Bristol Cable - Issue 29 by Bristol Cable

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Issue No29 - Spring 2022 Made free by members

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The new talent from ends Acclaimed young novelist Moses McKenzie on his debut novel set in Easton Page 32

REFERENDUM

In focus

HOUSING

ASYLUM

What needs to happen after Bristol’s mayoral referendum

We spoke to people in Barton Hill and Redfield about the idea of a ‘liveable neighbourhood’

Is homelessness being criminalised in Bristol?

Asylum seeker from Afghanistan being kept in a hotel outside the city

Page 22

Page 10

Page 17

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DEAR READER,

Opinion: We need international alliances to stop airport expansions > p.39

This edition, it was important to cover what’s at stake as Bristol goes to the polls in May to decide if we should scrap the mayor. But we are equally aware of the levels of disengagement with local politics. That’s why we’ve got on-the-ground reporting speaking to people about what they care about, from the controversial Western Harbour development, to restricting cars in Barton Hill and Redfield. The latter is part of a new project where we are getting out to different parts of the city to tell rarely heard stories about different communities.

Massive thanks to the 2,700 members who make all this possible! and to all contributors, sources and contacts. If you have a story, or a tip-off please get in touch:

Investigative local journalism is vital and has always been something we’ve prioritised. In this edition, we reveal details of mistreatment of children at a special school, dig into how homelessness is being increasingly criminalised, and share the powerful story of an Afghani asylum seeker, who is one of many forced to live in a hotel outside the city. We have also committed to doing more cultural journalism that celebrates the creatives whose work holds a mirror up to the city. This comes after we asked our members what kind of journalism they wanted from the Cable. Among other features, this edition’s culture section has an interview with acclaimed young novelist from Easton, Moses McKenzie. You will find in-depth, independent journalism on a daily basis on our website (thebristolcable.org), and there you can also sign up for our weekly newsletter that cuts through the noise to give you a vital summary of Bristol news. This kind of investigative, grassroots and cultural journalism needs support. You can join the 2,700 Bristol Cable members who already pay just a few quid a month to power the work we do: thebristolcable.org/join Cheers!

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_design Print advertising Alison Fraser, Michael York Tech team Mat Alborough, Will Franklin Marcus Valentine - xtreamlab.net Membership team: Lucas Batt, Marianne Brooker, Adam CantwellCorn, Will Franklin, Matty Edwards

The Cable team

Distribution coordination Lucas Batt, Dave Marsden

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

Distribution team: Scatha Jones, Dave Marsden, Neill Talbot, Alice Guthrie Workplace coordination People: Lucas Batt, Hannah Vickers, Mat Alborough, Sara Szakadat Forums: Will Franklin, Sara Szakadat Development: Adam Cantwell-Corn, Marianne Brooker Resources: Sara Szakadat, Lucas Batt, Adam Cantwell-Corn Front page photo Julian Preece www.julianpreece.com

Contents 4-5 What the Cable has been up to 7 Climate Meet Bristol’s climate heroes 8 Feature What’s holding up the long-awaited ‘Western Harbour’ development? 10 Barton Hill and Redfield In Focus Bristol’s first Liveable Neighbourhood

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14 History The support group that began in a living room and grew into a nationwide network 17 Housing The controversial methods used to criminalise homelessness

Special thanks to… 20 Photoessay Meet Bristol’s newest drag cabaret and immersive party troupe 22 Mayoral Referendum Whichever side wins the referendum, Bristol’s political culture needs a reset 24 Mayoral Referendum A look at how other cities govern themselves, under mayoral and committee systems 28 Asylum Seekers The life of an asylum seeker stuck in limbo on the edge of the city 30 Investigation Parents speak out about the mistreatment of their child at special needs school

32 Cover Story An interview with Moses Mckenzie, author of Easton-set novel: An Olive Grove in Ends 35 Culture Meet the people behind community radio station Noods radio 36 Culture Event organisers to get sexual harassment nightlife training

Adam Cantwell-Corn, Mike Jempson Elected Directors: Julia Beasley, Ben Harris, Laura Williams, Yuliya Kosharevska, Alain Demontoux, Mandy Rose, Yasha Maccanico, Nick Plant Thanks to the Reva and David Logan Foundation, Luminate and the Centre for Investigative Journalism for their continued support.

38 Opinion Why we need to pay councillors more 39 Opinion We can’t stop the airport expansion on our own: We need to work together

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How should we run the city?

A goodbye for now from a Cable co-founder Eight years ago, Alon Aviram and I were hatching an idea from our front room in Easton, in between long hours working in hospitality. This investigation into the exploitation of hospitality workers would become the Cable’s first front page, and with it our worker cooperative and community membership model was born. Along with a small team of people volunteering their time, dozens of others in the city and beyond gave their advice and goodwill – often in response to unsolicited emails, door knocks and phone calls. It’s been humbling to have so much

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support, including from critical friends. Since then, a lot has changed in Bristol and in the wider world. Some for the better. But in many ways so much of what drove us then has stayed fundamentally the same – our anger at political choices following the financial crash, and widespread cynicism about so much of the media has lingered. But there is also hope. And, for the thousands of people who now support the Cable, a commitment to a new way of organising and producing media that can help us understand and shape the world. Quality media isn’t a luxury. Its presence is crucial for taking on the big issues we face, within our communities, our city and more widely. That’s the standard we have set for ourselves. The Cable hasn’t, and maybe never will, reach that ideal. There have been mistakes and shortcomings – personally, editorially and organisationally. But that comes with the territory of having a go. And having a go we are. The Cable stands as an example of how things can be different in a sector marked by a perpetual financial crisis and widespread public disdain. We still have a long way to go, but the tangible and intangible impact is something I am massively proud of. Our journalism has prompted change to local policies on debt collection and scrutiny of developers, sparked criminal and human rights court cases, been cited in parliament and provided ammunition for successful campaigns such as fossil fuel divestment. We’ve also committed to platforming and amplifying voices and ideas that are too

The Cable’s first edition in 2014 investigated working conditions in the catering sector, where the co-founders were working

often ignored or discriminated against in the media. Thousands of members provide the financial base and an active community of support to make this all happen. Cable members means we’re totally free from advertiser influence and not beholden to corporate shareholders. Because if we don’t pay to support journalism, someone else will buy it – and with it, influence and power. We have worked to shift the media landscape in Bristol and model an alternative in and beyond the city. Our success says as much about the need for change in the media industry as it does about the Cable, but the emails and phone calls come in weekly – from communities in other cities, journalists, researchers and policy makers all over the world. How can they do what we’re doing? Can we help them set up a Cable in their town? What needs to change to support quality media? So with that, I’m stepping down from a team that will continue doing great work. I’ll be taking my place among thousands of other members in Bristol, as an equal co-owner of a new model for media. You can join me. Become a Cable member for £3 a month and help shape a new model for media. thebristolcable.org/join Thank you, Adam

5 Co-op updates

Co-op updates

The mayoral referendum will decide who makes key decisions in Bristol, and how. It’s about who has power and influence, how decision makers collaborate (or don’t), and what political system is best for tackling big issues in the city such as transport and social care. Who will represent Bristol at a national level? How will we make sure councillors have a meaningful voice in city hall when no party has an outright majority? The Cable is teaming up with Eastside Community Trust and Bristol Ideas to create a space for people to come together, ask questions, and debate the deeper issues. City Academy, Russell Town Avenue Thurs 28 April, 18:30-20:30 Book your free place and check out our referendum coverage:

thebristolcable.org/ mayoral-referendum

Building a movement for a better media Profits for commercial media are booming, with the market value of billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation doubling. We need ambitious reform to help sustain independent local media in this context. So the Cable has formally responded to the UK Government’s

Inquiry into the Sustainability of Local Journalism. We’ve demanded access to vital funding and training, and greater support for initiatives like ours, which put media ownership into the hands of communities, not corporate giants. Any change at this level will be a long time coming. Our best route to sustaining the Cable is through you – our readers – chipping in to protect a community resource we’ve built together from the ground up.

Join us for £3 a month to protect local media in Bristol. thebristolcable.org/join

We won! The Cable has bagged two big prizes from the Independent Media Association - one for ‘Most Innovative Print Publication’ and another for ‘Local Outlet of the Year’. The awards were judged by a panel of industry experts who felt that the Cable is at the cutting edge of public interest journalism. This comes hot on the heels of Cable journalist Matty Edwards’ commendation at the British Journalism Awards. So once again, a huge thank you to our members, who enable us to spend the time and resources necessary to publish award-winning independent journalism.

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Environment

‘Nobody was talking to people in the Mosque about climate change’ Abdul Malik’s ‘Muslim Guide to Climate Change’ has been recognised by Bristol’s project on community level action Adam Corner

“I

t’s fashionable to say things about climate at the moment. But it’s not about being trendy. Many of us still support families ‘back home’ where the climate impacts are much worse. This is the next big emergency for us. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do”. Abdul Malik is the Chair of Easton Jamia Mosque on St Mark’s Road and a prominent local businessman. Malik has become a passionate advocate for climate change and sustainability among the Muslim community in Easton and beyond, winning an award for his pamphlet ‘A Muslim’s Guide to Climate Change’. But his own story of becoming a climate advocate is one borne out of the raw and sometimes divisive politics of community engagement. Malik was part of the group of traders who opposed the pedestrian plans proposed for St Mark’s Road in Easton. The plans were part of a citywide series of measures proposed to lower carbon emissions and improve air quality, given an extra impetus by the pandemic. Controversial locally from the start, the debate seemed to fall all too easily into existing tensions around the priorities of newer, wealthier and typically whiter BS5 residents, and the perspectives of (predominantly Asian) long standing local businesses. “There have been a lot of debates about gentrification in Easton recently,” explains Malik. “The initial campaign didn’t seem to understand locally, or as a city, what we go through.” But as a result of his immersion in the issues driving the pedestrianisation push, Malik realised there was an urgent need to change the perception of who climate action is for. “I was having conversations in the community, and I realised the problem was no representation, no Black and Asian ‘angles’, no one talking to people in the Mosque, no one talking to Asian businesses about climate change.” Malik spotted an opportunity. “I

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put something together about climate change and what we as a religion could do, including some passages from the Quran.” Community climate action Malik’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed, and he features in the recently launched Eastside Community Trust Climate Action Plan (representing communities in Lawrence Hill and Easton). Eastside Community Trust was one of six community organisations across Bristol to secure support from the National Lottery’s new Climate Action Fund. The plans cover everything from the barriers marginalised communities face in shaping decisions about climate policies at the neighbourhood level – such as the lack of accessibility for disabled people on public transport identified by Bristol Disability Equality Forum – to the unique opportunities Bristol’s citizens can bring to bear on the climate crisis – the Ambition Lawrence Weston group rallying around the creation of a new community-owned wind turbine. The community plans have been created through hundreds – and in some cases thousands of conversations with local residents. Together they represent a powerful statement of intent, and make a strong case for the importance of community buy-in, if climate policies in the city are to stand any chance of success. “The plans give community organisations, who have been so completely essential during Covid-19, some weight and leverage,” explains Amy Harrison, the Community Project Manager at Bristol Green Capital Partnership, which jointly coordinated the project with the community groups. “It’s the opposite of a nice little fluffy consultation. We need to hear directly from, and then harness the power and networks of groups like this – Bristol’s net zero 2030 target really won’t happen without them”. In Easton, a change in local council-

“I was having conversations in the community and I realised the problem was no representation, no one talking to people in the Mosque about climate change”

lors from Labour to Green seemed to signal a renewed impetus for reaching a compromise around St Mark’s Road, but despite this, funding for the plans was recently pulled altogether. As an example of local climate engagement, the pedestrianisation plans were ultimately a failure. But they offer an important lesson as the city starts to undergo many more transformations driven by the climate crisis. “Soon the city centre will be charging vehicles to drive through it,” notes Malik. “But people don’t understand it, and are asking: ‘Why is he trying to stop traffic?’ How do you educate so many people in a quick way? How can we measure the gains for communities?” The personal and the political have never been straightforward to separate when it comes to the climate crisis. But building deep community support and ownership, and listening carefully to the questions and perspectives of people like Abdul Malik is crucial. ■ TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 7

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9 Feature

Feature

Western Harbour Development Timeline October 2017

Marvin Rees mentions a major redevelopment of the Cumberland Basin in his State of the City Address.

