Bristol Cable - Issue 27 by Bristol Cable

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Issue No27 - Oct-Dec 2021 Made FREE by members

Sewage is being dumped in our river

What's to blame and can it be stopped? Page 14

PEOPLE'S HISTORY

COMMUNITY

ENVIRONMENT

INEQUALITY

When one of the most iconic slavery abolitionists came to town

Two much-loved community sports venues under threat

The Bristol-made ‘methane camera’ that can help cut emissions

Universal credit cuts and the choice between heating and eating

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Page 24

Page 13

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DEAR READER, Hope you’re good and looking forward to enjoying the latest print edition of the Cable. This time we’ve got a deep dive into our murky waterways, why so much sewage is being dumped into them, and what can be done about it. As well as heavier pieces, for example on the Police and Crime Bill’s controversial extension of stop and search powers, we also hear the need for stories that uplift and empower. So inside you’ll also find compelling interviews, fascinating history and how new tools can help lower greenhouse gas emissions. All our work is made possible by 2,750 members (and counting). 150 new members have joined in the past couple of months, helping the Cable on a journey to financial sustainability. We don’t have corporate owners or advertisers, and are aiming to build a model for journalism owned and led by community members. We’ve got a lot to do, and much room for improvement. But if you like the idea you can chip in just a few quid a month and support the media Bristol needs.

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 Media team Matty Edwards, Hannah Vickers, Aphra Evans, Sean Morrison, Adam Cantwell-Corn Print production coordination Matty Edwards Production team Alex Turner, Arvind Howarth, Emily Williams Design & layout Laurence Ware - laurence-ware.com

Cheers!

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

The Cable team

Membership team: Lucas Batt, Marianne Brooker, Adam CantwellCorn, Will Franklin, Matty Edwards Distribution coordination Lucas Batt, Dave Marsden

CELEBRATING 7 YEARS OF CABLE JOURNALISM We’ve come a long way from an idea hatched among friends in a living room in Easton. We’ve a long way to go to keep the Cable thriving through tough times ahead. Today, join 2,750 Cable members in celebrating our 27th print edition. In honour of our 7th birthday, here are 7 things that make the Cable what it is today, and that your membership can help protect for the future:

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Distribution team: Scatha Jones, Dave Marsden, Neill Talbot Bethany Roberts, Charles Qualmann Workplace coordination People: Lucas Batt, Hannah Vickers, Mat Alborough, Sara Szakadat Forums: Will Franklin, Sara Szakadat Development: Adam Cantwell-Corn, Marianne Brooker Resources: Lucas Batt, Adam Cantwell-Corn, Sara Szakadat Front page illustration Andy Carter

Contents 4 What the Cable has been up to

14 Investigation Who is to blame for water pollution in Bristol’s rivers and what can we do about it?

6 News in Brief The latest on affordable housing and Bristol’s SEND crisis, plus some good news too

18 Photoessay Young and empowered women in girls show the meaning of self-confidence

9 Interview The new editor of Rife magazine on her art, lacking diversity and opportunities for young people

20 Solutions The new project supporting women experiencing both abuse and homelessness

10 History Should Bristol Museum return items that are the spoils of empire?

23 Feature The Bristolians bearing the brunt of the universal credit cut

13 Bristol and the climate crisis The Bristol camera that could help prevent leaks of greenhouse gases

24 Feature Can Kingsdown Sports Centre and Jubilee Pool be saved?

27 People’s History How this iconic slavery abolitionist thrilled crowds on Bristol's streets

Special thanks to…

28 Kill the Bill What the Police and Crime Bill could mean for problematic stop and search

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

31 Bristol and the climate crisis The Bristol activists looking beyond COP26 for real change 32 Community The van-dwelling pensioners who’ve built their own community by the Downs 34 Opinion Air pollution is about mental not just physical health 35 Opinion Why the council needs to be bold (even when they get panned)

Mike Jempson, Kate Oliver, Abdi Mohamed

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

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Massive thanks to the 2,750 members who make all this possible! and to all contributors, sources and contacts.

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WHAT THE CABLE HAS BEEN UP TO Every time a new member joins the Cable, we ask them why. All kinds of things motivate people to get involved, from the smallest observations about life in Bristol, to the biggest ambitions for a better world. There are over 2,750 of us working together to build a new kind of newspaper. As one new member put it, “we need independent media that holds the government, local authorities, companies and powerful individuals to account, now more than ever.” Often new members say that they don’t have a lot of money, but want to contribute the little they can to help make sure “that the Cable is community-owned and able to investigate the things that matter”. Join us for as little as £3 a month, and help keep the Cable going and growing.

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Farewell to Alon Aviram We’ve recently said goodbye to Alon Aviram, one of the Cable’s founders. Alon has moved on to the Environmental Justice Foundation, where he’ll put his investigative skills to use as a researcher focusing on environmental crime. From mass surveillance by the police to organised crime, Alon has been with the Cable since the very beginning, uncovering shady dealings for more than seven years. He’s brought passion, dedication and a skill for investigative journalism that had real life impact and sparked important conversations in the city and beyond. We wish him all the best!

Steering the Cable into the future at our Annual General Meeting

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CO-OP UPDATES

This edition goes to print hot on the heels of our Annual General Meeting, or AGM, where Cable members got together to celebrate, debate, and plan for the future. As a member-owned newspaper, there aren’t any corporate shareholders, advertisers or bosses pulling the strings. Instead, power sits in the hands of over 2,750 local people who contribute a small amount each month to help fund Cable journalism. The AGM is the big moment in the Cable calendar for us all to connect, confront the challenges, and set priorities. This year, we grappled with questions about what defines Cable journalism, and how we could expand or refine what we write about. Join us to find out how it went, and get involved with steering the Cable through the months and years ahead. thebristolcable.org/join

Welcome to new members of the team It’s been all change at the Cable over the last couple of months. With this issue, we’re offering a very warm welcome to two new members of the team, Sara Szakadat who will be our new Workplace Coordinator, a new role to help us manage things behind the scenes, and Sean Morrison, who will join our team of journalists.

Bristol and the Climate Crisis

Calling out for your experiences

How will flooding affect Bristol? How can a new approach to food production make Bristol and the planet healthier? At the beginning of the year, we asked readers what you wanted to know more about, and hundreds of you responded. Since then, we’ve been producing video explainers on key topics such as flooding and sustainable food production, interrogating the decision-making around the expansion of Bristol Airport, amplifying the voices of Cable members who are also climate campaigners, and interviewing scientists at Bristol University to unpick the stark warnings and big recommendations. This is just the beginning. Sign up to our mailing list to make sure you get our latest reporting delivered straight to your inbox every week:

Other newsrooms might leave space for comment at the very end of an article, once all the hard graft is done. But we’re doing things differently. A key principle of Cable journalism is that readers are involved from the very beginning – from determining what stories our journalists report on, to sharing experiences that inform our editorial series. We know that there’s a housing crisis, for example, but how is it really impacting people’s lives? We’ve built our own in-house membership system for managing these callouts, and because we’re committed to changing journalism beyond our own patch, our system is free and open source. In collaboration with European partners we’ve shared it with two other newsrooms so far, with more in the pipeline. Watch this space for updates!

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News in Brief

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Buddy scheme helping people with learning disabilities go to gigs

Words Alex Turner

affordable housing targets have been consistently missed – and the Cable has been hearing from renters who say the private market has never been tougher. The local authority is also behind on repairs and maintenance, partly because of Covid restrictions. Recent reports by ITV and others have exposed appalling disrepair faced by social tenants elsewhere, meaning the backlog cannot be ignored. The council has therefore just launched a consultation on its housing revenue account, running until late November. Take part and you’ll be able to adjust borrowing levels, decide whether to freeze rents again, and choose spending priorities. But, the exercise will underscore, decarbonising council homes, increasing building and maintaining estates cannot all be achieved without major outside intervention. "We've got £103m agreed to deliver [a total of] 519 new council homes, most by 2024," said Tom Renhard, the cabinet member for housing, who has been calling on the government to step up on green retrofitting. "We could potentially put in a further £210m, take that figure up towards 1579." People on the waiting list might back such an approach. But council tenants coping with soaring heating bills or knackered kitchens, which would probably not then be tackled, may think otherwise. Whatever the outcome, plans are likely to go to scrutiny committees in December before heading to cabinet after Christmas. "Ultimately this is a budget that's got to be signed off with full council," Renhard said. "There will be a range of views, but only one finite pot of money." ■

The Gig Buddy scheme set up by The Exchange has been given a boost by a fundraiser organised by IDLES bassist Dev

Sonah Paton said £1,000 was crucial for helping her group 'Black Mothers Matter' grow

Wealth-sharing network hits third fundraising target A Bristol collective set up to redistribute surplus wealth via 'no strings' grants to community groups has hit the target for its third fundraising drive. Bristol Redistro, which was founded shortly before the pandemic, reached £10,000 in donations – from just 14 supporters – during October. The money will be distributed among shortlisted applicants at a special 'funding day' on 4 December, during which groups get to know one another's work and collectively figure out how best to divide the funds. Those who receive money can spend it as they please. The deadline for third-round entries, via a short online form, is 13 November. Applicant groups must be self-organised and "share Bristol Redistro’s aim of challenging inequality of wealth and power". Sonah Paton, a co-founder of Black Mothers Matter, said the £1,000 awarded to the group – set up to reduce maternal health inequalities between Black and oth-

er women in the UK – had been crucial in meeting administrative costs that enabled it to grow. "We're just evaluating a project where we've been sending out support box hampers to mothers – it's had phenomenal success," Paton said. "We've also been successful in a bid to work, us and some other organisations, on quality improvement programmes within the NHS, working with midwives and doing some training with them." Rob Cole, who joined Bristol Redistro this year, said he was "really happy" that the collective had hit its latest target quickly and added that he hoped this showed public appetite for its model. The group, which has grown from three to nine members, is due to publish a zine exploring its work and run workshops discussing how wealth can better be shared. "If we're able to raise a bit more awareness, we've got an opportunity to bring in bigger donations and keep expanding," he said. ■

‘Huge issues’ remain with special educational needs services as reinspection looms Campaigners have warned that Bristol's troubled services for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) still face "huge issues" as we enter the period when they are to be reinspected. In December 2019, an Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) visit raised "significant concerns" over SEND services and warned children were being given "disturbingly poor" care. The council, schools and the local clinical commissioning group (CCG), were ordered to produce a written statement of action (WSoA) setting out action in a number of key areas. These included leaders taking individual responsibility for problems while also working together to ensure children can meet their potential, SEND kids being identified and assessed as early as possible, and parents and carers having a positive experience of the system in Bristol. A report to Bristol Schools Forum in late September said advisors from the Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England had been positive about progress as services

will be reinspected by March 2022. But as the council has acknowledged, meeting strategic targets has not yet meant families consistently receive better services. A recent freedom of information release revealed that more than 300 assessments for education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which set out children's additional needs and the support they need at school, had not been completed within the 20week timescale allowed. "We are still seeing, within the SEND community, hugely significant issues around school exclusion processes, access to alternative provision, inclusion in education, implementation of EHCPs, effective communication between council departments and parents and carers, and unlawfully long waiting times for EHCPs," said campaigner Jen Smith, who has two autistic children. "There is also a weakness with co-production, which is essential for parent carers being able to work directly with the council on solving issues," added Smith, who stood in this year's council elections. Meanwhile Green councillor for

