sam Patching

Michael Lloyd-Jones

Childcare costs prevent countless ambitious women from fulfilling their potential

A nursery worker speaks out about the difficulties of juggling work and childcare, ahead of the March of the Mummies to protest against our broken childcare system

Bristol is celebrated as a city with a vibrant food scene. Yet for thousands of Bristolians, accessing good quality, affordable food is a world away.

Food insecurity affects thousands of families across our city – in some parts, as many as one in 10 households, according to statistics. But this is likely just the tip of the iceberg, with many more people teetering on the edge of survival amid the cost of living crisis.

Food insecurity means not being able to access enough food to maintain basic health. It can be caused by a lack of money, of fresh food shops nearby, or even of the time or means to cook food from scratch. Often food insecurity is linked to wider inequalities such as access to good jobs, transport, housing, healthcare or other key services.

To ensure everyone can access enough good-quality food, we need major government action. But in the meantime, a citywide project, Bristol Local Food Fund, has been created to hand power and funding to communities to build a fairer food system in our city.

Bristol Local Food Fund (BLFF) began in June 2020, during the pandemic emergency response, when I started talking to community food projects about what they and their local communities were experiencing, and what they needed to not only continue their work, but to have an impact on the root causes.

For most, accessing vital grant funding was a huge challenge. Application processes could be unnecessarily complicated and restrictive, and these problems were amplified in areas experiencing the greatest disadvantages, reflecting wider power dynamics within Bristol and between funders and potential grantees. It was clear there wasn’t just a need for increased funding, but also changes in how it was distributed.

We began collaborating with other organisations to explore how to raise a new fund that could take a different approach, shifting power to local people with first-hand experience of food insecurity. That led us to an approach called participatory grantmaking, a growing global movement in which philanthropic grant-makers are giving decision-making power back to the communities they wish to serve.

Participatory grantmaking invites voices to the table that have historically been excluded. It can help grant-makers make better decisions, ensuring their funding truly addresses social justice and builds stronger relationships with grantees.

Before we could start, we had to raise some money! With a small team of volunteers, we launched a citywide

crowdfunding campaign in October 2021 – raising just under £60,000 in just over one month from more than 500 people – and Bristol’s response was overwhelmingly positive.

Seven people with lived experience of food insecurity and a diversity of backgrounds were recruited to our Citizens Panel, to decide how best to distribute the funds. They were supported by a facilitator and paid for their time at above the real living wage, with their reasonable expenses covered.

The panel met three times over summer 2022, bringing their knowledge and experiences to consider the key challenges around food insecurity. By the end, they agreed the core criteria for the Bristol Local Food Fund, and we opened applications on 4 October.

Now we hope to award approximately 10 grants of £5,000 and 10 grants of £1,000, with priority given to projects from Hartcliffe and Withywood, Hengrove and Whitchurch Park, Easton and Lawrence Hill, Filwood and Knowle West, Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston, Lockleaze, and Southmead. The deadline for applications is 14 November 2022 at 9am.

When the crowdfunder ended last year, there were early warning signs of a ‘perfect storm’ approaching, with the forecast energy price rises, supply chains and post-Covid economy all threatening to drive food insecurity through the roof. Unfortunately, thousands of people are now feeling the catastrophic consequences. It feels as though initiatives like BLFF are needed now more than ever, but the scale of the crisis can also feel overwhelming for all of us.

We hope that the projects that apply for BLFF will inspire hope. Once the first round of funding is awarded, we’ll look closely at the impact, reassess the needs of the organisations and communities we’re seeking to help, and decide how the fund should continue.

Although food insecurity is a vast problem, we believe that by taking collective action and giving power and resources to local communities, we can start to build a fairer food system. Together we can make a city where good quality, affordable food is accessible for everyone. •

Michael Lloyd-Jones is founder of the Bristol Local Food Fund, a voluntary project working in partnership with Quartet Community Foundation, Feeding Bristol, Bristol City Council, Burges Salmon LLP and Bristol Food Network. You can support BLFF at www. bristollocalfoodfund.com and follow it on Twitter (@BristolFoodFund) and Instagram (@BristolLocalFoodFund)

On Wednesday last week, I’d just left work with my three children in tow and once again needed to stop at the supermarket on the way home for something instant for tea.

The day had been full on; my role as a Learning Support Assistant at a nursery working with four and fiveyear-olds is far from boring. That morning in one lesson, we had no less than three safeguarding issues arise in under 15 minutes.

The day before, we were searching around for clean clothes for a child who doesn’t have any. Regularly, children come in hungry and we quickly and quietly find them something to eat; on a weekly basis we hand over food bank donations at the classroom door.

The needs of the children in this inner-city school can be overwhelming, and I am processing this as I push the trolley towards the Aldi door. Then I see it: a sign that says I could be paid quite a lot more to work in this shop than I do looking after some of this city’s youngest and most vulnerable children. It is heartbreaking and tempting in equal measures.

Ten years ago, after the birth of child number one, I went back to work part time. I had to, as I needed the money and I'd already spent my maternity pay. Luckily my partner was able to condense his hours and do some of the childcare and that halved our costs. Full time wasn’t an

option as we’d be paying out more than I made.

But going part time changed my work life. I was taken off one-to-one SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) work, which I loved, and given a more generic role seemingly made up for me and my now 'awkward' hours. Any ambition I had to specialise in special educational needs or re-train as a speech and language therapist disappeared. By the time number one was in school and number two was on the scene, the juggling of childminders, after school club and work became increasingly hard to get my head around without it exploding. And critically, it wasn’t financially worth it. Even though I work in schools and so don’t need hours and hours of extra childcare, I couldn’t work out a way that left me with money in my pocket and headache-free. So, I stopped working for five

years, and we mostly ate dhal and jacket potatoes.

But a year ago, with two kids at school and one at nursery, I saw an advert for a role in early years education. And the thing that made this job a possibility, that made it seem in some way financially plausible, was that it was in the school that my kids attend. It felt like my only choice. I stopped working in schools six years ago, disheartened and vowing to do something else.

with my parenting at 3.30pm, which my colleagues are fine about and luckily my employer is supportive. But really, I wish it didn’t.

I am not alone. Everywhere I look are parents (mums mainly) trying to figure out how to work without spending all their wages on childcare. One friend wants to retrain but with only the hours between drop-off and pick-up there aren’t many options; another is swapping her creative set designer role for a 9-5 that she can work childcare around. A colleague I know has unachieved ambitions to start a local support group, engaging women from marginalised communities.

Across the country there are countless ambitious, smart and hardworking women unable to fulfill their potential because of the cost of childcare. Relying heavily on friends and family to help out, as I do, comes with a guilty conscience. Think what could happen if a system was in place that enabled them to work, to train, to progress without this pressure.

I trained in the evenings in horticulture – I had plans. But the reality is, I’m limited by the hours I can work without using paid childcare. So, like an autumnal supermarket advert, I went ‘back to school’.

And now my working day ends with all three of my children in the classroom with me as I try my hardest to finish my job in a professional manner. My working day overlaps

Luckily for me, returning to work in a school has turned out to be better than I ever imagined; my passion for caring for the very youngest in our society has been reignited and the difference I can make is evident on a daily basis.

So, I won't be applying for that Aldi job just yet, but you never know. •

This article was commissioned ahead of the March of the Mummies taking place in Bristol on Saturday 29 October to protest the UK's broken childcare system. The writer asked to remain anonymous

An anonymous nursery worker

A new fund to address food insecurity in the city is putting those with lived experience at the heart of deciding where the money goes

In the cost of living crisis, innovative community action to tackle food insecurity is more urgent than ever

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