December 2017

Rees visits China with a brochure listing the Western Harbour as a £1 billion investment opportunity.

August 2019

Western Harbour development: treading water After nearly five years of dithering due to major criticisms from local residents, Marvin Rees’ vision for a revived Cumberland Basin could still be a decade away Jess Connett

hen the Cumberland Basin’s elevated road network was approved in the early 1960s, it was part of a £100 million vision to make Bristol a city fit for the future. Whole streets in Hotwells were demolished to make way for brutalist concrete. New flyovers would whisk traffic in all directions. There were neon signposts, an elegant piazza with a fountain, Britain’s tallest streetlights. Just four hours after opening in 1965, Plimsoll Bridge jammed open, causing miles of tailbacks. As maritime traffic dwindled in the 1970s, road traffic multiplied – and has not stopped. Conversations about regenerating the Cumberland Basin have been ongoing since 2011, after the council saw an opportunity to replace the “ageing and outdated roads”. But years later, Bristol is still talking about how to redevelop the area. The current plans would see it transformed

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into the ‘Western Harbour’, with improved roads and thousands of new homes to help solve Bristol’s housing crisis. But the council has faced backlash over how they have engaged with local people, and where investment for the project will come from. Even the name has sparked outrage. After going back to the drawing board last year, a new public consultation was released in April in an attempt to re-engage locals. But transparency remains an issue, with councillors complaining about the lack of meaningful detail in the plans. Once again, the area sits at the fore of Bristol’s reinvention. ‘Sham’ consultation With an estimated gross development value of over £1 billion, according to Invest Bristol & Bath, it’s no surprise the area is in developers’ sights. Median house prices in Hotwells rose by almost £18,000 between September 2019 and September

“Most people want to understand what the priorities are. I’m a great believer that local people are experts in their area”

2021 – but the area has no doctors’ surgery. The only community centre closed in the early 2000s. “We tried to get a football pitch in the piazza – a cage to kick a ball around – and couldn’t because we’re not allowed to attach anything to the fabric of the bridge,” says Anna Haydock-Wilson. She’s lived in Hotwells since 2004, and is co-chair of Hotwells and Cliftonwood Community Association (H&CCA). Investment in the area is sorely needed – which would almost certainly be accompanied by new homes. “Most people aren’t resisting development but want to understand what the priorities are,” Anna says. “It’s confusing. If the council talk to people and work with people on things, you can get a better outcome. I’m a great believer that local people are experts in their area.” Locals “don’t appreciate this area being ‘rebranded’” as Western Harbour, she adds: “It already has a name. It’s not recognising there’s already a community here.” Tensions between the council and local community arose almost as soon as information was released. A map published in 2018 included Avon Quay Island, between the Pump House and Nova Scotia pubs, in the redevelopment area. Local businesses and H&CCA successfully fought to remove it. Next came public engagement in 2019: the council’s preferred three options all involved demolishing existing roads – and all received a torrent of negative comments. Peter Jones, director of Science4Bristol, has an office in Avon Quay House. He says the development

Three options for new road layouts are published. All involve demolishing the existing road network.

November 2019

A full feasibility report with all ten options is published, after nearly 4,000 people sign a petition

February 2021

The council promise to “go back to basics” after acknowledging they have lost the trust of councillors and local residents.

March 2022

A new ‘vision’ is published at harbourhopes. co.uk. Another public consultation closes in April.

June 2022

Marvin Rees’ Cabinet of seven Labour councillors will vote on whether the scheme will progress.

Autumn 2022 to spring 2024

Masterplans to be drawn up.

2025

Planning approval to be sought.

2026

Work could begin, with development estimated to take six years.

Anna Haydock-Wilson is co-chair of the Hotwells and Cliftonwood Community Association would “totally ruin” the tranquility of the docks for businesses and residents. “In 2019 we had what I thought was a sham consultation. It was appalling – a whitewash. The stakeholders, people who actually live in the area, aren’t being informed. “They’re trying to get people to buy into their vision without explaining it. Could Marvin stand up and explain what is actually behind the development? What companies are going to be tendering for it?” “One option was to put a four-lane road down the end of my street that would have knocked down two of my neighbours’ houses,” Anna says. “No bricks are going to be laid for 10 years but the insecurity that creates for local people is enormous if we’re not properly involved in the process.” Steve Shaw, director of Riverside Garden Centre, is also feeling that insecurity. He’s rented council land next to Ashton Avenue Bridge for over 30 years. He says the council’s communication was “diabolical”, though things have now improved. “A lot of what the mayor says about housing are unassailable truths,” he says. “We realise the city is evolving and growing. Things will change in this area of Bristol. We feel we’ve got something to make it an astonishingly vibrant community and be part of that.” But Steve is concerned about the future of his business and employees’ livelihoods. Refurbishment projects are paused: “The business is in limbo. It’s frustrating. We want to be at the heart of a new community. We want to know sooner rather than later so we can get on with our lives.”

A new approach The latest consultation has just closed. Architecture firm Turner Works were paid £150,000 to run six months of community engagement, feeding into a fresh ‘vision’ for the development, called Harbour Hopes. In this, Riverside Garden Centre and Brunel Way pump track will be “accommodated”. There would be new walking and cycling routes, and high-quality new homes running on green energy – 50% of them affordable. Views of the Suspension Bridge and green space would be protected, and the bonded warehouses turned into flats, plus a cultural hub. Tony Dyer is a Green councillor for Southville. “The council have started almost from scratch in terms of hearing what people think about the area,” Dyer says. But the same questions about transparency are being raised: a recent scrutiny committee saw ‘kids’ drawings’ rather than the detailed plans they expected. “Residents are worried, including myself: there’s the potential of having a massive roundabout at the end of my road. It’s not fair on residents to kick this so far down the line, even if that may have been done for the best reasons – to try to engage people more fully. We need to get to a point a lot more quickly where we have some concrete lines drawn.” Flooding is another issue. Planning permission had been granted for the Caravan Club to relocate from their current Baltic Wharf site, which the council want to develop into 166 new homes. But the government has twice overridden the decision, rejecting new sites near Ashton Court and on Spike

Island over flooding. Adjoining the Western Harbour site, two new housing schemes are going ahead: 154 new flats on Coronation Road next to Riverside Garden Centre, and 220 on the derelict Ashton Rail Yard, next to the Festival Way cycle path. Whatever happens, the area will be transformed. Anna says: “If you redeveloped to the vision that’s been laid out – amazing! But do people in the community have to wait 10 years for a community centre? Or a doctors’ surgery? Do we have to wait [for the Western Harbour] for these things to happen?” A council spokesperson said: “The regeneration of Western Harbour is mostly brownfield, previously developed land within walking and cycling distance of the city centre. This makes it a good location for the homes, jobs and public spaces people in Bristol need, while meeting the challenges of the climate and ecological emergencies and protecting green spaces in and around the city. “We are currently consulting on a draft vision which sets out key commitments for the future of the area, based on extensive public engagement in 2021. “The vision document aims to reflect the aspirations of those who contributed to it, but it does not include plans or set housing numbers.” They added the consultation will help refine a final vision, which will guide masterplanning in late 2022 if approved by the council’s cabinet in June. This will set out where new homes and infrastructure could go, how the scheme is delivered and funded. The community will then be consulted further. ■ TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 9

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In Focus

In focus

A ‘play street’ scheme on Beaufort Road where the street is closed to cars for two hours a month to allow kids to have fun

On the streets in what will be Bristol’s first Liveable Neighbourhood Restricting through traffic in the dense residential areas of Barton Hill, Redfield and St George will reduce pollution and encourage walking and cycling. But can the council overcome residents’ concerns? Matty Edwards

“W

e fight for space here.” Mr Bell is referring to his wife, who has to squeeze past cars parked on the pavement on her mobility scooter. The elderly couple have lived just off Church Road for 35 years. “The thing is, there’s no space to park in the road either,” Mrs Bell says. At the end of their street is Beaufort Road, where a car recently crashed into a house. The road has become infamous locally for collisions, as cars drive in and out of this part of east Bristol to avoid the main roads.

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Outside their homes, two neighbours chat while cars whoosh past along the narrow street. “It’s so dangerous,” one says, adding that there have been many crashes over the years and it’s hard for pedestrians to cross. “The fumes are bad when I have my window open, my breathing is terrible.” “Traffic is so bad,” her neighbour of 25 years says, adding it’s only getting worse. “It would be good to restrict cars, but it is quite a major road.” Limiting traffic is one of the changes that could come to the area if it becomes Bristol’s first Liveable Neighbourhood. Following single

road schemes in Clifton and Cotham Hill, where through-traffic was stopped, Bristol City Council is now consulting on whether cars should be restricted over a large area of east Bristol spanning Barton Hill, Redfield, and St George. The aims would be to reduce ‘rat-running’ on residential streets, improve air quality and encourage walking and cycling. Liveable Neighbourhoods (LNs) have been introduced in other cities, notably London, since the pandemic hit. They have ignited impassioned debates, and some schemes were abandoned, but there is also emerging evidence of growing support and

improved road safety. Such divisive proposals aren’t new to Bristol either. In 2020, the prospect of St Marks Road in Easton being pedestrianised sparked a bitter spat between campaigners and local businesses – and now the plan seems to be dead. But the East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood Pilot is based on a lengthy consultation and co-production phase, where potential changes will be discussed with local people, before being trialled later this year. What residents are worried about Early consultation with local people has revealed concerns about pavement parking, litter, graffiti, the speed of cars, traffic using residential streets as cut-throughs, and pollution caused by idling vehicles. On a blustery day in Barton Hill, the issue of ‘rat-running’ feels very real. By the Banksy mural at the junction between Marsh Lane and Avonvale Road, cars are snaking their way up from Feeder Road in the south up towards Church Road. I see dozens of cars drive up Marsh Lane and carry on straight up Mildred Street, a narrow residential road running alongside a school. This is understandably one of the biggest concerns raised by local residents. The house at the end of the road had a car crash into it, so no wonder there are planters at the end of the road bearing the message ‘Please slow down’. One of the residents, Robert, who has lived here since 1949, says he’d support the limits on cars. “It’s a bit of a nuisance, there’s too many vans and

A planter imploring cars to slow down on notorious rat run Mildred St, where a car crashed into a house people parking on the road who don’t live here.” Round the corner is Avonvale Road, one of the main routes cars and buses take up to Church Road, running along the top of Netham Park. Cars squeeze past each other along the narrow road. Stella Cochrane, 35, is pushing her toddler along in a buggy: “It would be nice for there to be less cars. They come along this road quite fast and there are lots of parked cars.” Another spot with a bad reputation is a stretch of Crews Hole Road along the Avon, where it’s hard for pedestrians to cross, the pavement ends just

before the bend, and cyclists join the road blind from the cycle path. School stress: a sign of things to come? Restricting cars in this area isn’t brand new. It’s pick up time at Redfield Educate, a primary school on Avonvale Road that has been restricting cars since May 2021 as part of a ‘School Streets’ scheme. It was one of four Bristol schools to trial closing a stretch of road outside the front gates at drop off and pick up times, to encourage families to walk to school, and improve safety and air quality. Most of the parents I speak to sup-

Redfield Educate primary school, where cars have been restricted at pick up and drop off times since May 2021 port the scheme, except one mum who finds it harder to walk to school with her kids because of a health condition, and another who has driven from Brislington and had to park further away. Laura Quaiter, about to walk home with her three kids, tells me: “I think it’s a really good idea. It makes it much safer… I’ve lived here a long time and the traffic is getting heavier, and people use cut-throughs, it’s making it quite an unhealthy place to live. Another tells me: “I definitely think it’s made a difference, it’s healthier for not so many cars to be around. Some people are moaning, but they’re not seeing the bigger picture for their kids.”