Southville Christine Townsend, the shadow cabinet member for education, said the city's biggest issue remained specialist school place shortages. An independent review published earlier this year warned that alternative learning provision – education outside of school for children who have been excluded or struggle to attend for health or behavioural reasons – was being used as a "holding ground" for SEND children because of the shortage. "Educational need assessments and paperwork are important but meaningless if the places needed for implementation do not exist," Townsend said. "At the current time I am yet to see anything that indicates experiences for the children and families caught up in this will ease anytime soon." ■

Hundreds of people have registered their interest in Gig Buddies, a befriending scheme launched by music venue The Exchange that matches people with autism or learning disabilities to volunteers who share their interests and attend events with them. The programme, which locally was given a huge opening boost thanks to a fundraiser in June organised by IDLES bassist Dev, originated in Brighton but now runs in a number of locations. "We've had over 200 people wanting to volunteer," said Exchange manager Iwan Best, who is coordinating the project. "We also had a lot getting in touch organically who wanted to use the project to help them to access shows, and over the last two months we've started directly promoting to access groups and support networks." Jess, a social care worker at South Gloucestershire Council, told the Cable she had recently referred a young person to Gig Buddies. "Many of his peers have additional needs, which was good for him in a lot of ways, but he also wanted to expand his friendship group and get to know people with similar interests and different life experiences," Jess said. "He's looking forward to gaining more confidence to experience local nightlife with the support of a friendly face." ■

Do you want to talk to Bristol? Advertise here. An easy way to promote your campaign, charity, online event, cafe, bar, market, gallery or workshop, is to advertise here. Get in touch and find out how. alison@emsm.org.uk 0141 946 8708 michael@emsm.org.uk 01865 403339

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Without government action, Bristol's council housing faces a zero-sum game Tough decisions on Bristol's council housing lie ahead as officers and councillors try to thread the needle between delivering energy-efficiency measures essential to Bristol meeting net zero by 2030, maintaining homes, and building new ones. A 2020 review of the council’s 30-year business plan by consultancy Savills – which assumed rents would rise each year – warned that spending £20,000 per home on decarbonisation measures could wipe out its reserves. In October the government announced £800m of funds – part of a promised £3.9bn – that social landlords like the council can bid for to retrofit homes. But the total cost of decarbonising the UK’s social housing has been estimated at £104bn, meaning these figures are drops in the ocean. The council also chose to freeze its rents this year – to buy Labour votes, or relieve tenants' Covidrelated hardship, depending on who you believe – and put off updating its 30-year plans. This winter, it is bringing the plans forward. The amount rents can be raised annually is restricted – so money lost to the freeze cannot be made up in future, and will be compounded over the 30-year plan, meaning the council can borrow less. As reported by the Cable in April, the rent freeze coincided with plans for the total numbers of new council homes to be built during the first half of this decade being scaled back from more than 900 to below 600. Since then the council’s waiting list has swollen from around 13,000 to 16,000 households, with some 2,500 in the highest two bands of need. Bristol's overall

NEWS IN BRIEF

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Lucy Turner, the new editor of Rife magazine talks about the need for young people to feel believed in, how art helped her face adversity, and how to make media and creative industries less pale, male and stale

Closed doors Rife has helped a lot of people move onto bigger and better things, including gal-dem, Crack magazine and the BBC. But opportunities are hard to come by. "It was one of the first workplaces where I walked in and wasn't the only Black person in the room, which was huge,” Lucy remembers. “I don't think people realise what kind of impact that has on you. "I've never had an opportunity like this. I want Black and Brown boys and girls to think they can get to these kinds of positions,” she adds. "Often in the media and creative sectors, the doors seem closed. Once the doors are open, it's typically a straight, white male-dominated environment. I would like to totally get rid of that. There's one thing being let in the door, but when you're in the door it's about feeling comfortable as well.” We talk about the complex issue of tokenism, and she says organisations should be open and honest about their intentions and shortcomings, offer regular equality and diversity training, talk widely with community members and hire more than one person of colour. “But it is difficult,” she adds, with a laugh. She has felt tokenised in the past. “But someone said to me once: 'You might have gotten in the door because of your background, but you're here now and you've got something to say, so take that position and run with it.' “I don't want to be hired because I'm Black, but I am Black, and that's not gonna change, so I may as well do what I can in a brilliant role and open doors for more people of colour as well.” She describes herself as a ‘hype man’ for young people finding their way. “If there's any way that I can give that belief to someone, that's my dream, that's my job done.” ■

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Words Matty Edwards Photo Aphra Evans

Now as the magazine’s editor, she looks at submissions from young people across the city – anyone aged 16-30. She then helps contributors with their idea, whatever is needed to get it published on the website. "I'm also trying to do more community outreach.” I speak to Lucy just as Rife is about to hire resident editors. They will have a speciality and will in turn recruit content creators in the next few months.

INTERVIEW

“I

‘I want Black and Brown boys and girls to think they can get to these kinds of positions’

t was during my treatment that I started using art to tell stories, and when I couldn't speak, it was my way of communicating to people. That started my creative journey.” Lucy Turner has just become the editor of Rife, an online magazine that gives a platform to young people in Bristol. But her own art is grounded in adversity. At the age of 23 she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in the saliva gland. "I'd done art at school and loved it, but never saw myself doing it professionally,” she tells me. “I saw so many barriers in the industry.” But she realised art therapy during her cancer treatment was becoming a “really positive outlet”. It wasn’t until just before the pandemic that Lucy’s confidence as an artist blossomed. She applied for one of Rife’s six-month content creator residencies – where young people are paid to produce any kind of content they want for the website, from articles to personal essays, videos, podcasts or animation. "It was the first time I'd ever been in a place that I felt really valued me. I felt believed in and my confidence has grown ever since. I felt my story was valid and relevant, I was respected. That is so rare, I think for young people, but especially young Black women. We're often the most disregarded people.” During this residency, Lucy found her love for digital illustration. "I really didn't know what my talent or practice was, I just knew I wanted to tell stories. It was during Rife that I started drawing digitally and found I could do it and really enjoyed it." This has allowed her to do freelance work in this area, including for Rising Arts Agency. "More importantly, I now have the confidence to say I am an artist.” Rife is a project run by the Watershed and turned seven this year, but what is the idea behind it? "We see it as a platform to give people voices when they might not have always had the opportunity, especially people of colour and from working class backgrounds," Lucy tells me.

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HISTORY

“Where might Britain return an item if, when it was taken, colonial forces destroyed its home in the process?”

A fierce debate about the ownership of the spoils of empire, mired in practical and political issues Words Eliz Mizon Images Bristol Museum

ristol City Council’s Museum Service holds at least 1.75m items in six locations. Within this treasure trove are pieces connected to Britain’s colonial past, some of which the museum has spotlighted in its Uncomfortable Truths project. The uncomfortable truth is that, across the world, treasures of deep cultural and historic significance to their home regions remain on display as ‘curiosities’ within (and are traded between) the countries that pillaged them. The debate around restitution – returning items to their ‘original owner’ – has been raging for decades. Recently it’s been discussed by media and sneaked into museum marketing materials; a result of hard work by diasporic activists, writers, curators and other influential individuals, and the

desire of often white, elite institutions to respond to the ongoing racial justice movements of the 21st century. But while these conversations have sped into the limelight, the actual restitution of artefacts has been slow. Not simply because of the pandemic, but also the practical, political and legal issues at play. For example, where might Britain return an item if, when it was taken, colonial forces destroyed its home in the process? The Benin Bronzes are thousands of ornate brass and bronze plaques and sculptures pillaged by British forces from the ancient Benin City. In early 1897, six British officials in the colonies of the Niger Delta were killed, against the wishes of the Oba (Benin City’s king), when they tried to dispute the Oba’s control of

trade in the city and depose him. Britain responded by conducting the Benin Punitive Expedition, a massacre which destroyed the Kingdom of Benin, brutally culled citizens en masse, and which historians claim amounted to a war crime. British forces killed women Pierre Niyongira, a producer of the Uncomfortable Truths podcast

Decolonising the museum? Last year, the museum worked with a group of young people from the University of the West of England to create the Uncomfortable Truths podcast; exploring individual items held by the museum, their back story, what their status as display items means, and their possible futures. “In this particular case, I think it’s only right that they should take it back to its place of origin,” says 24-year-old Pierre Niyongira, one of the student producers on the show, about the Bronzes. “A piece of culture and history was taken violently, and to put it up in the museum I think is disrespectful, honestly. This one is pretty clear cut.” On restitution efforts in general,

The museum has so far returned the following artefacts: 'The State Entry into Delhi' by Roderick Dempster MacKenzie

One of the Benin Bronzes taken from present day Nigeria

Pierre believes “it depends on the object and its place of origin”. He believes some items are not “ready”, or otherwise appropriate to return, for example due to current instability or lack of resources to adequately preserve the items. “One of the things I learned during the project was that, for example, many objects from the Middle East may have been saved from destruction due to war or religious cultural changes – and so there is a sense of history being preserved.” As well as restitution, Bristol Museum’s Uncomfortable Truths project has looked at recontextualising items that depict Britain’s colonial past. In the entry hall is Roderick Mackenzie’s huge 1907 painting The State Entry into Delhi, celebrating Edward VII’s ascension to the throne and, therefore, Emperor of India. This celebration of British-imposed rule over India “doesn’t show the rebellions and discomforts experienced by local people on the Indian subcontinent”, explains one of the students, discussing Mackenzie’s painting. “On the other hand, people could say that Britain built infrastructures, railways, canals ... Without showing both sides it’s creating a

narrative that is very false.” The painting shows crowds in traditional Indian dress, standing to attention, gazing up at a procession of people riding elephants. One of the students suggests the museum re-label the painting ‘The Elephant in the Room’. A museum blog post notes the plan for “changing labels” to recontextualise colonial works, and it’s Decolonisation Working Group has promoted its awareness-raising projects, such as the podcast and occasional updates about restitution efforts. It’s difficult to know to what extent the decolonisation efforts are a success. There is one dedicated exhibition named Curiosities, examining ethical questions behind a handful of items. How many of the 1.75m council-owned items have colonial or otherwise problematic pasts is unclear. This historic and vast nature of the collections means that the council doesn’t know either. A council spokesperson said they “do not have a complete list of all ‘items’ from foreign countries acquired during the period of Empire” and that, given the Bristol Museum Service has effectively been collecting items for two centuries, “it is impossible to account for the provenance of every item in the collection”. Speaking earlier this year on the Benin Bronzes held by the British Museum, critic and journalist Adewale Maja-Pearce wrote that he believes for now “[they] should remain where they are”, but that he can’t accept the museum’s “continued refusal to properly discuss the circumstances of their original acquisition and its continued possession of them. Nor can it justify turning its nose up in the face of requests for loans, as it did in the 1970s”.