Barton Hill and Redfield: In focus We’re launching a new series focussed on connecting with neighbourhoods in Bristol.

Live in Barton Hill or Redfield?

With each new print edition of the Cable, we’ll be hitting the streets in one area of the city – starting with Barton Hill and Redfield – to find out what locals want to share and find out about where they live. These contributions will help us tell stories that aren’t usually told in the media, and investigate issues which are going unreported, helping us create a more accurate picture of our city.

• What would you like people to know about your area? • What issue in your area would you like the Cable to look into? Text/Whatsapp: 07533 718547 thebristolcable.org/in-focus

She says the amount of cars in the wider area is ridiculous and should be limited. Lyndsey Melling, chair of St George Active Travel Group, has been campaigning on these issues since 2020, when residents wanted temporary restrictions introduced during the pandemic to be made permanent. She lives on Beaufort Road, which is “horrendous, noisy and polluted”. “It was never designed to carry this much traffic from East Bristol to the south.” Melling has been involved in a ‘play street’ scheme, where a short stretch of Beaufort Road is closed once a month for a few hours to allow kids to play out. “Anything like speed humps, speed cameras, one way schemes, which have all been suggested for this part of the road, are just bandaids for a problem which is not going away unless we reduce the amount of through traffic.” She says as few as two traffic filters could be enough to make the whole Beaufort Road area a LN, which she wants to be rolled out across the city once lessons are learned from this pilot. Engaging with the community Despite support from some locals for restricting through-traffic, others I speak to are unaware of it or disinterested. One resident says the LN pilot “doesn’t seem to be that high on people’s priorities”, adding she’s against restricting cars because it shifts them somewhere else. But it doesn’t seem like any organised opposition to the idea of a LN has emerged yet, perhaps because the scheme hasn’t reached the point of TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 11

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In Focus

concrete proposals. Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor and councillor for St George West, says: “We’ve got some great ideas coming through. Predominantly, we want to reduce the amount of traffic that may come through the area and that’s people’s biggest concern.” Don Alexander, the council’s cabinet member for transport, says the co-design stage exploring concrete solutions over the summer will be more challenging. “Sometimes everyone would like to change other people’s behaviour rather than their own. “We want to help people feel assured that this isn’t a top down imposition, but working with communities to get the best possible solution for everyone.” I ask Alexander and Craig about what lessons can be learnt from St Marks Road in Easton, a clear failure in community engagement on cars and active travel. “You have to bring people with you,” Craig says. “What you’re getting from St George is not a skewed view from a small group of individuals with their own interests. You’re getting lots of people with different views.” Alexander adds: “It’s down to the quality of the work of local councillors. I’m not happy with what’s gone on with St Marks Road.” But it was also a party-political

dispute. Last year, Easton’s two Labour councillors were voted out and replaced by Greens. Recently, the Labour administration criticised the Greens’ inability to bring local people together on how to improve St Marks Road, but many point the finger at the administration and local Labour councillors for how they handled the consultation in 2020. Barry Parsons is one of the Green councillors for Easton, which includes part of the East Bristol LN area south of Church Road. “With St Marks Road, the proposal was presented as a solution before discussions about what the problems were,” he tells me. But he is more hopeful this time: “The council is actually giving themselves time to properly engage with residents and not focusing on a single commercial street where traders felt their commercial interests were threatened.” A common fear about LNs is that they push traffic elsewhere, but Parsons says evidence from other schemes shows traffic on boundary roads isn’t always increased. Stopping cars turning onto Church Road so much could improve traffic flow and reduce accidents, which have been a big issue in recent years, he says. “Church Road needs to be a really important place for people to walk and

“I've lived here a long time and the traffic is getting heavier. It's making it quite an unhealthy place to live” cycle,” he says. “LN’s aren’t the magic bullet. They can be really beneficial but there also needs to be better cycling infrastructure and improvements to the dire public transport.” He hasn’t met much opposition so far, but remains worried about facing backlash similar to St Marks Road, or the Easton Safer Streets scheme that was scaled back. He is also concerned that funding for implementation still needs to be secured. Temporary measures are expected to be introduced later this year. The council has committed to a second pilot area, but it remains unclear where this

will be and when it will be announced. Melling from St George Active Travel Group agrees that it’s crucial to get the consultation right. “There’s always going to be people who don’t like the choices being made,” she says. “But at least they will be able to see they’re being made by their neighbours. “If we get it wrong, we haven’t lost anything, we can take it out, move it around. But if we do nothing, we’re throwing away a once in a generation opportunity. I know people are scared, completely understandably so, because this is where they live, but the risks are small and the benefits are huge.” ■

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Aphra Evans

Sue Cohen helped set up SPAN in 1990

The Bristol single parents who changed women’s lives What started as an interview in a living room, became Single Parent Action Network, who supported single parents and campaigned on national issues Hannah Vickers

ue Cohen moved to Bristol from the Midlands in the 80s. She applied to be the first employee of a newly formed organisation - the Bristol One Parent Partnership (BOPP) in 1984 – and found herself in front of a panel of eight. “Who do you look at?” she jokes. “They were all single parents, they were all living in very difficult circumstances and I was blown away by just how powerful the vision was,” she remembers. “And that vision has been kept ever since.” The organisation was made up of single parents supporting each other, fighting racism and discrimination, and campaigning for political change. BOPP was created when a filmmaker, Jane Henriques, interviewed single mothers about their experiences of poor housing. The women, some homeless, some who had come from other cities to escape violence, decided to keep meeting.

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“They bonded,” explains Sue, herself a single mum. “They’d come from Lawrence Weston, Hartcliffe, inner city, and they decided they wanted to stay together and improve conditions for single parents in the city.” Henriques applied for funding and BOPP was born. BOPP played a big part in the black liberation and working class movements in the city, Sue says. It lobbied the council on housing, working with Women’s Aid and other organisations to make sure that one parent families “had some choice over where they went in the city”. Working with other groups gave BOPP leverage with the council and the housing office. “We saw there wasn’t an organisation like ourselves in other parts of the UK – a multiracial organisation fighting discrimination and stigma. Discrimination against single parents in the 80s and 90s was evil.” In 1990, the group got EU funding

“They were effective because they were all familiar with the problems they were trying to solve”

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to make SPAN, a network of groups and individuals across the UK, and later won three big grants from the National Lottery. What started off as a group of strangers meeting in a living room became a nationwide network of single parents supporting each other and lobbying local and national government for change. SPAN ran until 2016 and accomplished huge things in that time. Its Study Centre, which opened in 1998, got parents into higher education and launched careers. Nationally, SPAN funded more than 300 groups all over the country with small grants to support start-ups, drop-in centres and courses. They made a website to connect isolated parents, which has since become singleparents.org.uk. As its only employee, Sue’s job was a bit of everything: she managed day-to-day activities and applied for funding “to keep the group alive”. By the time Sue left, there were 50 employees, including childcare workers. Childcare was central to SPAN’s work. SPAN has been collaborating on a long-term research project with Bristol University since 2019, which will end this June. ‘Sometimes things just need tweaking’ The strength in SPAN was its diversity, says Sue, and the fact that it was grassroots. The parents, mostly women, benefiting from the work of the organisation were also the women running it. They learned from each other, supported each other, and campaigned for fairer conditions together. This was the case at the local level and also among the organisations SPAN worked with across the country. “The commonality was one parent families who were in poverty because of the intersectional impact of class and ethnicity, and gender discrimination,” she says. “So they came together for a common cause.” “Sometimes things just need tweaking,” she says. SPAN used their combined knowledge about the issues to make changes in welfare and housing policy as well as in individuals’ lives. The group was particularly strong on fighting racism and discrimination against single parents, at an EU-level as well as locally, which Sue says comes from having experience of discrimination, childcare and poverty. “Because people live and breathe the issues, they know how to change that.” “It was vibrant, it was ever changing, it was ever learning.” The groups ran alongside each oth-

cuts. She credits that campaign for starting to dissolve the stigma against single parent families. The cuts went through, despite a huge rebellion from within the party. But the unpopularity of the cuts showed that people were getting tired of the stigma of single parenthood, says Sue. “It felt like a turning point in history,” she remembers. “The mood of the country had changed.” She says the save lone parent benefits campaign played a big part in policies to improve the lives of single parents, including the working and child tax credits that came in in 2002. Everything SPAN did was made possible through childcare. “Nothing could be done without it,” says Sue. For every course, class and activity the organisation ran, they always had childcare. “We knew it was intrinsic to one parent family freedom, liberation from poverty and discrimination. ‘We’ve come full circle’ A couple of years ago, Sue got a call from Annie Oliver, one of the founding members of SPAN. The organisation was closing down and she was one of the last workers in the building. Everything was going

to be thrown into a skip. Sue was told she could go and collect what she could, “to save our history”. She went down in her camper van and pulled out documents, photos and films: “All the work that we’d done as an organisation. Because I’d been involved for so long, I knew just how important it was”. She got in touch with Josie McClellan, who’d already done some history work with SPAN. Josie decided not just to archive the material, but to bring in peer researchers to interview women who’d been involved. The SPAN project was made in collaboration with the Feminist Archive South and the University of Bristol. This autumn, street artist and single parent Carrie Reichardt will be presenting some of the project findings on billboard artworks across the city. The art will deal with being a single parent in the pandemic, because, as Sue says: “We’ve come full circle: one parent families in the pandemic are suffering more than any family”. The increased limitations on employment and both lack and expense of childcare, is hitting single parents hardest. “It’s why the history project is so important.” ■

15 People’s History

People’s History

Images from the SPAN archives, now in the Feminist Archive South

er for some years, with BOPP continuing to provide local support and SPAN as the national organisation that linked up similar groups. BOPP closed in the 90s and SPAN set up a study centre in the inner city in 1998. It ran many courses: ESOL classes, history groups, childcare training, stepping stones into employment and further education. The centre partnered with the Race Equality Foundation to bring parenting courses to more than 3,000 people living in disadvantaged and isolated situations. “Because of stepping stones people were able to move forward with their lives,” reflects Sue.

‘It felt like a turning point in history’ SPAN played a big part in local and national lobbying. In 1997, members travelled to London, with banners and their children, to protest New Labour’s deeply unpopular proposed cuts to lone parent benefits. They stood outside parliament alongside other campaigners. Sue says they weren’t going to be allowed in, but Tony Benn came and ushered them in, with all the children. She says that seeing children was a “shock to the system” for the MPs; she heard that some of them cried as they voted for the TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 15

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Investigation

Tilllukat

From exclusion zones to convictions: How rough sleepers are criminalised under controversial notices The government has promised to scrap the Vagrancy Act, but campaigners fear this long-awaited reform could mean use of other powers to target homeless people will become more widespread Sean Morrison 16 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

ob has been homeless in Bristol for about three years. He’s on a long and tricky road to recovery from drug and alcohol misuse, and has had problems with his mental health along the way. It’s the connections he’s made on Gloucester Road – from familiar faces to those who offer him a place to stay when they can – that he thanks for the progress he’s made battling these issues. The 36-year-old tends to spend his days outside Sainsbury’s Local in Horfield, where he sits on his sleeping bag greeting passers-by who offer him food, conversation and sometimes loose change. But Bob fears he’s going to be ‘moved on’ by the city’s street intervention team – a service led by Bristol City Council, Avon and Somerset Police, support group Bristol Drugs Project and homelessness charity St Mungo’s. The team’s role is to help vulnerable people engage with health, substance misuse and accommodation support services. But controversy surrounds one of the methods it uses to encourage this engagement. Its officers have issued Bob with a controversial order – a community protection notice (CPN) – for ‘persistently’ begging in the area. It prohibits him from begging and bans him from TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 17

Join us to change local media for good. Become a member: thebristolcable.org/join Gloucester Road, or as the notice put it: the exclusion area. “I’ve got everything I need [here],” Bob tells the Cable. “They’re trying to take it away from me, and what right do they have to do that? I’ll just have to go somewhere else, and then the same thing will happen.” Failing to comply with the CPN – a non-specific power local authorities and police use to tackle antisocial behaviour – means he could be fined up to £2,500 and receive a criminal conviction. ‘What right do they have?’ As they’re a non-specific power, CPNs can be used to impose restrictions on people for almost anything deemed to have a ‘detrimental effect on those in the locality’ – from messy gardens to noise. But they are also used to combat behaviours linked to rough sleeping, such as begging, or even sitting on a public pavement. Campaigners have long been calling for an end to this, saying CPNs are one of a host of ways homelessness continues to be criminalised in the UK. Official guidance from the Home Office on the use of CPNs, which are enforced under the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, states that ‘particular care’ should be taken to consider how using them might impact vulnerable people. Although the government has pledged to scrap the Vagrancy Act – an almost 200-year-old law that makes rough sleeping and begging a crime – as part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, human rights group Liberty fears this could mean use of CPNs and other non-specific powers will become more widespread. Data released to the Cable under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) reveals that the use of CPNs by Bristol’s street intervention service – a team the council says predominantly deals with antisocial behaviour caused by rough sleepers and homeless people – has increased over the past four years. The figures show that the service issued one CPN in 2018, eight in 2019, eight more in 2020, and 10 in 2021. Bristol City Council says the notices are issued by the street intervention team only as a last resort. They are most often used when individuals are seen to be causing persistent antisocial behaviour, and refuse support that is available to them, a spokesperson tells the Cable. A condition of the CPN notice issued to Bob is that he engages fully with this support. But Judith, a

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friend of Bob’s who lets him stay at her home off Gloucester Road when possible, says to insist on this “isn’t respecting his agency”. She adds: “It’s not taking into consideration how he’s feeling, or where he’s at in his life.” Lara ten Caten, a solicitor for human rights group Liberty who has worked on a number of CPN cases, says local authorities can be guilty of making blunt assertions about the support offered to those they issue with a notice. “If [a rough sleeper] has an addiction problem, the reason they beg may well be to supplement their income,” she tells the Cable. “And they may be receiving support at the same time, but that doesn’t necessarily stop them from begging.” “The use of a CPN will not help, and you can’t force someone to get support… Any action taken by a council should be taken with the consent of the individual and in conjunction with organisations who offer the support.” She says that by using CPNs against rough sleepers, and those struggling with drug and alcohol misuse who are unable to control their behaviour, local authorities risk trapping them in a ‘circle of criminalisation’. ‘Circle of criminalisation’ It’s October 2021 and Bob is sitting in the dock with his head in his hands, impatiently tapping his feet. He’s here to be sentenced for breaching his CPN, and has been waiting in the corridors of Bristol Magistrates Court for no less than five hours for his case to be called. As the magistrates and lawyers catch up on paperwork, the court usher calls across the courtroom to ask if Bob’s doing ok. “Fine,” Bob replies bluntly, and gives a thumbs up without lifting his head. “I just want this done with,” he mutters. But he’ll wait another four months – until January this year – for his sentencing hearing to go ahead, because his case is adjourned, meaning he’ll need to go through this all over again. An application for a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) has been filed against Bob by Avon and Somerset Police for continued breach of the CPN, and magistrates have decided it’s best for this to be processed before he is sentenced. The conditions of the CBO, if it was imposed on him, would be the same as the council notice, but he would be banned from Gloucester Road for three years. The CPN only banned him from the exclusion area for six months. Bob leaves October’s court hearing feeling deflated. He’s worried about

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“Using these powers against homeless people is counterproductive, illiberal and a grave violation of their civil liberties”

Office. A spokesperson said that it continues to keep the range of antisocial behaviour powers police, local authorities and other agencies have “under review”. Avon and Somerset Police neighbourhood inspector Rob Cheeseman, asked about the controversy surrounding the use of CPNs, told the Cable the force’s officers recognise that people who beg are often vulnerable and need support. He said, however, that public substance misuse or antisocial behaviour that has a negative impact on a local community must

be “managed and challenged”. He added: “Each case is different, and there is no blanket approach to the use of antisocial behaviour legislation in these circumstances.” A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “The use of such powers [CPNs] is always a last resort and comes towards the end of an incremental process. These powers sometimes include the use of exclusion areas, most often used when individuals are causing persistent antisocial behaviour within a geographical area and are persistent in their refusal of support.” ■

19 Investigation

Investigation

the CBO, and he heard in court that he could have appealed against the CPN, which he says was news to him. “It [the notice] was basically just thrown at me,” he says. “Nothing was explained to me.” He was issued with the CPN on his 36th birthday, in March 2021, along with a map of the exclusion area. The notices, a council spokesperson says, contain a clear section on the right to appeal, and give details on how this can be done. They add: “Where possible, our practice is to explain the CPN for the individual, and part of this would be highlighting with them their right of appeal.” But those issued with CPNs, ten Caten says, are not always aware of their right to appeal, and guidance given by those issuing them can be unclear. She says Liberty has begun distributing cards to advise rough sleepers on how to challenge them, to protect themselves against misuse of power. ‘Was it really necessary?’ When Bob returned to court in Jan-

Bob was banned from these two stretches of Gloucester Road under the community protection notice, as seen on these maps he was provided with by council officers. By entering the road he risked prosecution

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uary he was not sentenced or fined for breaching his CPN notice, and the police application for a CBO against him was withdrawn, on the grounds that his behaviour had improved. He was granted a conditional discharge order, meaning he won’t be punished unless he commits an offence in the next 12 months. He was, however, ordered to pay £52 in court fees – £30 for costs to the prosecution, and a victim surcharge of £22 – which is being taken in monthly instalments from his benefits. “Was it really necessary,” Judith asks, “to put him through all of that – the court process, the stress of it all?” She says she fears that Bob will be targeted with the same powers again in the future. “It would be much more difficult to support him if he wasn’t allowed up here,” she tells the Cable. “If he adhered [to an exclusion zone] he would lose not only my support, but those of other friends: his whole support network.”

‘A worrying trend’ Josie Appleton, convenor of civil liberties group Manifesto Club, has been researching the use of CPNs since they were first introduced in 2014. She says that an increase in their use by Bristol’s street intervention team represents a worrying trend. “Using these powers against homeless people is counterproductive, illiberal and a grave violation of their civil liberties,” she says, after seeing the FOI data revealed to the Cable. Appleton says that the Cable’s findings, Bob’s case, and evidence of the use of CPNs against homeless people across the UK shows that Home Office guidance on the notices is being ignored. She is calling on the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to “revisit the issue, and actually enforce its guidance”. The Cable put this to the Home TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 19

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21 Photo essay

Photo essay

The Queenshilling residency is a stepping stone for emerging creatives Photos by Charley Williams

Get Qweird is a 12 week residency which started in January for emerging queer artists at the Queenshilling. Hosted by The House of Savalon, Bristol’s newest drag cabaret and party troupe, the residency has been extended by popular demand throughout April. The House of Savalon was born in a bell tent at Wilderness festival last year, and from there has found fame performing at venues like Loko Klub and The Old Crown Courts. They then started working with emerging artists in partnership with Creative Youth Network, which led to the Qweird residency. Described as a playground for queer art, the residency is fully funded by the Arts Council and helps emerging queer artists develop their practice in front of friendly audiences as well as including a bursary for them to make their work. The shows are free to watch, with donations on the door to organisations including Freedom Youth, Bristol’s longest-running LGBT youth group, and Outspace, which is trying to crowdfund a LGBTQIA+ community hub in Old Market. ■ 20 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

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The Cable view:

Whichever side wins the referendum, Bristol’s political culture needs to be reset Though some are sceptical about whether we should even be having a referendum, we need to take the opportunity to improve how well our local democracy functions - regardless of which system is victorious The Bristol Cable

n 5 May, Bristol goes to the polls again for the third time in just over three years. This time, we’re voting on whether we should scrap the mayor, just a decade after we decided we wanted one, or to replace it with a committee system that hands more power over to local councillors. Supporters of the mayoral system have argued that it gives voters a direct say on who runs the city, and provides a single recognisable figure who can set out a long-term vision, represent the city in the world and can get things done, unhampered by the political instability so common in Bristol’s history. Meanwhile, those campaigning to bring in a committee system have said the mayor has too

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much power, and isn’t scrutinised by local councillors, who don’t have enough of a say. They claim the committee system would be more democratic and representative of the whole city. Some have dismissed the referendum, which cost £650,000 to organise, as a waste of money, time and resources. Fewer than one in four people voted in the referendum 10 years ago, and it looks unlikely turnout will be much higher this time. In a callout to Cable readers earlier in April, many felt uninformed about how the current system works and what the alternative was. “Echoing the confusion and disillusionment of many others, one member wrote: “What the fuck is it about and why have we not been made aware it’s even happening?” There does seem to be a real disconnect between those who have been passionately campaigning to abolish the mayoral system, many of whom are former or current councillors, and the general public, who they claim to represent. This indifference and self-proclaimed ignorance is even among groups of people who are usually engaged with local politics and city life. Culture over structure Researchers at Bristol Civic Leadership Project – the local experts on political systems – criticised the decision to hold a binary referendum without enough information and consideration of different ways Bristol could be governed. Whether this referendum should be happening in the first place is

one question. But now that it is, it’s important to stress that how our city is run does impact our daily lives and isn’t just a question for politics nerds. Bristol City Council is responsible for how we tackle the city’s big problems, from the housing crisis, to climate change, transport to air pollution. The local authority has its hands tied to a certain extent by central government funding cuts and limited powers, but it still has a huge influence on our lives. That’s why who runs the council matters. But it’s not just systems that matter, it’s about culture too. Bristol City Council’s former housing chief Paul Smith, who campaigned for a mayor in 2012 but also served under the committee system, wrote that local councils are often beset with a blame culture. Regardless of whether it’s under a mayoral or committee system, the confrontational nature of party politics sets the culture of our local democracy, as the council leadership and opposition blame each other for everything under the sun. Smith argues that culture is far more important than structure. Whichever side wins, it seems obvious that either the mayoral system needs reforming or more fundamental parts of the city’s political culture need looking at. How can councillors set aside party politics and solve the city’s problems together? How can decisions be scrutinised properly? How can the political leadership represent the whole city as best as possible? Based on the quality of some of the debate during the campaign, there is a long way to go if we are to live in a

city with a healthier political culture. It’s a sad state of affairs when Nicola Bowden-Jones, who was a Labour councillor for five years, describes the mayoral system as a “dictatorship” and proclaims: “We don’t need a North Korean style political system in Bristol. We don’t need another Putin”. It’s not much better when Marvin Rees is claiming that voting for the committee system “risks costing 340,000 Bristolians their vote for who leads our city”.