• 3 Australian skulls returned to the Office of Indigenous Policy and Coordination, Australia in 2006 • 1 human lower jaw, 4 Moko Mokai (tattooed human heads) and 5 skulls returned to Te Papa, New Zealand in 2007 • 2 human skulls and associated funerary goods: 2 sinkers for fishing nets and, what was described as, a stone hammer-head but is probably also a net sinker, returned to the Ti'at Society, California, USA in 2019 While Bristol Museum is clearly willing to have this conversation, a council spokesperson responded to one of my questions about items “taken from foreign countries” saying: ”What is meant by ‘taken’? Even our Benin Bronze was acquired from ADVERTISEMENT

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Bristol has a trove of historical artefacts originally taken through colonisation. Should they be given back?

and children, looted the city, burned the palace, and sent the Oba into exile. The treasures taken, more than 1,000 Benin Bronzes among them, were auctioned off in London to pay for the cost of the expedition. Today, 160 institutions around the world hold Benin Bronzes, including Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. The Bronzes have become a focal point of the global restitution debate. The modern-day Prince of Benin has been asking for decades for their return, and over a year ago reached out directly to Bristol Museum, asking them to “blaze a trail” by returning the two Bronzes they have. At the time, Bristol city council said they “did not know [the Bronzes were] stolen” and became the first institution in Britain to agree to the concept of restitution. A spokesperson for the Legacy Restoration Trust in Nigeria, a central organisation pursuing the return of the Bronzes to Benin City, confirmed it has been “in discussion” with Bristol Museum and other relevant parties, but “there is no timeline for restitution at this point”. Neither party has answered the question: if the Prince has been asking for the Bronzes back, and Bristol Museum has agreed, what’s the hold up?

Returning stolen goods or erasing history?

another museum collection so not directly from Africa, according to all legal considerations.” The council said that its Decolonisation Working Group is dedicated to coordinating and supporting a wide range of activity connected to “the ever-evolving field of decolonisation”, and is currently forming an action plan. Details of the plan weren’t included in their statement, but its purpose is to “ensure we continue to celebrate, commemorate and respect cultures from across the world in appropriate ways”. Bristol is still ahead of the rest of the country. In mid-October, the museum returned a hand-painted caribou hide hunting coat from the Cree First Nation of Northern Canada to the Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute. The item has been held since the 1830-40s. According to the council, items like it “were often traded with or taken by outsiders”. By contrast, the British Museum in London, which holds numerous items taken by colonial forces, including hundreds of Benin Bronzes, is bound by The British Museum Act of 1963, which prevents it from shedding any of its holdings. Early this year, when he was still Culture Secretary, Conservative MP Oliver Dowden threatened to pull funding from cultural institutions which would “do Britain down” by not “defending our culture and history”. With this attitude, and legal stranglehold, Britain is behind other countries, such as Germany and France, who have already made the move to return their Benin Bronzes. The deadlock around our colonial legacy, both a cause and a symptom of the ‘culture wars', is unlikely to shift any time soon. Restitution can only take place if it is agreed that the items were taken in the first place. ■

HISTORY

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Could a camera developed in Bristol that ‘sees’ methane leaks help curb greenhouse gas emissions? UN scientists argue that cutting methane offers the fastest, most effective way to reduce the rate of global temperature rises Words Aphra Evans Illustration Laurence Ware

Many people suffer from stress these days. Smartphones and sedentary jobs lead to anxiety, bad posture and a whole host of mental and physical problems. We all know that exercise is good for you and that meditation makes you calmer. Tai Chi is both. There’s often a misconception of what Tai Chi really is. The most common image that springs to mind is probably of old people moving slowly in the park but real Tai Chi is much more than a gentle remedial practice. Tai Chi is simultaneously a form of meditation, a health practice and a martial art and whilst it can be slow and gentle, it can also be fast and explosive. The way you practice Tai Chi depends on your age, fitness and inclination. For some it is a way to calm their busy minds, others practice to recover from injury and for a few, it is an intense martial workout. Human beings need to move but in the right way. Most forms of exercise, whilst giving health benefits can also lead to injury. Tai Chi is different. Improving your postural allignment and your ability to relax, will strengthen your internal connective tissue (fascia) resulting in a body that is not only stronger and more resilient but also more balanced. Most people start Tai Chi in the hope of becoming calmer. When you bring your mind into your body and concentrate on movement you will momentarily forget your worries. A tense body means a tense mind. Tai Chi places great emphasis on physical relaxation. The more you relax the body, the more relaxed your mind will become. To maintain a strong body and a calm mind you need a practice. There are many forms of exercise and many forms of meditation but few systems that combine both. Sam Langley teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in Bristol. If you are interested to learn more then visit www.thewholebody.org

“It will take huge political will to bring everyone together on greenhouse gas control” centration of the plume. According to a report from the UN in May, cutting methane is the fastest and most effective way to reduce the rate of global temperature increase. While reducing CO2 in the atmosphere will not yield results for about a decade, reducing methane emissions has an immediate effect – and buys us time to address our carbon problem. Dan Lunt, a professor of climate science at Bristol University (who is not involved with QLM), is unequivocal: “The bottom line is that

laurence-ware.com

if we want to meet our target of less than 1.5 degrees [of warming compared with pre-industrial temperatures], we need immediate and farreaching cuts in CO2 and methane.” In September, the US and EU pledged to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030, based on 2020 emissions. The pledge will be opened up to other signatories at COP26, this November’s global climate summit in Glasgow, in what some are calling one of the most significant steps towards

A helping hand to fossil-fuel companies? QLM’s cameras will be deployed across all BP’s natural gas sites by 2023, which will help address leaks. But this also raises questions about the technology's role in furthering the longevity – the vice-grip – of the fossil fuel industry. “We need solutions that are useful everywhere, so they need to be very low-cost and scalable to a very high volume, with many millions of alarm monitors placed all over the world,” argues Murray Reed, QLM’s chief executive. “The only way to do that is start with the biggest and most well-funded users first to get the scaling process started, and those are the oil and gas industry.” As much of the world tries to transition away from coal, oil and gas to renewable energy, QLM's cameras – which can detect carbon dioxide and will soon expand to other ecologically significant gases like ammonia – have potentially endless applications elsewhere. With our daunting net zero commitments already on the horizon, the effective monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions is one solution in the myriad that will help us get over the line. According to Reed, even within the fossil fuel industry there is growing recognition that its days are numbered. “Thankfully the majors are evolving from denial and greenwashing into real effort and commitment,” he says. “They realise it is absolutely existential for them, so a change is starting, at least in some parts. It will take huge political will to bring everyone together on greenhouse gas control – it’s as divisive a topic as slavery was 200 years ago, but we did win that battle and we can win this one too.” ■

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n the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most people see carbon dioxide as our greatest nemesis. But methane, while less abundant, actually has 84 times the global warming potential of CO2 over a 20-year period. Accounting for one fifth of human-caused global warming, hundreds of megatonnes of it produced annually in industries such as agriculture, plastics manufacturing, and oil and gas production. At every stage of gas distribution, from the plant to the vast web of pipes beneath our feet, methane escapes into the atmosphere through leaks. With 7,660 km of gas pipelines and 618 above-ground installations in the UK alone, ensuring methane stays in the ground is no easy task. But it's an important one, considering that if as little as 3% of the natural gas we draw up leaks, then we might as well be burning coal. Leaks turn gas from the cleanest fossil fuel into the dirtiest. Now, though, a tech firm that grew from Bristol University postgraduate research is taking on this challenge by designing a camera that can “see” methane emissions and display a “heat map” of the gas almost in real time. QLM’s camera uses lidar range-finding – the laser-based technology that autonomous vehicles use to understand their environments – to map methane emissions spatially. It then reads the lidar information with a hyper-sensitive quantum sensor to understand the size, shape and con-

fulfilling the promises of the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global warming below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Lunt says tackling methane will, among other steps, require cutting meat and fossil fuel energy production on a global scale. “The methane emissions associated with the burning of fossil fuels are important. This may require subsidies that are currently in place for the fossil fuel industry to be transferred to the renewable industry.”

ENVIRONMENT

Tai Chi: The Perfect Exercise

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UNTREATED SEWAGE IS BEING DUMPED INTO OUR RIVERS THOUSANDS OF TIMES EVERY YEAR. WHO’S TO BLAME – AND CAN IT BE STOPPED?

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Words Billy Stockwell Additional reporting Adam Cantwell-Corn Illustration Andy Carter

Just a week before reports of illness began flooding the Facebook page of Warleigh Weir, a popular wild swimming spot near Bath, untreated sewage was being dumped into the River Avon upstream. One mother told the Cable how, following a trip to the weir, she was woken by her son being violently sick in the middle of the night. Utility company Wessex Water has found itself in hot water with local campaigners and wild swimmers over its management of the region’s sewage system. But faced with a legacy of Victorian-era infrastructure and a failing regulatory system, can the tide be turned on this environmental and public health issue?

“A

t midnight we were woken by the sound of my son being very sick,” Carly White tells the Cable. “His body was literally clearing him out. I was really worried because he couldn’t even keep water down.” Earlier that day, she had taken her son – who has Down’s Syndrome and loves to swim – to Warleigh Weir near Bath after it became a lifeline for her during lockdown. She wasn’t the only parent left regretting that decision. It was late August when Johnny Palmer, who owns the weir, posted on Facebook about “loads'' of wild swimmers falling ill. He said this “correlated with [water supply and sewerage company] Wessex Water’s pumping of raw sewage” into the river. Swimmers from other spots alongside the River Avon have also reported sickness, including at Conham, Bitton, Batheaston and Keynsham. It's not confirmed what caused the sickness. But what is known is that rivers are often dumping grounds for untreated sewage. Just

the week before, a storm overflow located 4km upstream from Warleigh Weir had started releasing raw sewage into the Avon. Data shows this storm overflow dumped sewage into the river at Monkton Combe 67 times last year. But it’s not the only one. Over 200 storm overflows are located upstream of the weir. In total, Wessex Water released sewage into the natural environment more than 14,000 times – equivalent to 107,731 hours – between 1 January and 31 August 2021, according to data obtained by the Cable. These storm overflows have seen water companies come in for intense criticism for alleged impact on the environment and, increasingly, humans as wild swimming became massively popular during the harsh months of the pandemic. But behind the furore is a complicated story.

The problem with storm overflows In most parts of the UK, rainwater combines with sewage from

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The surge in popularity of wild swimming during the pandemic has highlighted the extent to which our outdated sewage system dumps waste into rivers – including the Avon. The Cable asks why, and speaks to local campaigners pushing for change.

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Up shit creek without £150 billion According to Matt Wheeldon, the director of asset strategy and compliance at Wessex Wa-

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14,000

The number of times Wessex Water released untreated sewage into the natural environment between 1 January and 31 August 2021, equivalent to 107,731 hours of discharge.

X20

The level above safe E. Coli limits (as set by the World Health Organisation) water at Conham River Park was found to be.