Mayoral Referendum

Need for reform Despite their scepticism of the referendum format, the Bristol Civic Leadership Project still say “the referendum still presents a huge opportunity for positive reform” – no matter who wins – as each system can be developed in various ways that could “strengthen and refresh local democracy”. They identified key areas for improving the mayoral system: dispersing power away from the mayoral office, strengthening the roles of councillors, revitalising decisions at a neighbourhood level, and inventing new ways of including more voices in how the city is run. They also said the opportunity exists to not ‘go back’ to a 20th century committee system, but rather to co-create a new kind of committee system which is designed to respond to the needs of Bristol and the local political context of the present day. If Bristol votes for a committee system, we will have until 2024 to work out exactly how it will work. The researchers also point out there is an opportunity to learn from other councils that have adopted versions of the committee system in recent years, such as Reading, Brighton and Hove, Sheffield and Kingston upon Thames. We need to see this referendum as not the end, but the start of a conversation about how our city should be run, and reset where we can build a healthier political culture. But of course neither system will solve all of the questions around representation, democracy, accountability and scrutiny. It’s not just local politicians who can seem shrill, partisan and even ridiculous. It’s also down to local media to avoid the trap of focusing too much on conflict instead of solutions. We need to hold politicians to account, but also do so fairly and constructively. Whether that’s under a mayoral or committee system, the Cable will strive towards this aim, powered by the thousands of local people who make our new model for media possible. ■ TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 23

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Mayors: personalities and power

Liverpool Recovering from a corruption scandal

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Corruption scandals, historic referendums, forced-out police chiefs and battles with the government. As Bristol considers going mayor-less, we take a look at the picture in other cities and regions…

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Greater Manchester ‘The king of the North’

Sean Morrison

On 4 December 2020, Joe Anderson, then directly-elected mayor of Liverpool, was due to heap praise on the city’s rollout of a coronavirus testing pilot at a virtual council meeting. He didn’t show. Police had just swarmed on his home and arrested him over alleged corruption as part of an investigation into building and development contracts. The Labour mayor later stepped down, but denies any wrongdoing. It was a moment that shook Liverpool City Council to its core, and that led to an overhaul of the city’s political landscape. In March last year, a damning inspection report found ‘serious failings’ of both governance and practice within the administration, and even raised the idea that a ‘secret cabal’ could have been controlling the troubled local authority.

The litany of failings exposed by the report threatened Labour’s grip on mayoralty in the city; it arrived just weeks before last year’s local elections. But the party’s candidate Joanne Anderson – same name, but of no relation to her predecessor – emerged victorious. She made history, becoming the first black woman to lead a major British city, and promised a fresh start for Liverpool. Her first decision was to remove every member of the council’s cabinet and replace them with a new team who would work alongside commissioners installed by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. They had been brought in to oversee how the Labour-run authority would operate following the alleged scandal. Anderson campaigned on a promise to increase transparency and accountability in the city, and also on the position that she wanted the mayoral system to be scrapped altogether. She pledged to hold a referendum, and has since drawn criticism for rowing back on this in favour of a public consultation, which the authority says will save hundreds of thousands of pounds. The inspection report on Liverpool council’s failings led to major changes in the city’s electoral cycle, meaning there will be no election this year and an all-out vote in May 2023. For this reason, the authority said it could not justify the referendum cost of £500,000, compared to the expected cost of £120,000 for the public consultation. (Bristol’s mayoral referendum is expected to cost the taxpayer £650,000). Liverpool’s consultation is underway, concluding in autumn, and it’s expected that a decision on the post will be decided before next year’s local elections. Residents are being asked if they want to keep the mayoral system or move to a committee system or a leadership model.

In October 2020, most of the UK’s major northern cities and surrounding city regions were living in or about to be locked into tier 3 Covid restrictions. While it appeared some local leaders accepted this without much fuss, Greater Manchester didn’t go quietly. The region’s metro mayor Andy Burnham’s high-profile confrontation with the government over lockdown measures and funding caught the entire nation’s attention and catapulted him onto the national politics scene. Addressing the media in a televised statement, the Labour mayor condemned Boris Johnson’s ‘game of poker’ approach to negotiations over funding. Burnham said his region’s local authorities had asked for £65m from the government – the bare minimum, he said, “to prevent poverty, to prevent hardship and to prevent homelessness”. He branded the £22m offer “brutal”, and “frankly disgraceful”. After the high-profile negotiations, £60m in funds was found. Not quite a victory for Burnham, but it’s hard to deny that his voice was heard, with commentators saying it solidified his position as the so-called ‘King of the North’.

Sheffield

London

“It’s communities and residents going up against the establishment,” one campaigner said as Sheffield City Council became the first of the UK’s core cities to move to a committee system after a historic referendum in May last year. “It’s shown that people working together in their communities can affect powerful change.” Before the referendum, Sheffield had a cabinet system. Despite receiving less than a third of the votes cast in the 2019 local elections, Labour retained control of the authority. Reformers said a committee system — where decision-making responsibilities are shared between more councillors across the authority – would be more representative. Sheffield’s path is one that Bristol could go down too if it votes to scrap the mayor in May, so policymakers will be watching closely how the changes in the Steel City are implemented. Those who want a committee system here say the alternatives – a mayoral system, or a cabinet and leader model – can lead to ‘rule by the few, against the many’.

Dame Cressida Dick told Londoners during a radio interview in February that she had “absolutely no intention” of stepping down as head of the Metropolitan Police – the country’s largest police force. Just eight hours after her broadcast appearance, she announced she was quitting because the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, had lost faith in her. A week earlier, a police watchdog exposed violently racist, misogynistic and homophobic messages that had been exchanged by officers based at one of the city’s police stations. The findings followed a series of other scandals, including the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met police officer. The watchdog’s report is said to have left Khan furious and disgusted. Nine of the 14 officers it identified were still serving — two of them had been promoted. And the day after its publication, he held a meeting with Dick and demanded an urgent plan to root out sexism, racism, misogyny and harassment in the force.

A historic referendum

Arguably it was his visibility – the large public platform the regional mayoral role can bring – that empowered him to go toe-to-toe with central government on this issue. Metro mayors – Burnham’s West of England counterpart Dan Norris among them – are chairs of a combined authority, made up of several local councils. They have the power and responsibility to make strategic decisions across whole city regions, in contrast to city mayors, like Marvin Rees in Bristol, or council leaders, who only make decisions for and on behalf of the one local authority they are elected to represent. But this idea of stronger visibility is a potential plus for keeping the mayor as Bristol prepares to go to the polls over the mayoral system in the city. Research from academics in recent years shows that the mayoral model at a city level delivers an increase in visibility, and a more broadly recognised vision. Critics of the mayoral system, however, say it puts too much power in the hands of one person, and undermines the role of local councillors.

Mayoral Referendum

More power in the mayor’s hands

Khan’s office made clear to Dick, ahead of another planned meeting in the days that followed, that the mayor had lost confidence in her. Dick resigned rather than going to the meeting. The appointment and removal of the Met Commissioner is carried out by the home secretary, who has to have due regard for the views of the London mayor. The government did not step in to support Dick after it became clear that Khan had lost confidence in her leadership. Khan, as the Mayor of London, is responsible for police in the capital. His role in this area is equivalent to that of a police and crime commissioner (PCC); he’s required by law to produce a plan that explains how the Met Police and other agencies work together to reduce crime. Like Mark Shelford, Avon and Somerset Police PPC, he is responsible for setting the budget and strategic development of his city’s force. This is just one example of how the capital’s mayor has more power than leaders in other cities.

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Mayoral Referendum

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Aphra Evans

“You have to start your life from zero, and you don’t know about your future”

Life in limbo: asylum seeker waiting in remote hotel

dinners get heated up in microwaves in the lobby, the window doesn’t open, and because she has had no income for the last three months she can’t pay to go anywhere. She’s embarrassed by the crying; she keeps apologising, gathering herself and continuing on.

Bahara is one of hundreds of asylum seekers living in budget out-of-town hotels in and around Bristol. She has no money and no idea when she will be moved, or where she’ll be sent

Stuck in limbo Bahara fled the Taliban last August. She got to England this January and has been living in the hotel ever since. She now feels that leaving was the beginning of her struggles. “You are safe but you lose everything(...) You have to start your life from zero. You have nothing here, you’re in just one room and you cannot go back, you don’t know about your future.” “Their lives are on hold,” says Caitlin Plunkett, operations manager at refugee charity Borderlands, adding that having no distractions leaves the asylum seekers free to worry about their families in danger. “They’re stuck in limbo.” She says that mental health is declining “at a very, very rapid rate.” Bahara is taking antidepressants and some nights can’t sleep. At least two of these hotels, including Bahara’s, are currently doing building work, so there’s hammering and drilling going on all day.