£10BN

Estimated cost to eliminate storm overflows in Wessex Water’s region, which the company says would lead to a 50% increase in customer bills over a 10-year period.

ter, things are not so simple. Wheeldon challenges the premise of what critics are saying. Though storm overflows have attracted a lot of attention, he tells the Cable, their environmental impact is overstated, pointing to official data that shows their operation accounts for just 3% of the reasons why water bodies do not meet environmental standards. The Rivers Trust has reported that overall, water companies contributed towards more than half of river water bodies failing to achieve good status. This is mainly due to the discharge of inadequately treated sewage, which includes but is not limited to storm overflows. It is a big enough problem that Wheeldon chairs a subgroup of the

“His body was literally clearing him out. I was really worried because he couldn’t even keep water down.” UK government’s Storm Overflows Taskforce, which was set up last August to deal with the pollution. Wheeldon says sewage discharge from overflows is “very much a societal issue” but that “water companies end up in the firing line” and that individuals need to consider their own responsibilities and expectations. “I swim at Warleigh Weir and I’ve never got ill,” he says. “I’ve never drunk the river. People saying they got ill, well, it’s a flipping river, it’s not a tap!” The “societal” nature of the problem becomes apparent when you consider the huge scale of fundamentally changing the sewer infrastructure, with recent official estimates ranging from £150bn to £500bn to eliminate storm overflows across England and Wales. “It would cost around £10bn to eliminate overflows in our region,” Wheeldon says of the local picture. He adds that costs would be passed onto customers’ bills, leading to a potential 50% increase over 10 years. Wessex Water, rated one of the better companies, claims it is focusing on improving storm overflows, or at least making them less damaging, with the company planning to invest £150m in the infrastructure between 2020-2025. Wheeldon is also calling on the government to give companies powers to change the pipe infrastructure at the main source of the issue – the combining of sewage and rainwater at people’s

How sewage gets into the waterways Old pipe systems combine rainwater with wastewater with overflow valves dumping straight into waterways

homes – and improving drainage. But for that to happen, the government needs to take action.

‘Political desire to keep water bills down’ “River pollution is at a crisis point, and the government is clearly failing to address this,” says Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East, who has previously spoken out about this issue. “The Environment Bill [currently going through Parliament] does contain some provisions to help reduce sewage discharges into rivers and will require progress reports and data collection on water pollution from the government and water companies.” But backsliding is possible. The EA has recently given the

Independent local media is a powerful tool for confronting environmental crises – from investigations into the murky waters of river pollution, to reporting on the latest solutions. With your support we can keep holding powers to account, from Wessex Water to Westminster. Join the Cable today:

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“I’ve never drunk the river. People saying they got ill, well, it’s a flipping river, it’s not a tap!” green light for water companies to dump even more sewage due to Brexit-related chemical shortages, a move which McCarthy says she finds “deeply concerning”. Wessex Water says it has “no intention of taking up” the new relaxed rules, and is on track to monitor all its storm overflows by 2023, ahead of a nationwide deadline earmarked for 2030 in the updated Environment Bill. A big problem, McCarthy says, is that “the government has refused to incorporate amendments to set long-term legally enforceable targets on water quality”. Because

to uphold these standards, already seen as too weak by some, official regulators need to be resourced and empowered to sanction companies that don’t comply. In September 2021, an official complaint lodged to the newly formed Office for Environmental Protection addressed exactly this. Wild fish campaigners at Salmon and Trout Conservation say there has been an “unhealthy conspiracy of silence” that is “driven by the political desire to keep water bills down”, resulting in policies and enforcement practises that have led to endemic underinvestment in sewage infrastructure. Predictably, the government doesn't agree. In late October, Conservative MPs, including Filton’s Jack Lopresti, rejected an amendment to the Environment Bill added by the Lords which would place a duty on water companies to reduce raw sewage discharges into rivers.

Fighting for clean water downstream But while the murky back and forth continues in Westminster, in

Bristol local environmentalists are pushing for change in other ways. Following the success of Ilkley Clean River Group in achieving the UK’s only designated river-bathing site on the River Wharfe in Yorkshire, campaigners at Warleigh Weir and Conham River Park in Bristol are now also trying to gain designated bathing water status. If achieved, this status means that the EA is required to test the water quality at these specific swimming locations throughout the bathing season of May to September, with the local council then informing the public about water quality. The EA would also have to investigate any river pollution, but whether this would actually lead to local action in Bristol is less clear. The causes may be varied, with recent EA data finding that while pollution from all sewage accounts for 36% of damage to UK rivers, run-off from agriculture accounts for even more, at 40%. “I don’t want to come out and say it’s just water companies doing this,” says Becca Blease, coordinator of the Conham Bathing Water Group. But recent tests by the group

have found that at their worst E. coli levels were over 20 times the level considered “sufficient” for swimming by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and also showed E. coli levels were much worse following heavy rain. Wessex Water has been supporting the tests, and is developing tools to enable near realtime bacteriological monitoring – and an app to inform swimmers when it is “lower risk” to swim. Fundamental change is clearly a while off, and polluters like Wessex Water need to step up further. But Blease believes better data collection can at least provide a much clearer idea of what real solutions might look like. In the meantime, Blease will keep swimming, mouth firmly closed. “I don’t think our rivers are a lost cause,” she says. ■

Find out more about the fight for healthy waterways Conham Bathing group: conhambathing.co.uk, and on social media Facebook: Warleigh Weir Project Guardians

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homes and industry into one pipe. This system is a relic of Victorian infrastructure entirely unsuitable for modern populations, meaning that during heavy rainfall the pipes are at risk of being overwhelmed, with sewage threatening to back up into people’s homes and out of their toilets. Storm overflows operate as a release valve, dumping straight into watercourses. The Environment Agency (EA) provides permits to water companies to discharge sewage into rivers during exceptional rainfall events. However, a loophole in the permits means that the word “exceptional” is not defined. This means sewage is being released more frequently than it is meant to, potentially up to 10 times more than the EA estimates. Wessex Water, which manages these overflows, denies these spills would have caused the wild swimmers to fall ill, instead blaming other factors such as agricultural runoff and wildlife. But others disagree, such as Dr Andrew Singer, a senior scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, who has said the pollution impact of discharge is a risk to ecological and human health. A recent report by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has also found sewage pollution has been contributing to the breakdown of river food chains and the death of freshwater fish en masse. The Avon has especially a lot to lose, being a designated Special Area of Conservation with a number of protected species. Campaigners like Johnny Palmer are asking why a company like Wessex Water cannot seem to tackle this problem, despite taking home £68m in profit in 2020/21. The company is led by Merchant Venturer Colin Skellet, and owned by YTL, the Malaysian multinational behind the controversial arena project at Filton. “The problem, in simple terms, is that Wessex Water is being paid to deal with an issue, which is sewage, and to process it so it can be disposed of safely,” he says. “They’re not doing that.” Palmer thinks the UK needs some serious regulatory change, but that water companies would lobby hard against that.

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INVESTIGATION

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FAST AND FUSION FREESTYLE DANCE TROUPE

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PHOTO ESSAY

After being diagnosed with Bell's palsy, a condition which weakens or paralyses facial muscles, photographer Lucy Werret is making a bid to rediscover the meaning of self-confidence by documenting the dance group Fusion. Through showcasing young and empowered women and girls in suburban landscapes around Bristol, this series explores community, confidence, expression and escapism. "I went to see these girls perform on a casting day and instantly I was blown away by their incredible energy and confidence," says Lucy. "The way they strutted around the room dancing to thumping techno, owning the space and giving me cheeky winks and smiles. "Freestyle dance is a way to build self esteem, making them feel like the queens they are, dressed in their flamboyant outfits, with outrageous energy and striking moves. By bravely performing in front of peers, judges, family and the public, this group prepares you for life in ways I never thought of before." A born and bred Bristolian, Lucy’s work is inspired by underrepresented stories, which she tells through a mixture of fashion, documentary and performative elements. She will soon be running a Kickstarter for her photo book, Fast and Fusion, about the dance troupe. ■

Instagram:@lucy.werrett

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Photos Lucy Werret

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roshirouzbehani.com

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Women experiencing violence or domestic abuse in conjunction with homelessness and other traumas have long been at risk of slipping through gaps between services. A new project aims to make sure that doesn’t happen Words Alex Turner and Hannah Vickers Illustration Roshi Rouzbehani Content warning: This article contains descriptions of domestic abuse and coercive control.

“I

was in a relationship for almost 10 years – looking back, it was textbook stuff, starting small, taking my independence away from me little by little," Abi*, a survivor of domestic abuse, tells the Cable. "It was very manipulative behaviour, and within that there was drug abuse as well," she goes on. "When I met him, he was a drug dealer – I hadn't really touched drugs before, and then that became a focus of the abuse, because I had an addiction and that was within his power to control, along with everything else in my life." A period during which Abi's abuser imprisoned her in their

home, contributing to her experiencing psychosis, led to her seeking specialist help around her mental health and substance use. After several years, she recalls, "I managed to pluck up the courage to see the situation for what it was and leave," with her support workers accompanying her to Bristol City Council's homelessness services. But this was not the end of Abi's nightmare. The first time she approached council officers, she says, the experience of being interrogated about her situation and personal issues, to assess whether she was owed a duty of housing, felt so shaming that she went back to her perpetrator. When she returned a few days later "with a bit more backbone to fight my corner", Abi was eventually offered a hostel bed, based on her history of drug use.

“I just remember the relief, opening the safe house door and feeling like I could take a breath”

"I'd stated clearly that I wanted to be placed in a women-only hostel, which they did," she explains. "But right next door was a men's one, and the two hostels were like crack houses – I didn't sleep pretty much the entire time I was there." Homeless women's 'near-universal' experience of abuse Mercifully, Abi's hostel stay ended when a bed in a safe house for women with complex needs, run by the local charity Next Link, became available. "I just remember the relief, opening the door and feeling like I could take a breath," she says. Had she approached the council this autumn, Abi might have been able to take that breath without first being put through an additional ordeal. In October, a 10-bed 'respite room' facility opened in Bristol to offer immediate safe spaces to women who have experienced domestic abuse but also violence, rape or sexual assault, sex work or exploitation, and who are sleeping rough or at risk of doing so. The rooms – part of a £3.7m, year-long government trial across 12 boroughs – will be available 24/7, staffed by women able to offer trauma-informed support around intersecting needs such as substance misuse, mental health and issues relating to migration and trafficking.