Hannah Vickers

ahara meets me outside a budget hotel beyond Bristol, where she’s been living since January. She’s not allowed visitors so we go to a cafe nearby. Pop music is playing loudly from a speaker near us. It’s in discomfiting contrast to her voice that’s full of tears as she tells me about the life she left behind in Afghanistan, the job she was made to walk out of abruptly when the Taliban took Kabul, and the life she has now. Though she’s lived her whole life under the constant threat of war, she had a full and interesting life. Bahara has a bachelors and a masters degree; she 28 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

had two jobs and an active social life. Now Bahara spends her time doing nothing. Her days are punctuated by the three meals she gets, sandwiches or microwave dinners, which she eats in the room she shares with her husband, because the communal spaces are out of bounds. She sometimes translates for other asylum seekers in the hotel. It takes an hour and a half to walk into Bristol, but she does it anyway just to be somewhere different. The hotel houses around 50 asylum seekers. It’s one of three hotels in Bristol and South Gloucestershire serving as initial accommodation for around 400 asylum seekers while

their claims are assessed. There are 14 such hotels across the south west run by private housing provider Clearsprings Ready Homes, and supported by advice charity Migrant Help, both contracted by the Home Office. Additionally, in Bristol there are 303 Afghanis in hotels in the resettlement scheme supported by the council, and 402 asylum seekers in dispersed accommodation. There are an estimated 200 people in the city who have been refused asylum, and are now destitute and sofa-surfing, homeless or vulnerably housed. Bahara likens the hotel to jail. She wears donated clothes, the frozen

There’s been an increase in the use of hotels as initial asylum accommodation since 2019. Clearsprings won a 10-year contract to provide accommodation for Wales and the south west in 2019, renting rooms from budget hotels while the food is provided by another organisation. Residents say the food is of very poor quality. “There are no communal spaces at all, they’ve literally just rented the bedrooms,” says Plunkett. Steve Owen is Learning and Groups Coordinator for Bristol Refugee Rights (BRR), one of the charities supporting people in the hotels with navigating the asylum process. BRR also connects people with solicitors but there aren’t enough to go around. Owen says the hotel staff are helpful but not trained to deal with people with PTSD. “In one of the hotels, a young woman was suicidal and a receptionist had to deal with that in the middle of the night… the other half of the staff are security guards hired from a security firm.” The biggest of these hotels has 250 men staying there. “They have absolutely nothing to do,” says Imogen McCintosh, founder of refugee charity AidBox. “They have no money, they’re being given cold food. It’s a boiling pot of health and mental health disaster.” After a scabies outbreak all the men had to be given new clothes. The hotel has a swimming pool and gym but the asylum seekers aren’t allowed to use them. Clearsprings has come under fire for providing poorly maintained dispersed accommodation elsewhere in the country, overrun with rats and cockroaches and with broken electrical fixtures. Corporate Watch, which calls Clearsprings an ‘asylum profiteer’, reported that the company was paid £68.7 million in the year ending 31 January 2020. Clearsprings boss, Graham King, made at least £4m from 2015 to 2020. A spokesperson for Clearsprings said: “Accommodated asylum seekers are able to raise any issues or con-

cerns with staff directly or via the 24/7 Migrant Help hotline. We will then investigate the issue and resolve it in line with the requirements of the contract. “Clearsprings Ready Homes works closely with its delivery partners to ensure that safe, habitable and correctly equipped accommodation is provided. Whenever issues are raised, or defects are identified Ready Homes will undertake a full investigation and ensure that those issues are addressed.” Delays are ‘a real trend since Priti Patel came in’ When asylum seekers first arrive in the UK they live in initial accommodation while their claim is assessed, before being moved to dispersed accommodation anywhere in the UK if their claim is approved. Their new lives can’t really start until they’re moved, as they’ll have to start again. “You just wait, basically,” says Owen. And they wait for months. To find out if they’ll be allowed to stay, and what part of the country they’ll be moved to. They’re not allowed to work and they wait – often months – to have any kind of income. Asylum seekers in hotels are eligible for £8.24 a week while their claims are assessed, but it can take months for this to start coming in. Bahara is currently on month three of no income. “Migrant Help are the first people you need to speak to,” says Plunkett. The charity won the contract for an advice line but callers are kept on hold for hours. “One woman described it as torture having to call knowing they won’t answer, or that it’ll be hours, or when you get through you’re not going to get help,” says Owen, adding that Migrant Help doesn’t have enough staff to fulfill their obligations. Bahara even had a call handler hang up on her when she asked them to repeat a word she didn’t understand. Asylum applications in 2021 were at their highest level since 2003: 48,540, up 63% on 2020, with the backlog of claims awaiting a decision at over

100,000 – a record high. The number of asylum seekers Bristol’s charities are supporting has tripled since the start of Covid. One of the reasons is an increased number of people seeking asylum in the UK: 28,500 arrived in small boats in 2021, compared with nearly 8,500 in 2020, and just 299 in 2018. Previously, lorries were the main route into the UK for people looking to gain asylum. But the process of seeking asylum has also slowed down drastically since 2019 when Priti Patel became Home Secretary, and the backlog has trebled. The Home Office says it is recruiting hundreds more caseworkers as it now takes on average over a year for an initial decision. In 2019 the Home Office dropped its six-month target for assessing claims, to prioritise cases involving vulnerable people and appeals. It’s worse than the official statistics, says immigration and asylum barrister Colin Yeo, as there’s a 20-week wait to even register an asylum claim. Bahara is one of the lucky ones. She speaks fluent English and can more easily navigate the complicated system. “People who speak English are able to call around to ask [for solicitors], but even they are hitting brick walls,” says Plunkett.

‘A broken system’ “To be honest I think it’s just a broken system. It always has been and now it’s just exacerbated,” says Plunkett. And now, the Nationalities and Borders Bill, if made law, is set to make things considerably worse. The bill has been roundly criticised for clauses that would criminalise asylum seekers arriving in the UK by unauthorised routes, like on a small boat or lorry. It also contains proposals to keep asylum seekers in ‘offshore hubs’ while their claim is considered, and powers to strip someone of their citizenship without warning. “You can see the government is wanting to make it as hard as possible for people,” says Plunkett. “It shouldn’t take a year to make [the asylum] decision. These are people’s lives you’re dealing with. Someone who’s fled torture. They’re traumatised by what happened, and the journey, and then retraumatised when they come here.” Bahara is still waiting. She says she cries often, “because nothing is in my hands.” She says she used to be so busy. But, she says through tears: “I feel I’m nothing now. I feel like all the years of struggle, all the years of hard work were erased.” ■

29 Feature

Feature

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Parents taking legal action over mistreatment of son at special needs school A former worker has also shed light on what happened before St Christopher’s closed in 2019 and police investigated child cruelty

evin and Annette Maxwell received a call in July 2019. They were told an incident involving their 16-year-old son Jonah was being investigated by the police and he had to be picked up before the school closed in the next 24 hours. St Christopher’s was a residential school for children with severe learning disabilities and complex needs in Bristol’s leafy Westbury Park, run by private provider the Aurora Group. A week after this incident, where Jonah Maxwell was pushed inappropriately by a carer, the school was forced to close and Avon and Somerset Police launched a child cruelty investigation. Many other incidents of alleged mistreatment of vulnerable children by staff had been reported within a matter of weeks. Nearly three years on, the Maxwells are finally telling their story. “Firstly, we were very critical of the decision to close it down,” Kevin tells the Cable. He describes children in distress, no idea where they were going next, with their belongings in bin liners. “I saw one kid self-harming, headbutting the pavement. It was so distressing, parents were crying.” But police later told the Maxwells a carer had been waking Jonah up at regular intervals and taking him to the toilet during the night to stop him bed-wetting. This cruel treatment was thought to have gone on a year before coming to light. “In hindsight I can understand why it was closed down,” he says. “It was very traumatic for us,” Kevin remembers. “Jonah was at home at this stage, we didn’t know how trau30 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

matised he was. He was behaving very challengingly. It took us nearly six months until we found a new school. We had to have two carers every day.” A place for Jonah was eventually found at a school near Basingstoke – after his parents turned down sending him 250 miles away to Durham. The Cable revealed last year that the two-year police investigation into child cruelty had ended without any charges, despite Avon and Somerset Police investigating 30 incidents and interviewing 10 individuals under caution. Now the Maxwells are launching a civil action against the Aurora Group. “It’s right parents should know about what happened at St Christopher’s and the culture Aurora allowed to develop,” Kevin says. Jonah’s mum Annette adds: “The vast majority of staff there were brilliant, Jonah had some wonderful carers. It puts a shadow on all these people, it’s awful really.” But the Maxwells are deeply critical of the Aurora Group, which runs nearly 20 schools and residential facilities for special needs children, including Hedgeway School just outside Bristol. Aurora is ultimately owned by Octopus Capital Limited, an investment fund with billions of pounds of assets. St Christopher’s had been a Steiner school since being founded in 1945, until Aurora took over in 2016. The valuable site has been bought for multi-million pound redevelopment into a sustainable extra-care community for older people – drawing criticism from some locals. Aurora was charging nearly £300,000 a year to care for Jonah, which was paid by Bath and North

David.Griffiths

Matty Edwards

Not your average newspaper. Reader-owned. Join us: thebristolcable.org/join East Somerset Council. His dad says: “The centre of this story is about the provision of special needs care and how the safety of our children – who are among the most vulnerable in society – is increasingly being placed in the hands of large, private companies. Their primary concern is delivering profits to their investors, which they achieve through charging eye-watering amounts of money.” Before the closure Ofsted inspectors criticised St Christopher’s over a prolonged period, grading it ‘inadequate’ in 2018. An inspection of the home just before it closed found children being restrained inappropriately, an over-reliance on agency staff, poor record keeping, insufficient training and supervision of staff. Ofsted blamed poor management for the systemic failings, which had not been addressed since being identified at previous inspections, and were putting children at risk. However, a former St Christopher’s employee told the Cable improvements were being made under a new senior leadership team appointed in early 2019, and that the school should have stayed open. “One of the things that choked me up the most was that we had finally got to a place where we were massively improving. The new leaders were taking on everything we said, things we’d raised with previous management teams. “Maybe it was too little, too late,” he says. “It had been allowed to get too far, before they realised they had to do something, invest more money and bring in new management.” The worker corroborated what happened to Jonah. “Waking someone up repeatedly during the night is abusive,” he says. “The majority of what was investigated was on the night shift,” he adds. Why? “Lack of oversight. House managers had been raising a lack of oversight on nights.” He says it was about a month before the closure that a senior manager started working full-time nights, which contributed to incidents being uncovered. The former staff member said one carer had been threatening a young person with a rolling pin, giving them cold showers through the night, and being verbally abusive. “The young person involved in those incidents is such a sweetheart, it’s heartbreaking,” he says. He was also aware of one carer inappropriately restraining young people on multiple occasions. Other incidents investigat-

ed by police included a carer pushing a young person into their room with a hand on their back, a carer not cleaning up after a young person had soiled their bed, and another inappropriate restraint that caused a young person to hit their head. “Most staff members who were questioned by police were suspended already before the closure of the school,” says the former worker. “I’m not trying to play down the severity of the alleged incidents, but it’s not like Winterbourne View [the South Gloucestershire private hospital from which staff were jailed after BBC Panorama uncovered systematic abuse]. It was individuals and individual incidents, and it’s horrible it happened but we were trying to deal with it.” “I had parents crying down the phone when St Christopher’s was closing because they were so happy with their kids, and they’d made so much progress. The majority there were happy and well looked-after. It was unfortunate and heartbreaking there were these incidents.” If it hadn’t been closed down? “It would be flourishing,” he says. “If the senior leadership team had gone through with their plans and listened to staff, I think it would be back to the flagship care home it was in previous years.” What needs to happen next Like many homes and specialist schools elsewhere in England, St Christopher’s was owned by a private provider. Last year, councils called for financial oversight of privately-run children’s care homes after research showed some of the biggest private equity-owned providers were making hundreds of millions a year in profits. Research by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that the biggest private providers are charging an average of £3,830 a week per child, with an average operating profit margin of 23%. The Cable report-

Jonah has now turned 19 and is due to start at a special needs college near Cardiff in August.