'A life-changing benefit' "Here in Bristol, there hasn't been an immediate space that will accept women of multiple disadvantage, who are fleeing violence – [most] refuges are unable to accept women with complex needs," says Ally Rush, a manager at homelessness charity St Mungo’s, a partner in the scheme with Next Link. Women can “fall through [service] gaps”, she says. While Rush will not be working directly in the new respite rooms, she previously helped run a project in Westminster – the Green

Room – which provided the template for the national scheme. "If we had a referral [to the Green Room] and could see that person was in need of shelter and in a dangerous situation, fleeing the perpetrator, we would accept it," Rush says. "We wouldn't say, 'Actually there's no evidence they're homeless' because often the person might be still living with the perpetrator," she adds, alluding to situations like Abi's. The Green Room established groups and drop-ins to make it easier and safer for women to access the support they needed. "If they wanted to go and get scripted, for example, at a local drug and alcohol service, they might be in fear of running into their perpetrator there," says Rush. "[Not having to do so] was a real, life-changing benefit." In Bristol, says Asher Craig, the deputy mayor with responsibility for children's services, education and equalities, the council – which commissioned the respite rooms – and its partners have been asking abuse and violence survivors to help plan the support on offer. "Their experiences are central to our developing the appropriate levels of support needed," Craig says. "A new survivors’ forum feeds into the work we’re doing, helping us shape programmes and interventions." Using £1m funding linked to the Domestic Abuse Act, the council has also employed two independent domestic violence advisors (IDVAs) – who address the safety of victims of high risk of harm – within housing services, and delivered awareness training to other staff. 'The safe house was my ladder'

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As with the Green Room, the aim of Bristol's respite rooms will not be to provide long-term accommodation. Instead they will offer women "a safe place [for a few weeks] to be able to work through their options, without having to constantly risk-assess because of the situation they're in", explains Sarah O'Leary, Next Link's chief executive. While five of the 10 rooms are already occupied at the time of writing, it is hoped that up to 100 women can be accommodated over the course of the year. "The idea is that they can move on to whatever accommodation meets their need – it could

Defining abuse The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 became law on 30 April 2021. The landmark legislation created a legal definition of domestic abuse that recognises affected children as victims in their own right, as well as introducing new criminal offences including post-separation coercive control and threats to disclose sexual images, and banning abusers using 'rough sex' defences. The act places a duty on councils to fund support for survivors in 'safe accommodation'. It also guarantees survivors will be given priority for rehousing – and will be able to hold onto rights as a secure tenant should they have to leave social housing to escape an abuser. Besides protective work such as the respite rooms, some areas, including Bristol, have been introducing schemes targeted at changing violent men's attitudes and behaviour – a topic that's been high on the public agenda following the appalling murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa. In South Gloucestershire, an initiative called the Drive Project has begun working with repeat offenders who pose a serious risk of harm to people they have intimate or family relationships with by seeking to address the root causes of their actions.

be via the homelessness pathway, it could be further specialist supported housing or refuge accommodation," O'Leary says. With services already stretched and street outreach teams reporting small but consistent rises in the proportion of women among Bristol's rough-sleeper population, O'Leary says it is crucial the respite rooms provide a foundation for longer-term action, rather than being merely a brief pilot scheme. "In our experience, women who receive support tailored to their needs, where their experience is understood, and they have autonomy to make their own choices, go on to thrive," she says. Abi agrees, describing the safe house as "my ladder". "That was the first step – I had somewhere, I felt safe and supported with all the things I had going on,"

she says. "It quickly became apparent that there were no judgements there – and that, for me, was a key aspect, to be able to just give all of my truth out. It was a really important part of my recovery." ■ *Not her real name If you need support with domestic abuse, contact Next Link on 0800 4700 280 or via the live chat service at nextlinkhousing.co.uk If you need support after experiencing historic or recent rape, sexual assault or sexual abuse, contact Next Link’s partner organisation Safe Link on 0333 323 1543 or via the live chat service at safelinksupport.co.uk

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‘Respite rooms’ offer vital breathing space to women facing abuse and homelessness

The project was announced in March's budget, shortly before the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (see box) became law. It comes amid rising reports of domestic abuse during the pandemic, and increasing recognition that situations like Abi's are, horrifically, not uncommon. A major review of homelessness and rough sleeping led by ex-civil service head Sir Bob Kerslake, published last month, cited research findings that the experience of violence and domestic abuse among women who become homeless was "near-universal". "This connection between violence, abuse and women’s homelessness is reinforced by international evidence," the Kerslake Commission report continued. Yet with women making up only around 14% of rough sleepers – being more likely to be among the uncounted 'hidden homeless', sofa-surfing, sleeping on buses or exchanging sex for shelter – too few support services are set up with their needs in mind.

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The government decision to scrap universal credit as winter draws in and fuel and food prices soar has left thousands of Bristolians struggling to cope Words Hannah Vickers Photo Darren Shepherd

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warnings from charities that the move will force 840,000 people nationwide into poverty. Around 42,000 people in Bristol are estimated to be claiming universal credit, including 17,000 working households, around 40% of claimants, who use the benefit to boost poverty wages. Justice secretary Dominic Raab says the uplift was “always meant to be temporary”, that the government wants to “avoid the benefits and welfare trap” and that universal credit was designed to encourage people into work. ‘Angry but not surprised’

twice on national TV that losing the £20 uplift could be made back up by working just two hours a week. While that’s true in very specific circumstances, the vast majority will have to work a lot more than that to earn the same amount: As well as people having tax and national

“Covid’s not even over, we’re coming into winter and now they’re deciding to take money off us”

Deborah* has been staying in emergency accommodation since fleeing her ex, who was financially abusing her. She’s currently in a safe house and can’t work. Now the uplift is gone she's getting £211 a month. “I don’t eat 3 meals a day because I can’t afford it.” Most of her income goes on her phone contract - which she signed up for while she was working, paying back her credit card and on gas, electric and water. She’s left with £100 to get food with and can’t bulk buy, because she lives in a shared house with a tiny freezer and almost no fridge space. “I’m going to have to struggle and rely on food banks I guess.” Thérèse Coffey, secretary of state for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced

Zoe McBride from Kingswood is struggling to cope with the cut

*Names have been changed darrenshepherd.uk

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We’re investigating Bristol’s housing crisis. Share your experiences:

oe McBride, 26, is one of the thousands of people trying to work out how to cope since the £20-aweek uplift to universal credit was cut at the start of October. It comes at the same time as gas, electricity and food prices have soared. Her bills are taken directly from her account which means that she’s left making tough choices of what to go without each month. “I’ve already got to make choices between what food I might get or whether or not I’m going to be able to have the heating on, and with the cuts coming in I’m just not going to be able to keep warm properly at all. And that affects my disability and my overall wellbeing because I’m in a lot more pain when it’s cold.” Zoe, who lives in Kingswood, has chronic back pain, including herniated discs and scoliosis. They’re made worse by the cold: “It affects my muscle tension and makes the overall pain a lot harder to handle and worse to bear.” She has learning difficulties and struggles to work out the bills. She’s recently got a support worker, but they’re having to work through a year’s backlog of paperwork. Zoe says she was charged £80-150 for her energy bills over the summer, when she didn’t have the heating on at all, and she’s worried about how she’s going to afford to have the heating on over winter. The government announced a one-year uplift of £20 a week to universal credit and working tax credit at the start of the pandemic. Then in March this year they gave working tax credit recipients a one-off payment of £500 and extended the universal credit uplift for another six months. But they’ve now taken this away, despite soaring energy prices and

FEATURE

Having to choose between heating and eating

insurance taken off their universal credit, there’s also the taper. If you earn over a set amount while receiving universal credit, for every pound above that amount you earn, you lose 63p from your benefit payments. That means you’ll only get 37% of every pound you earn once you’re over that threshold. An analysis by the Health Foundation found that scrapping the uplift could further widen health inequalities and push some areas further behind the average for living standards - there’s already a strong relationship between health and the number of people on universal credit and working tax credits in an area. Sasha Conway, 33, got Covid-19 in March 2020 and has been suffering from Long Covid ever since, taking frequent trips to the hospital for tests. Sasha, who lives in Eastville, was let go from their main job as a kitchen porter in October last year and lost their other work teaching bass when the first lockdown made face-to-face lessons impossible. “I walk with a walking stick, I’m less capable. The issue is the £20 reduction is just another kick to my mental health because it is just another thing on top of everything else.” They spend 15 hours in bed a day because of fatigue and are contesting a recent refusal of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) so are currently just relying on Universal Credit. “I’m angry but I’m not surprised – and I think that’s even more depressing. We’re seeing an increase in taxes, we’ve got food prices going up, fuel prices going up…” says Sasha. “It’s ridiculous that at a point of price inflation we have a government that’s going: ‘yeah we’re not going to do this any more’ to people who are just going to get further and further into debt.” It’s a sentiment Zoe shares. She was three years without a home before getting housed in emergency accommodation and then her flat. “It just goes to show how they’ve never had to survive like we have, they’ve always had everything they want,” says Zoe. “£20 to them is probably a cup of coffee and a sandwich.” “Covid’s not even over, we’re coming into winter and now they’re deciding to take money off us.” ■

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Kingsdown Sports Centre and Jubilee Pool could close in March 2023 while other leisure centres are set to get extra funding Words Jess Connett Photo Aphra Evans

t’s Wednesday morning at Kingsdown Sports Centre and the hall is full. At one end, a dozen people twist their bodies on yoga mats. A woman in an orange tunic and matching head wrap reaches for the sky. A shuttlecock smacks at the other end; friends laugh as they knock up on three badminton courts. Music pumps in the gym upstairs. With its sprung wooden floor, competition-standard squash courts and five full-sized badminton courts, Kingsdown Sports Centre is a unique asset. This is the city’s busiest badminton hall, home to prestigious clubs that have trained England players and world champions. Bristol & District Club’s history in Kingsdown pre-dates the current building; members played at Kingsdown Swimming Baths until it was demolished in the 1960s.

Plans for the contemporary sports centre included a replacement pool; this was scrapped due to the council’s ‘trimming of spending’, one newspaper reported at the time. Instead, the centre hosted ‘minority sports such as squash and badminton’. Kingsdown now runs classes and events from spinning to indoor paintball and virtual reality gaming. But Bristol City Council plans to stop operating Kingsdown Sports Centre and Knowle’s Jubilee Pool, calling them ‘tired and ageing facilities’ that ‘do not meet the full expectations and demands of Bristol’s residents’. The money will be diverted into Horfield Leisure Centre, Easton Leisure Centre or Bristol South Swimming Pool in Bedminster, with a public consultation open until November. Without community asset transfer (CAT) or

private takeover, Kingsdown and Jubilee will close in March 2023. More than a pool Jules Laming sits outside Jubilee Pool. The 1930s art deco building has solid dark bricks and cast-iron drain pipes. Pots of flowers bask in the sun. A faded banner declares ‘WE LOVE JUBILEE’ – evidence of years of fighting to save it. “It’s an exhausting thing to do,” Jules says. “People are tired. But underlying that is a sense of injustice and a sense that what we’re doing is the right thing – and if we don’t fight, nobody else is going to save it. Its loss would adversely affect so many people.” Locals successfully fought the council’s plans to close the pool in 2011 – a cost-saving measure after building £32m Hengrove

History at risk While Jubilee Pool has faced closure for years, in Kingsdown it has come as a shock. Everyone Active staff at the centre first heard the proposals on local radio. A petition

Jules Laming from the campaign to save Jubilee Pool

started by Cotham’s Green councillors has over 1,000 signatures, but the CAT process would be a major organisational feat. It’s hoped Badminton England and England Squash will lend support. Nigel Birkett has been playing badminton at Kingsdown for 38 years. He chairs Beaufort, one of the country’s oldest clubs: “We’ve got a real history and the membership has evolved over time. We’ve got old members, young members, diverse ethnicities, diverse genders.” Nigel’s grandson used to play in the junior sections. There have been countless training sessions, matches and pub trips. Nigel recuperated from a hip replacement in 2018 by joining Kingsdown’s gym and playing gentle badminton, at sessions “for over 60s with bits of their body replaced or missing.” Bristol & District, Beaufort and LGBT+ club Bristol Swifts face uncertainty without Kingsdown. “It’s almost impossible to get courts. We would have nowhere to go. We would shut,” says Fiach O’Rourke, who founded Bristol Swifts three years ago. The club has 150 players and hosts the largest international LGBT+ badminton tournament in the UK. “Horfield Leisure Centre is full. We’ve tried the schools – all of them are full. There is no space in Bristol for additional clubs, or for clubs to grow. The University of Bristol’s badminton teams use Kingsdown for their matches because there is not enough space in the university. It’s exceptionally ill-informed.” Fiach says. Kingsdown’s proximity to the University of

Pearl Maynard (right) who works at Kingsdown Sports Centre

“People are tired. But underlying that is a sense of injustice and a sense that what we’re doing is the right thing – and if we don’t fight, nobody else is going to save it” Bristol’s Indoor Sports Centre has influenced the council’s decision – as has stagnating membership, Kingsdown’s location in a relatively affluent area, and the extra subsidies it receives because it has no pool. A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “We are determined to deliver on our commitment to public health, sport and exercise, to reduce the stark health inequalities which exist between different parts of the city.” They added the seven councilowned facilities that will stay open in the proposal serve the highest number of users and the areas of greatest deprivation.

“Local communities and users of these facilities are best placed to operate them and to access funds for further investment and upgrades, and the transfer of one or both of those sites to be run as part of a CAT, or to another commercial operator, would be welcomed. “The consultation is an opportunity for the community to both express their views on these proposals and offer any ideas and solutions of their own on working with us over taking forward the operation of facilities in the future.’’ The consultation is open until 7 November. Until the results next year, the future remains uncertain. “There will be real sadness if Kingsdown goes – there’s history there for a lot of people,” Nigel says. “Changing the council’s mind – it’s like a brick wall.” ■ Have your say in the Leisure Facilities Investment Survey consultation: bristol. citizenspace.com/publichealth/leisure-facilitiesinvestment-strategy/

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Not at your leisure: Two much-loved community sports venues under threat

Park Leisure Centre just two miles away. Friends of Jubilee Pool, which Jules is part of, was set up in 2017 during another closure attempt. After the first Covid-19 lockdown the pool remained closed, so the group mobilised and the doors reopened after 4,500 people signed a petition. In August 2020, the council began a consultation about the pool’s longterm future. Of more than 1,800 respondents, 96% said they did not want the pool to close. But with the council’s plan to cease operations looking likely, Friends of Jubilee Pool are pursuing CAT to lease the building and take on its management – currently contracted out to Parkwood Leisure. The Friends have submitted an expression of interest and must prepare a fully costed business plan, including up to £190,000 of essential maintenance work. It’s a long and challenging process. Jules says other groups’ CATs have taken over two years. “The council see this as a building that’s at the end of its life and they don’t consider it financially viable to maintain,” Jules says. “I understand that there are financial constraints but I think it’s shortsighted because it doesn’t reflect the implications of not having a pool in terms of health, wellbeing, community cohesion, friendships. “This part of south Bristol has some of the highest rates of obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease.

It’s classified as one of the most deprived parts of the country, let alone the city. To start taking away facilities that are cheaper to use and provide people with the ability to keep fit is insane.” While Bristol South Swimming Pool and Hengrove Park are only a few miles away, many consultation respondents told the council they were not viable options. Hengrove’s busy 50 metre pool costs a third more for an adult swim and is over an hour’s round trip by bus from Knowle. “This is why it’s important,” Jules says passionately, as adults with learning disabilities and their support workers climb Jubilee’s steps. The staff member on reception greets people by name. “Hello! It’s nice to see you again!” she says to one woman. Jules says: “It’s about people’s lives. This pool can accommodate people with special needs or disabilities. The small and inclusive nature really works for people with autism and sensory disabilities because it’s not overwhelming. It’s really important that people can come somewhere that they perceive to be – and is – safe. It’s so much more than a swimming pool.”

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“While I was in Hong Kong,” Andrew* says, “I witnessed how society was being split, by fake news and government propaganda.” Andrew and his family moved to Bristol in January of this year, in exile from their increasingly authoritarian homeland. Soon after arriving, they joined the Bristol Cable because it was owned by and accountable to local people.

happening elsewhere in the world, we can learn from one another and build stronger, fairer alternatives.

By the summer, Andrew was campaigning locally as part of a group called Bristol HK, raising awareness of police violence and the draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong. In August, we made a short documentary together, detailing the violence Hong Kongers were suffering and how they’re fighting back. Far from home and fearful of the consequences of speaking out, Andrew described how “the Bristol Cable really helped us - making our voices louder, and making us connected.”

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Frederick Douglass escaped slavery and became one of the world’s most powerful advocates for freedom. In 1846 he thrilled crowds in Bristol Words Laurence Fenton

n Tuesday 25 August 1846, the great human rights activist and anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass delivered a powerful speech at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. While acknowledging it was difficult for many in Britain to believe what he said about the horrors of slavery because they “had heard of America, 3000 miles off, as the land of the free and the home of the brave”, the truth, he declared to loud cheers, was that for all the grandiloquent talk of all men being equal, the sound in the South was that of the “clank of the fetters and the rattling of the chains, which bound their miserable slaves together”. John K. Haberfield, the popular Bristol mayor, chaired the meeting. He filled a glass of water for Douglass, leading a local paper to declare in outrage: “What! A white man – a mayor – a man in authority – hand a glass of water to a Negro! Incredible!” Catapulted to fame by his incendiary 1845 autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass was in Bristol as part of a nearly two-year lecture tour of Britain and Ireland. As an escaped slave he had been advised to lay low for a while. Revelling in the freedom of movement and mind that came with being away from the oppressive racial climate of the United States, Douglass would consider the tour a transformative experience. No ‘colour test’ kept him from travelling

on omnibuses or trains. He even went to the Houses of Parliament, where he watched Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel address the Commons, knowing a trip to Congress in Washington would have seen him back in chains. Among the other figures to speak that day in the Commons was the Bristol MP Sir John Cam Hobhouse, whose family’s wealth derived in no small part from slavery. Isaac Hobhouse, for example, was an owner or investor in scores of slave ship voyages in the mid1700s, a time when Bristol had supplanted London as the epicentre of

“What! A white man – a mayor – a man in authority – hand a glass of water to a Negro! Incredible!” British slaving. While in Bristol, Douglass stayed at the spacious 47 Park Street, the home that prominent citizen and eye surgeon John Bishop Estlin shared with his 25-year-old daughter Mary. Mary became a leading member of the Bristol and Clifton Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society and described Douglass’s Bristol speech as brimming with “powerful reasoning … touching appeals, keen sarcasm and graphic description”. Douglass delivered a number of lectures in Bristol, including at

Laurence Fenton is a historian and author of ‘I Was Transformed’ Frederick Douglass: An American Slave in Victorian Britain

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Cable member Andrew* fled anti-democracy crackdowns in Hong Kong, and is now making a powerful appeal to the people of Bristol to protect independent media

When one of the most iconic slavery abolitionists came to town

the Victoria Rooms – that now houses the University of Bristol’s Department of Music – where the audience was described as ‘a most select assemblage’. The following day he appeared before a 1,000-strong audience of ‘a more popular cast’ at Broadmead. Mary Estlin also took him to the Blind Asylum, where visually impaired people were trained for employment in crafts such as basket- and mat-making. ‘Their delight was extreme to feel him and question him. I think F.D. will never forget the scene,’ John Estlin wrote, the underlining of ‘feel’ suggesting those present actually placed their hands on Douglass’s striking face and features or perhaps the stature of his mere presence. Thrilled with the response to his talks and with the friendship of the Estlins and others, including the founder of Bristol General Hospital, Douglass visited Bristol several more times during what he called his ‘liberating sojourn’ in Britain. The pro-slavery elements in the city were surprisingly quiet during his stays, sated perhaps by the compensation received as part of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Those that enslaved people, rather than those who were enslaved, received the equivalent of £20m from the British Treasury, approximately 40% of the entire UK government spending that year. The loan borrowed by the state to give to slave owners was only finally paid off in 2015. The Estlins remained committed to the anti-slavery cause. John Estlin passed away in 1855 in the middle of an anti-slavery meeting being held in his home. Mary Estlin, meanwhile, would campaign for the advancement of AfricanAmericans until her death in 1902. When Douglass travelled back to America in the spring of 1847, it was as a free man; his manumission (release form slavery) having been secured by British supporters for £150. Armed with this freedom, he continued his crusade, establishing himself as the most forceful anti-slavery voice of the nineteenth century and an icon of international standing. ■

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Join the Cable, to support our investigative journalism: thebristolcable.org/join London, the force not using section 60 “very much” under previous chief constable Andy Marsh, and the force launching a scheme in partnership with Golden Key and the council to find alternatives to prison for young people involved in drug-related offences. “There was starting to be this groundswell around procedural justice where people felt that justice was being done.” But more enforcement on communities already disproportionately enforced on is going to be a step backwards, Brown says.

Police and Crime Bill: We need to talk about stop and search Chair of the Avon and Somerset Lammy Group Desmond Brown says new stop and search powers included in the Police and Crime Bill will entrench a lack of trust in the police Words Hannah Vickers Illustration R Rowland

he government’s controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill is moving steadily through the democratic process. Despite nationwide protests and dozens of amendments being proposed, it passed unchanged from the House of Commons to the House of Lords where it was debated in September. The debate lasted six and a half hours, with peers slamming the legislation for being too wide-ranging, too draconian and for including discriminatory provisions. As we go to print, the Lords are about to begin a line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill before passing it back to the Commons with their proposed amendments. One measure proposed by the PCSC Bill is to bring in Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs).