ed last year that Bristol children being housed in children’s homes outside the city has nearly doubled since early in the pandemic, with spending on private provision soaring. The closure of St Christopher’s left the council with insufficient placements for Bristol children with the most complex needs, so the council announced plans for a new council-run care home for disabled children to prevent them from being sent out-of-area and to save money on extortionate private placements. The Maxwells support the idea of facilities being run by local councils rather than profit-making private companies. They also say the police told them current laws hampered the investigation into child cruelty, because it is difficult to establish who the ‘responsible adult’ was at the time. Because St Christopher’s was regulated by Ofsted, not the CQC, the police were forced to limit their investigation to individual carers, the Maxwells say. Avon and Somerset Police said they couldn’t comment on this. The Maxwells say the law needs reforming so vulnerable children are given greater protection. Kevin says: “We don’t want to tar everyone with the same brush, but parents need to know what happened at St Christopher’s and understand the company that runs these services.” Annette adds: “The effect on Jonah has been immense. We look back now and are annoyed at ourselves for not digging deeper. We accepted their excuses and everyone was reassuring. Unless you’re there as a fly on the wall, you have to believe people. It’s made us very wary of what we do with Jonah in the future.” A spokesperson for the Aurora Group said: “We don’t underestimate what a difficult and distressing time this continues to be for families who were most affected. This has been a painful experience for everyone. “We did all that we could to alleviate the practical and emotional effects on the young people and their families when St Christopher’s closed in 2019. We also fully supported the police’s thorough investigation into every allegation, which has concluded with no further action. “At the time St Christopher’s closed there were also families who said their young people were thriving and the service was improving. They were distressed because they wanted it to stay open. This proved impossible because Ofsted had taken away its registration. “We are saddened by all that has happened and the distressing effects. We hope that the end of the police investigation will in time bring closure for all.”■

31 Investigation

Investigation

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THE NEW TALENT FROM ENDS

julianpreecephotography

M The acclaimed debut novel from the 23-year-old Bristolian is a coming-of-age story set in Easton, which paints a melting pot of cultures and moral codes

32 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

oses McKenzie wears a black tracksuit and a reluctant expression, already wearied by the media circuit. The success of An Olive Grove in Ends, the 23-year-old’s debut novel set in Easton that hits bookshelves in late April, has thrust him suddenly into the limelight. The local boy is touted as one of the “top 10 debut novelists of 2022,” by The Observer, with a TV adaption of the novel already in the pipeline. The novel follows a young black man, Sayon, as he grows up in Easton – or ‘ends’ – navigating life, love and loyalties. In his desire for a better life for himself and his loved ones, he dreams of owning a grand house at the top of a hill in affluent Clifton. But after an incident where a boy is murdered, Sayon’s fortunes take a turn. Fittingly, we meet on Stapleton Road in Easton – a setting so vividly described in the novel it could be a character in itself: “This road was called Stapleton, and those familiar with her charm might call her Stapes,” the main character Sayon recalls.

‘Ends’ is also where McKenzie calls home. Until the age of seven, the McKenzie family lived in a predominantly white area of Cornwall, and was subject to extensive racism. The experience was formative for

Last year, Cable members voted and many told us they wanted to see more stories about culture and community in Bristol. This critically-acclaimed novel about life in ‘Stapes’ was a fitting place to start, taking us back to our first stomping ground in Easton. This is just the beginning. Culture comes in many forms – gigs, art, films, community meetings – places for celebration and for resistance, parts of life in Bristol to treasure and to challenge. Have something you want us to cover? Contact aphra@thebristolcable.org

the young writer. Moving to Bristol was a new beginning for McKenzie: in the vibrant Caribbean community Easton boasts, he found sanctuary. McKenzie’s face lights up as he recounts his childhood here – out from dawn to dusk, playing in Chelsea Park or St. Paul’s Adventure Playground. At his school St. Mary Redcliffe, he formed a tight-knit group of friends. But the school was very segregated, he tells me: “The black yute and the white yute didn’t mix – but I liked that, it’s a voluntary segregation – people go where they feel safe. “My bredrin were mainly Jamaican, Somali, a couple Nigerian, one Kenyan bredrin – but back then everyone was just pretending to be Jamaican anyways!” he tells me. This melting pot of cultures is ever present in An Olive Grove also. Sayon comes from a Caribbean family, with the enigmatic Nanny at its head, her house ‘a one stop shop for supplies and yard food.’ Here he eats mutton stew and fried plantain, outside he picks up canjeeros from the Somali takeaways. Speech is written in Jamaican dialect, while the language of Sayon and his friends

33 Culture

Culture

Priyanka Raval

is a mix of Patois and Arabic. Each chapter begins with verse: Jamaican proverbs, a quote from the Bible, a surah from the Quran. These communities are not just the subject, but the intended audience for the novel as well. “I’m writing for myself first and foremost. For my friends, and anyone who thinks like us. It’s not my role to be an educator – especially not white people,” McKenzie explains. Writing? ‘You either got it or you don’t’ Reluctantly, McKenzie went to UWE to study English Literature. When asked if his studies were the inspiration to write, he snorts derisively. But it was an impetus of sorts: “I was inspired by how uninspired I was! The books were dead; I could write better than that.” In his year abroad in Barcelona, he put that to the test, and wrote his first manuscript. It wasn’t good, McKenzie laughs, but it did make him decide to make writing his life’s work – with authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Maya Angelou and James Baldwin as inspiration. Three manuscripts later, Moses produced a fourth which became An Olive Grove in Ends. It has received rave reviews and critical acclaim. TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 33

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Reading the novel, with its sophistication of topic and mastery of language, it’s hard to believe that Moses is a completely self-taught writer – never taking a class or course in creative writing in his life. “I know it sounds bad, but I think you either got it or you don’t,” McKenzie explains. His ideas for writing, he tells me, come from his opinions and beliefs. This book offers an in-depth exploration of morality. Within it are the competing moral codes of Christanity and Islam, their merits and hypocrises, and how to reconcile this with the harsh social reality of ‘Ends’. The ‘crooked solutions’ the community adopts to survive are not recognised by the judicial system, nor are the characters’ attempts at redemption. The author himself was raised Christian, and recently reverted to Islam. It’s a nuanced, complex subjectivity that is lost on some people McKenzie has encountered, he tells me: journalists who see a black man and ask whether the book is autobiographical, or simply describe it as being about ‘knife crime’. “It’s so reductive,” he says, exasperated – his earlier reluctance towards media interviews suddenly clear. The fame, the future McKenzie has just finished the first draft of his next book, about the St Pauls riots in the 1980s, and is currently researching his third. He has high hopes for his career. “I feel like I can be the best and that’s my ambition – not the best like unequivocally the best, but in the conversation for the best writer – and that’s what pushes me,” he says. As for fame, he says, “I pay as little attention to it as I can, to be honest. But, in the least arrogant way possible, I expect this of myself – it shows I’m on the right track. Alhamdulillah* always.” ■ *Praise be to God Moses McKenzie’s book An Olive Grove in Ends will be launched at Bookhaus, Wapping Wharf, on 27 April. 34 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

EXCERPT FROM AN OLIVE GROVE IN ENDS BY MOSES MCKENZIE Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? – Matthew 6:26 This is a story, much like any other, of ends and beginnings. Like any story, it is hard to know where to begin. But I think it makes sense to start at home, or a home. Actually, it might be more accurate to call it a house; one that stood alone atop Mount Zion, overlooking Leigh Woods, the Avon Valley and the muddy river that wound beneath. ‘Dis is the yard,’ I told Cuba, as we waited at its bourn, ‘the one man’s marge showed man when man was a young buck.’ The Bath stone house in the area known as Clifton was all original features; sash windows and working shutters. It had a vestibule and behind it a long plot of land that tripped and fell into the woods like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It could have been plucked from a fairy tale about two adventurers who had stumbled across the city of God. The front of the house was gated, guarded by statuette men from all nations clothed in white robes and carrying palm fronds. And in the middle of the driveway sat a fountain of living water. ‘It’s rah massive,’ Cuba said. And I understood his astonishment. It was a world away from the one we knew. Even if we owned the yard next to Nanny’s and knocked it through, it wouldn’t have reached half the size. We left our push bikes by the fountain and helped each other over the fence and into the back garden. ‘Do you know who lives here?’ Cuba asked. I shook my head. ‘Dey must be up doe, init?’ ‘Must be.’ My mama used to bring me to this house when I wasn’t much older than a toddler. We wouldn’t come inside – she wasn’t as brazen as Cuba and me – we would only drive to the gate, and she would point up at the windows and tell me how she would imagine herself looking out of them when she was but a child herself. She would cycle into Clifton and across the Suspension Bridge just to look at the yard. There were other houses on the road, for it was narrow with many mansions, but it was this one that caught her eye. It was the furthest from the street, she explained, as far from the hustle and bustle as one could get. ‘You know man’s gonna live here someday, cuz,’ I announced. Cuba screwed his face; he didn’t mean to doubt me, but he wasn’t accustomed to dreams. ‘How you

gonna buy dis yard, akh? You need white people ps to buy dis – big man ting.’ ‘Don’t watch dat,’ I told him. ‘Man’ll find a way, truss me.’ Cuba put his arms across his little chest and huffed in the manner of a man about to embark upon yet another noble quest. ‘Say no more, g, but if you’re gonna buy it den man’ll help you, init. Dat’s what family’s for.’ In the back garden the sun caught in the shade and couldn’t strike the grass, but its efforts were rewarded with a mellow air that had paid no mind to the weather elsewhere. The grounds were vast, with streams that led from pond to pond, fruit trees and countless flowering shrubs. ‘You know deh’s horses in the woods, init?’ I said, repeating what my mama had told me all those years ago. ‘Horses?’ ‘Yeah, fam. White horses. And my marge told man dat Jesus rides on white horses, blud.’ ‘I bet dey would sell for ps den, init?’ Cuba muttered. We fell silent as we thought about how many packets of sweets we could buy for a white horse that even Jesus would ride. ‘You reckon we could sell dem?’ he whispered. I shrugged, and climbed into the low branches of a tree close to a pond. Cuba picked fallen twigs from the base and threw them as far as he could; they broke the surface of the water and floated idly. ‘Only if you can catch dem first.’ We looked at each other, the fire in our eyes ablaze like jasper stones, then we raced to the bottom of the garden and through the cast-iron gate at its foot. We spent the entire afternoon chasing the shadows of those white horses, but we didn’t catch the swish of a tail, nor the print of a hoof. We returned to the house-atop-the-hill downcast and defeated. I found my place in the tree again, and Cuba took up the twigs. The water that ran from pond to pond had no foul smell. It was lazy, like a river of clarified honey. I thought if I knelt to taste it I might have refreshed myself after such a disappointing day, but Cuba had other ideas. He pointed toward the house. ‘Yo, you wanna see what’s inside?’ ■

Aphra Evans

“The books were dead; I could write better than that”

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The Noods team at the station’s HQ and venue, Mickey Zoggs