These orders would allow police to stop and search people who’ve got a knife crime conviction, without the “reasonable grounds” normally required. The orders will apply to anyone who has been convicted of an offence involving a knife or serious weapon, even if they weren’t the one wielding it. This will mean that for six months to two years after their conviction, police will be free to stop and search them. Breach of this order, including not willingly submitting to a stop and search, will be punishable by up to two years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. The SVROs would be the latest move in a steady ramping-up of stop and search powers in recent years after the government reversed Theresa May’s 2014 reforms to the legislation. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act already allows

“I know lots of young people who’ve never been stopped and searched but they still hold a hatred for the police because of the stories they’ve heard”

police to stop and search anyone without “reasonable grounds” during a specified time and in a specified area if serious violence is expected and this measure has recently been made easier to use. Desmond Brown, the chair of the Lammy Review Group for Avon and Somerset, an independent watchdog that reviews institutional racism in the police and the criminal justice system, worries that this new addition to stop and search legislation is going to damage community relations with police. “They’re not going to get any better definitely, and it’s going to entrench this lack of trust.” Section 60 “is ‘sus’ under a different name,” says Brown, referring to the long-defunct sus laws that enabled police to stop anyone they thought looked suspicious. But even without it, people of colour are stopped significantly more than white people. Brown, who was previously chairman of the city’s Commission for Race Equality, is a vocal advocate for race relations and equality. The Lammy Review Group collects data on experiences of people of colour in the criminal justice system and will release its report towards the end of the year. Brown says that, while Avon and Somerset Police is far from perfect, the force is improving. Positives include the Lammy review, which is the first of its kind outside of

Black people are stopped and searched at least six times more than white people, and Asian people are around twice as likely to be stopped and searched as a white person. The Equality and Human Rights Commission published a report in 2010 that found stop and search powers to be unlawful, disproportionate, discriminatory and damaging to relations within and between communities. In 2014, then home secretary May, promised a reform to make stop and search fairer and more transparent, saying: “Nobody wins when stop and search is misapplied. It is a waste of police time. It is unfair, especially to young black men. It is bad for public confidence in the police”. She launched the ‘Best use of stop and search scheme’, which brought in several promising measures, including requiring police to better-record

The devil’s in the detail. We’ve been following the Police and Crime Bill since protests erupted on the streets of Bristol in March, but the story doesn’t end there. Support from members enables us to dig deeper, exploring the root causes of distrust and disempowerment, to scrutinise changes in the law ourselves, and to demand justice. Join us, for a just media

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Chair of the Avon and Somerset Lammy Group, Desmond Brown

the outcome of stops and introducing a ‘community trigger’ which would mean a force would have to explain themselves if they received a lot of complaints. It also made it harder for police to use Section 60, which allows police to stop people with “no suspicion”. However, it was only voluntary. Forces could choose whether or not to be part of it. Avon and Somerset Police signed up to the scheme. In July this year Home Secretary Priti Patel’s Beating Crime Plan reversed May’s restrictions on Section 60. Brown has had his own experiences of being racially profiled by police. He called the police when he was burgled once “and the police started searching the place for drugs.” He says that the “overpolicing and underprotecting” of Black and Asian communities has led to a deep mistrust of police and the criminal justice system. This view is backed by a new report from the Police Exchange, which blames the Met’s focus on stop and search for a rise in knife crime in London. Analysis of a decade of knife crime data concluded that a failure in police strategy, drill music and social media “are causes of dozens of deaths and hundreds more injuries every year”. And a report by the Justice Inspectorates published earlier this year found that if police forces aren’t able to explain disproportionate use of police powers, like stop and search, against people of colour, they “risk losing the trust of the communities they serve”. Stop and search is also one of the reasons cited for the police struggling to recruit Black people. Lord Woolley, former chair of the government’s Race Disparity

Unit, said last year that the racial targeting of people of colour in stop and searches and criminalisation of young Black men for minor crimes was making attempts to get more Black people into policing 10 times harder. Earlier this year, the Cable interviewed a young man who had been stopped and searched five times in two years, despite the police never finding anything on him and him not having a criminal record. He’s filed a complaint against the officers who stopped him most recently, after he says they pepper sprayed him without provocation and “kneed him in the privates” during the incident. “I won’t trust the police again,” he told us. “100% never, never.” It isn’t just people who have bad experiences with the police who are going to be distrustful, says Brown. “I know lots of young people who’ve never been stopped and searched but they still hold a hatred for the police because of the stories they’ve heard.” I ask Brown if he thinks the new stop and search powers will be effective at preventing crime. He doesn’t hesitate. “No.” He says that it’s not good for people to carry knives, “but we need to deal with the issues of young people feeling scared that they can’t be protected by the police, they can’t be protected by their schools. They say ‘I’d rather go to prison than die’. “It’s just not working because young people don’t trust that they’re going to be protected so they feel like they have to protect themselves. Just putting young people who are fearful into the criminal justice system isn’t the way that society should operate.” ■

1824: Before stop and search were ‘sus laws’, allowing police to search anyone they suspected of being “disorderly” or a “rogue or vagabond” 1981: An inquiry into the Brixton riots leads to the creation of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), requiring police to have “reasonable grounds” for stop and search 1999: The Macpherson inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation calls for greater scrutiny into how powers are used 2014: Theresa May announces a package of new measures to make stop and search fairer, but force compliance is voluntary. Avon and Somerset signs up 2019: Home Secretary Priti Patel lifts restrictions on stop and search in pilot scheme, making it easier for police to stop and search without needing “reasonable grounds”. These changes are made permanent in 2021 March 2021: The government announces new stop and search powers in Police and Crime Bill

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r-rowland.com

Stop and search ‘entrenches a lack of trust in police’

Evolution of stop and search

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Building long-term networks and the role of trade unions are important in turning the tide in the uphill battle against climate change, according to activists organising Bristol’s protest on 6 November

‘Get on the streets and do something’ Williams, a long-term environmental activist, thinks there is more awareness now than ever before. "It's starting to hit people more in a direct way – their pockets, supply chains, cost of goods,” she says. A recent study found the UK public overwhelmingly supports strong climate actions, including taxing polluting industries, placing levies on flying and providing grants for heat pumps. More people are starting to get back involved in environmental activism again after the momentum of demonstrations in Bristol was scuppered by the pandemic, Williams adds. PreCOP26 organising began in August with a 50-person Zoom meeting. There have since been sessions on different topics, including the Global South and just transition, with more than 200 people now involved, thousands of leaflets distributed and stalls set up across the city. Huge protests are expected in Glasgow and London on 6 November. In Bristol, the demonstration will assemble on College Green at midday, before a march around town and a rally at 3pm. Feeder marches will join coming from Easton and the University. The day before is a day of action by school students, and workers will be encouraged to protest for 26 minutes outside their workplace. Williams hopes for an “ideal scenario” in which networks are built and continue to have a purpose beyond COP26. As a university lecturer, one possibility she mentions is a collective of educators against climate change. "The bigger the demonstration, the more pressure we can put on the mayor and people in local control, as well as nationally,” she says. “Get on the streets and do something.” ■

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Words Matty Edwards

Related to this is the emerging idea of just transition – ensuring decarbonisation doesn’t further inequality – and of a Green New Deal – investing heavily to help polluting industries decarbonise while protecting and creating jobs. While Labour’s shadow cabinet is divided over nationalising energy companies, the party committed to a whopping £28bn a year of investment in tackling climate change. "It's critical trade unions have started to get on board,” Williams says. “Unless people working in these industries are on board with changing the way we live our lives, we haven't got a hope in hell.”

CLIMATE

Will it make a difference? The Bristol climate activists mobilising for COP26 and beyond

xtinction Rebellion (XR), school climate strikes, Greta Thunberg: since the Paris Agreement of 2015 there has been an explosion in climate activism. With climate scientists sounding increasingly bleak warnings about how little time we have left to avert catastrophe, and the impact of global heating apparent in extreme weather and lethal wildfires, activists’ messages are cutting through like never before. Protests have come to Bristol too, with XR blocking our roads, the Youth Strike for Climate bringing thousands to the streets, and Greta addressing Bristolians on a miserable rainy College Green just before the pandemic. But on the eve of COP26, the UN climate-action summit seen as a final chance to prevent climate breakdown, the question remains: how does greater awareness and action around climate change translate into real progress? I put this to Salena Williams, one of the organisers of a mass day of action in Bristol on 6 November to mark COP26 being hosted in Glasgow. She is part of the Bristol Hub of the COP26 Coalition of around 40 local groups organising protests. “I think COP26 will be an utter failure,” she says. “They will give platitudes but we won't come out of it with anything from the top leaders, they don’t see it as a problem for them, it’s about shoring up their own countries, at the expense of the Global South.” So why bother protesting? “Firstly we can have an impact on what they say, but also building solidarity provides a network we can use in the future,” Williams says. “In Paris, there were massive demonstrations that did have an impact, they moved the target from 2 to 1.5 degrees [warmer than pre-industrial levels], so mass action does make a difference.” However, the national targets set by countries to reduce emissions weren’t enough to meet the Paris temperature targets, and are expected to lead to a disastrous rise of 3 degrees or more. Countries are being urged to revise their commitments at COP26 to give us a chance to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Trade unions can be vital in turning the tide, Williams argues. "There are tensions within the unions in terms of climate action (for example Unite backing the expansion of Bristol Airport), but Unison SW has voted unanimously to support COP26, so there's been a sea-change in established trade unions getting involved in climate action, which is a major step forward.”

Support our journalism to be free to access for all. Become a member: thebristolcable.org/join ‘You need a safe place’

“People make us out to be anti-social, but we’re not”

Meet the van-dwelling pensioners dividing opinion at the Downs A community of people living in vehicles on Bristol’s most famous green space, which includes a number of older people, faces an uncertain future as some local groups complain about their ‘unfair’ use of protected land Words James Rogerson Photos Aphra Evans

n a late summer’s day, the Downs are at their best. Groups of walkers wander here and there, while students play sports where the fresh-painted touchlines signal autumn’s approach. On Parrys Lane – a short oneway road that transects Durdham Down as it reaches Henleaze – the longest of a group of motorhomes has its door open, with an Alsatian tied up on the grass outside. Cameron MacSween, 79, a well-spoken and articulate ex-president of the Chamber of Commerce for Dover, sits at a table beside the door, a suit hanging up behind him. MacSween has been here on and off for two-and-a-half years. Before the pandemic he was travelling around Europe and the UK, before being forced to stay here by

the lockdown restrictions. He is one of three men in their seventies who have been living here in a community of van-dwellers. There has been an increase in van-dwelling in recent years as a result of an increase in house prices and rents – and Bristol has been one of the places most affected. The presence of older people like MacSween at Parrys Lane underscores the extent to which the housing crisis, coupled with coronavirus restrictions, has increased the diversity of people living long-term in vehicles. The Parrys Lane van-dwellers have divided local opinion, with some residents – notably a group called Respect the Downs – complaining about them staying semipermanently on protected land. The van-dwellers, and other locals, believe they cause no nuisance

and are a beneficial presence. MacSween says the Parrys Lane community is crucial for his health and wellbeing. “I’ve lost a lot of my mobility – I have problems with my knees and I’m having treatment at Southmead Hospital,” he says. His neighbours help him to move in and out of his van, and to buy essentials, he says. He is quick to deny claims of nuisance at Parrys Lane – which include “human waste in the surrounding area, littering, anti-social behaviour and the creation of a no-go zone for Bristol residents” – made by Respect the Downs. “I think they’ve got it wrong,” he says. “They publish disinformation, such as pictures of rubbish here. We don’t tolerate rubbish in any conditions. They make us out to be antisocial [which] we’re not.”

A few doors down from MacSween sits a white Transit van, the home of Dave Turton, who is 56 and has an autoimmune disorder. “Living in a van, you need a safe place,” he says. “Before the pandemic I’d go to Cornwall for summer and Spain for the winter. I drove back from Spain and got locked down here.” Turton says there are seven or eight regulars here, but that most people come and go. “A lot of people are living in vans [because of] the housing crisis,” he says. “There are people who stay the night because they’re working in Bristol. They can’t afford to live here. “Before Christmas I spoke to about 200 people in Henleaze,” he continues. “Most don’t care about us being here.” Both MacSween and Turton emphasise the sense of community at Parrys Lane – something Bristol City Council’s Unauthorised Encampment Policy for Vehicle Dwellers cites as a key reason why people living in vehicles gravitate to the city. “The police tell people to come here because it’s a safe place,” Turton argues, referring to a female vandweller who was subjected to sexual harassment on a different part of the Downs and was moved here to be safer – and is still there. An unfair use of the Downs? Robert Westlake, the chair of Friends of the Downs, a volunteer organisation set up to “preserve and protect the Downs”, agrees with some of the points made by MacSween and Turton. “To date the ‘selfmanagement’ of the site seems to be working, and the van-dwellers in general appear to behave responsibly and, to some extent, contribute to the Downs,” he says. Westlake adds that he understands the issues that have contributed to van-dwelling. “Homelessness, unaffordable rents, proximity to work opportunities, hospitals and relatives are all relevant factors,” he says. Steve Smith, the chair of the Downs Committee – and a councillor for Westbury and Henleaze and the current Lord Mayor – does not dispute this. But he says what most residents complain about is the unfairness of van-dwellers living on the Downs when they

are not meant for this purpose. “If you wanted to set up a new community by building houses or setting up a caravan site you wouldn’t get that consent on the Downs because they are protected,” he points out. “Yet that is what we’ve got – there is a semipermanent community of people living there and no process has been followed by the council.” Smith says Respect the Downs have made two proposals to the council. “The first is to review the parking restrictions across the Downs,” he says. “The second is to close off Parrys Lane and rewild it.” Residents know this isn’t the solution, Smith goes on. “Most people know that the only way to get the problem fixed is to have decent places where people who choose to live in vans can do so safely and with some control over their own environment,” he says. What next for Parrys Lane? The council launched a van policy in 2019 to deal with the fact there were a growing number of people living in vehicles on the road. The policy catADVERTISEMENT

egorised encampments as high- and low-impact and outlined council and police powers to move people on. At the start of the pandemic the council provided two temporary sites for the city's travelling communities, to allow them to selfisolate. While it has not been able to maintain all this extra capacity, it has since opened further provision, most recently on the site of a former Knowle West primary school. At a Downs Committee meeting in July, it was revealed that the mayor’s office had put forward Respect the Downs’ proposals for the committee’s agreement, with Green councillor Paula O’Rourke arguing for the importance of finding a different site. “There has to be a solution which doesn’t push our problem across the city and penalise and punish those people who don’t really have any choice about where they live,” she said. The committee has written back to the mayor’s office to ask if there is an alternative site available for the Parrys Lane group to move to. With no decision yet taken, the future of MacSween and Parrys community remains precarious. ■

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 27

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FEATURE

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Evidence points to traffic pollution’s mental health impact Recently, I was part of a research team that conducted a study to examine whether air pollution exposure leads to more severe illness in people experiencing first episodes of psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia) and mood disorders (such as depression). These conditions affect about 3% and 17% of people over their lifetime, respectively. Our study used anonymised electronic health records of 13,887 people living in South London and receiving care from one of Europe’s largest secondary mental healthcare providers: South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM). Using a state-of-the-art air quality model spanning 2008-2012, we

Cutting Bristol’s air pollution could help citizens’ mental as well as physical health

We need public leaders to be bold with big ideas, despite the risks and bad PR of failed ambitions

Evidence increasingly suggests that traffic pollutants can adversely affect the brain, impact cognitive function, and increase the risk of mental health problems. Bristol’s Clean Air Zone cannot come too soon

Unless we give public institutions and leaders the license to think big, even at the risk of failure and getting flak for it, we may just end up with middling ideas that are delivered adequately

Words Joanne Newbury Illustration Joe Watson-Price

Words Adam Cantwell-Corn Illustration Till Lukat

estimated how much exposure to nitrogen oxides, and PM2.5, and PM10 particulate matter (particles 2.5 or 10 micrometres or smaller) people had experienced at their home address over a three-month period when they first had contact with SLaM. We then measured how much they used inpatient and community-based mental health services over seven years. We found that for every 15 micrograms per cubic metre increase in nitrogen dioxide, risk for inpatient and community-based service use increased by 18% and 32%, respectively. For every three micrograms per cubic metre increase in PM2.5, meanwhile, risk for inpatient and community-based service use increased by 11% and 7%, respectively. These associations persisted over the full seven years and were not explained by other variables such as deprivation, population density, age, season, marital status and ethnicity. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that air pollution adversely affects mental health, from mild to severe problems. All the pollutants in our study strongly correlate with road traffic. The strongest evidence was for nitrogen oxides, which are produced abundantly by slow-moving diesel engines – one of the key types that would be charged to enter Bristol’s CAZ.

In short, our study points towards traffic-related pollution negatively affecting mental health. London’s air pollution concentrations, which increase from the outer to inner city in line with traffic congestion and population density, are typical of most UK cities, meaning our findings are probably relevant to Bristol. Being observational rather than experimental, our study does not prove cause and effect. Further research is needed to demonstrate exactly how air pollution might contribute to mental health problems (inflammation is a likely candidate). Reducing air pollution could save millions and alleviate suffering Assuming the findings are causal, we calculated that reducing PM2.5 levels by just a few units to the World Health Organization’s rec-

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ommended health threshold (10 micrograms per cubic metre) would reduce mental health service use in UK urban areas by about 2%, saving tens of millions of pounds each year in healthcare costs. If so, reducing air pollution exposure would also improve NHS capacity and waiting times, improve population-level mental health and clinical outcomes, and alleviate the suffering caused by long-term chronic mental illness. London has achieved considerable success in reducing nitrogen dioxide levels, which were cut by a third, less than a year after the 2019 introduction of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ). The ULEZ is due to be expanded further in October 2021. Bristol’s CAZ will bring similar, much-needed reductions to Bristolians, the most vulnerable and disadvantaged of who often breathe the most polluted air. Further delays would be inexcusable – and given the clear, wide-ranging benefits, hopefully Bristol will soon follow London’s example and expand its CAZ. In five or ten years we may look back on pollution in cities as we now view smoking in pubs. Air pollution and mental health are among the 21st century’s biggest global challenges. Factoring mental health into the impacts of air pollution – and adjusting economic evaluations and health thresholds accordingly – could tip the scales in favour of steps forward, not back. ■ Dr Joanne Newbury is a Sir Henry Wellcome Research Fellow based in Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol

igh-profile failures by public institutions provoke strong reactions and provide ammunition with which Twitter and journalists, this publication included, can take those entrusted with public funds and elected office to task. And rightly so. Take Bristol Energy, an initiative that wasted £43m of public cash. The venture was riddled with poor planning and management and, when it came crashing down, a lack of transparency. There must be accountability for such failures. But in dragging politicians and institutions over the coals, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. In doing so we risk incentivising public servants and leaders to be risk-averse, setting low bars that can be cleared easily and without the furore of failed ambitions. This plays into the hands of the idea that the public sector is inherently incompetent and ineffectual, and needs to get out of the way and let business crack on with solving problems. When we face existential issues like the climate crisis, or call for radical changes to problems that affect us all – poor transport systems, for example – we need public institutions and leaders to take up that mantle. As history shows, from the formation of the welfare state to the development of breakthrough lukat-land.de

technologies like the internet or in pharmaceuticals, we can’t rely on anything else to drive that longterm, risky and socially beneficial work. This isn’t an argument for the mantra of just ‘getting things done’. But it is to say that tinkering around the edges is not good enough. Take the proposed underground rail network that Mayor Marvin Rees is intently pushing for. Plenty of evidence suggests it’s probably not the right solution. But we do need a transformative approach to public transport as the city grows ever bigger and congested, which will involve financial and political risk. The private sector won't deliver this on its own. So an openness to bold ideas should be seen positively, even if the proposed solution isn’t right. Still, while encouraging big

thinking, we need to ensure the best ideas get chosen and are well managed, to avoid fiascos like Bristol Energy. That's where the political process needs to help. There is a lot of fractiousness in the council chamber at the moment and so there should be on real political differences. But a common complaint from the mayor’s administration is that opposition parties are chasing headlines and being obstructive, rather than proposing solutions. If Rees and co want to minimise this and be enabled to better lead on ‘getting things done’ they have to open up genuine opportunities for collaboration on common ground where it exists, particularly with the Greens. This starts with resisting the instinct to close ranks and restrict transparency to selected groups and individuals, as has been criticised with the ‘One City’ approach. Scrutiny and even political tension can result in better decisions than those hurried through – exactly the things that didn’t happen with Bristol Energy during both George Ferguson’s and Rees’ watch. Outmaneuvering opponents is part of the game for any political organisation, and a compromise position is not always best when facing fundamental differences. But a bunker mentality also needs to be avoided, and more effort made to discern between fair criticism and getting

trolled. In return, the opposition parties that share common ground must take a constructive approach, including taking their share of any negative fallout, as well of the successes when they happen. With that in mind, it was perhaps a missed opportunity to not offer the Greens a council cabinet position after May’s elections. It could have helped neutralise some opposition by getting the Greens, who now have representation equal to Labour in the council, around the table and buying into the successful outcome of policies. Instead, they will ultimately be political beneficiaries if those policies fail. A more united political strategy with broader public support could help the city get a better deal on big decisions and policies. Take the massive development projects taking place across the city, including the controversial plans for turning Cumberland Basin into ‘the Western Harbour’, advertised by the council as a £1bn investment opportunity. As a wealthy and popular city, Bristol needs to bargain harder to ensure the interests of powerful property developers don’t continue to come out on top, creating a little London on Avon. Empowered elected representatives working together would have more leverage in demanding high levels of social housing, insisting on environmental standards and the use of local suppliers. When it comes to big issues, like the housing crisis or reducing carbon emissions, we need big ideas to match. Unless we give public institutions and leaders the license to think big, even at the risk of failure, we may just end up with middling ideas delivered adequately. And that's not good enough. ■

the BRISTOL CABLE | ISSUE 27

n July, Bristol’s much-anticipated Clean Air Zone (CAZ) – which is intended to reduce population-level exposure to nitrogen dioxide by charging older, more polluting vehicles to travel through the city centre – was pushed back from autumn 2021 to summer 2022. The news came weeks before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued their starkest warning yet about the climate disaster facing us. As well as causing ecological harm, air pollution’s health effects are well documented and pervasive, including cardiorespiratory illnesses and lung cancer. It is estimated air pollution causes 300 deaths annually in Bristol and seven million excess deaths each year worldwide. But growing evidence now suggests air pollution may also adversely affect the brain, impact cognitive function, and increase the risk of experiencing mental health problems.

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