Homegrown radio station launches second record label and social enterprise The world of community radio is a challenging one, but Noods is going from strength to strength Priyanka Raval

ack Machin and Leon Patrick were housemates in a large flat-share in Stokes Croft, and quickly bonded over their shared love of music. Sunday evenings were spent in the living room, excitedly playing tracks for each other and their housemates. In 2015, they decided to turn their pastime into a public platform – and the idea for Noods Radio was born. Since then, the homegrown radio station has thrived. Running out of a modest, makeshift studio in Mickey Zoggs cafe in St Pauls, Noods now boasts some 280 resident artists from around the world. Noods has two record labels – Noods Radio Label and the more recently launched Dummy Hand, which will see its first release on 15th April – while their community interest company (CIC) Noods Levels aims to help young people break into the music industry. Down the road from the station, co-founders Jack and Leon, along

with Operations Manager Izzy Cross, sit down in Portland Square to tell me their journey so far, and what their hopes for the future are. Humble beginnings “When we started out, we didn’t even have decks!” says Leon, recalling the beginnings of Noods Radio. “We just had Jack’s massive computer, which we’d plug into my laptop, and play music like that.” “Then when other people came on board, we’d just run with a laptop and plug it into whatever equipment they had,” Jack adds, laughing. A tattoo reading “Noods” adorns his right leg. Jack and Leon were starting clueless, in the days before streaming platforms like YouTube existed. After being without a studio for a year, Noods finally took up residence in the attic of the now closed Surrey Vaults pub, which was run by friends of theirs. The venue proved

a great boost, allowing them to connect with the bands and musicians who’d come to play gigs, and the wider community around the pub. When the pub shut down, Jack and Leon led a nomadic existence. Noods found a home in Crofters Rights for a time before the room was turned into a toilet, then spent the next few months shuffling between various dingy rooms in Hamilton House. In the end, the team landed where it started, buying the former Surrey Vaults with a friend and renaming it Mickey Zoggs. Community spirit Initially the duo set up Noods radio as a way to unify the disparate elements of Bristol’s music scene under one roof, and showcase emerging talent. But as the station has grown, so has their social purpose. Noods Levels was set up as a CIC last year with the aim of creating jobs and opportunities for

young people in the music industry, equipping them with the skills and networks they need to succeed, and overcoming barriers to access. Unpaid internships are a key barrier, says Leon: “So a lot of what we do is create paid jobs, both within the station and beyond, where they can learn on the job and build on their CV.” “Often it’s said that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” says Izzy. “But instead of seeing this as negative, we want to flip that on its head and create communities and networks that people otherwise wouldn’t have access to.” “It’s about showing people that there are opportunities here in Bristol, and stop the idea that you have to go to London to make it,” she continues. Izzy herself came up through Noods as a volunteer: “So now I’m asking – how can we make it easier for the next generation?” She is currently spearheading CrossTalk, an event which offers advice and guidance for creatives through workshops, designed in partnership with Access Creative College and partly funded by Bristol City Council’s Cultural Investment Programme. She hopes it will offer direct access to industry professionals for young creatives and help them on the path to sustainable career progression. It’s an aspiration evidenced by a government report from March, which highlights the social benefits of community radio, including training and volunteer opportunities as well as cohesion and advocacy for community action.

Culture

Calling all ‘luvers’ Noods has gone from underground and online-only to Ofcom registered on digital DAB radio, so anyone can tune in. But the challenge now is to make the station financially viable. The station has a few pots of funding in the city, but they don’t want to be reliant on this – they give the example of Berlin Community Radio, which collapsed in 2019 once funding ran out. Instead, they’re trying to make sure the core elements are funded through subscriptions and crowdfunding. When the pandemic struck, the team launched ‘Noods Luvers’, a crowdfunding effort to keep the station going. The whole Noods community, residents and audience alike, came together and raised money. Ultimately, Noods has come out of it stronger than ever, and its place as the hub of homegrown DJ talent is set to continue and grow. ■ TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 35

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Culture

port the city’s night-time economy, which began with anti-sexual harassment posters appearing around town and in venues late last year. The funding for the campaign came from the government’s £5 million Safety of Women at Night Fund, which launched after several recent high-profile murders of women in the UK. Last November, the Home Office awarded Bristol City Council £282,000 to tackle crimes against women at night. Of this, £173,000 went towards preventing sexual harassment, including developing and delivering the training Aysha was involved in, and an awareness campaign aimed at supporting nighttime venues to tackle the crime.

Aysha Tailor-Whyte, production coordinator at the Trinity Centre

‘You don’t win at this’: the ongoing battle against sexual harassment in Bristol’s nightlife Money is being poured into providing venues with training and resources against the crime, but it’s just the start of a process of creating cultural change, explains the Trinity Centre’s Aysha Tailor-Whyte Aphra Evans

“I

’m about to start processing some stuff that happened to me a long time ago, because I’m about to put myself back in that space where it happened,” says Aysha Tailor-Whyte, who coordinates live music and club nights at the Trinity Centre. “I didn’t realise until I visited the space again the effect it was going to have on me. And it happened 12 years ago.” Aysha and I quickly find common ground in our experiences of sexual harassment on nights out. The difference is that for me, it’s just personal. Aysha, on the other hand, has to make the space where she works safe for people to enjoy themselves, a situation compounded by dark corners, huge crowds and intoxicants. She has put on nights where bad things happen, where she deals with the fallout and handles both survivors and perpetrators. “It’s heartbreaking if you hear that something’s happened, if it’s at

36 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

a gig and it’s my event,” she says. Sexual harassment of all kinds is too common in these settings. But the imprint it leaves is rarely discussed: PTSD, anxiety, panic disorders, not wanting to leave the house, not wanting to put yourself in certain situations, and physical symptoms like headaches, muscle aches and heartburn. “Anyone who’s experienced sexual harassment, you see the effects of it but I don’t think it’s that shocking,” says Aysha. “You know them. You have them.” We both nod. Bristol Nights campaign begins in earnest Over March, Aysha was one of many people delivering training on tackling sexual harassment to 1,000 night-time economy workers, defined as those working between 6pm and 6am. The training campaign was coordinated by Bristol Nights, an initiative set up to sup-

Campaign posters by Bristol Nights

Prevention rather than cure For Aysha, one of the less talked about solutions is diversifying. She describes live music as a very white, male industry. In that space, she says, there will be few people arguing for more action on sexual harassment or racism. And as a Black woman, Aysha is aware of how those two problems run deeper when they intersect: the latest ONS data shows Black and minoritised people are significantly more likely to be the target of sexual assault than white or Asian people. The Bristol Nights campaign may have begun in earnest, but Aysha sees this as very much the beginning of a shift in the conversation. It’s not that sexual harassment wasn’t discussed at Trinity before, but now it’s openly talked about, with the momentum of the campaign behind it and the crucial linking together of different venues to tackle one problem. “It’s about creating a safer city, ultimately, not just safer individual spaces,” she says. She is excited to see the ripple effects of the campaign and the training a year down the line, but under no delusion about the limitations of them. “You don’t win at this,” she says flatly. “Like any other form of harassment, it’s always going to be there. All you can do is create a culture in your space and in the city to mitigate the risks of this happening.” As Aysha well knows, there’s always the possibility that after something happens, the survivor will forever think of the venue where it happened – or all night-time venues – as unsafe. “But if you’ve given someone resources, and said this is what we’re going to do, this is what you can do – that’s the level of support you can give after the fact,” she says. “Then they’re going to know you take it seriously and then maybe they won’t have that fear of coming back.” ■

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We need international alliances to stop airport expansions

Unpopular opinion: We need to pay local politicians more

38 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022

Pay for politicians is hardly a rallying cry. But it historically has been, and now we need to look again.

Behind Bristol’s planned airport expansion is a Canadian pension fund. Activists must join forces and take the fight to the largest private investor in European airports

Adam Cantwell-Corn, Cable co-founder

Tanguy Tomes, environmental consultant and climate activist

pay ranging up to £40,000 a year, backbenchers get the basic rate ‘allowance’. Councillors are also not entitled to normal employee benefits of paid leave or a pension. The expectation is that the job is 25 hours per week, and that councillors should work alongside it. But, from speaking to councillors, having part-time pay means juggling another job and a rare employer who will tolerate an awkward schedule, often involving council meetings and public events in the middle of the day, weekends and evenings. And it’s not just the inconvenience. It’s an active barrier to people with experience of the sharper end of our economy. A councillor told me they routinely have to use annual leave or take unpaid time off from their other work to attend council meetings. They struggle to make ends meet as a result. While the cost of living crisis hits it could seem misjudged to call for more pay for politicians. But when we recognise that our current struggles are mostly the result of political choices rather than accidents or inevitabilities, we understand, as the Chartists did, that better representation is key. If we want to see more working class women, people and other groups hit hardest by our politics among our elected representatives, then we need to make it via-

ble financially. More demographic diversity won’t equal better politics on its own, but it’s an important step towards it. Whether it’s scrutinising developers or pushing forward local policy change, the nature of the job can be demanding, as it should be. Whatever the result of the mayoral referendum, councillors will be called on to do more; to ensure better accountability from a powerful and well-funded mayor’s office, or to work on committees. Bristol City Council has plenty of highly and even excessively paid employees. From the £171,000 for the council’s chief executive to the £218,000 for a clean air zone consultant, the rationale given by the mayor and others is that if you want the best people, you have to pay for it. The same should go for those we elect. In Manchester, a councillor’s basic allowance is £17,525 and, as ever, Wales and Scotland are out in front when it comes to progressive politics. As of this year, councillors there will be paid £16,800 and £19,500 respectively. Independent review panels that made the decision stated that it is not acceptable that elected roles shut out certain communities. Even upping the basic allowance to £16,500 would make a big difference to an individual, allowing them to give more time to the role and increasing the potential for a wider crop of candidates. It does mean finding another £140,000 from public funds for all 70 councillors. Sounds like a lot when times are tough. But barriers to effective political representation cost us all more in the long run. ■ e ric np joewatso

ristol Airport is big enough. For years, the voices of communities – and many politicians – across the south west have been clear and united in opposition to its application to expand. And yet the case rumbles on. Other communities around Europe tell similar stories, which is why I’m now working with these groups to take this fight straight to the hidden headquarters of many of our airports: the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP). I like to learn about solutions. Positive initiatives for people and the planet. But while we strive to bring good into the world, it’s just as vital that we call time on the bad. The case of Bristol Airport encapsulates the latter perfectly. Today, Bristol Airport, with around 9 million passengers annually, already provides enough capacity for everyone in the west of England to take four return journeys every year. An expanded airport would see passenger numbers rise to 12 million, belching out the equivalent of an extra 1.4m tonnes CO2 – an annual impact bigger than the whole city of Bristol. Put another way, the expansion would make all of our efforts to reduce our own environmental impacts nigh-on pointless. Undoubtedly, this is our region’s biggest single climate decision. I could go on to describe in detail the multitude of other reasons why these plans merit opposition. It would be quite the voyage, covering misleading statements, the plight of the protected horseshoe bat, and the mental and physical health of communities affected by pollution. But people really don’t need convincing. This case has been a rare unifying cause for the region. Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) – a coalition of parish councils, campaigners, and aviation academics – has spearheaded a creative campaign. Their actions have committed politicians at all lev-

els, of all stripes, from across the region into opposition. Alongside thousands of written objections, BAAN’s activity evidences overwhelming community opposition. This opposition was underpinned by North Somerset council’s “historic” decision to reject the application in February 2020 by a large majority. But on appeal, three government planning inspectors decided all that opposition means nothing. Local people’s concerns have to count for something How can this be? The basis for their decision – that economic benefits outweigh environmental damage – is demonstrably untrue. And I’m furious. But I won’t be sitting back. The concerns of local people have to mean something, and this new setback sees citizen groups preparing on all fronts. BAAN have crowdfunded the legal costs to dispute the Planning Inspec-

torate’s decision, and now an international effort is taking on the investors at the heart of it all. To understand this last strategy, we must understand that the airport company is a puppet answering directly to the OTPP. OTPP, which campaigners have accused of being a “corporate psychopath”, is the 100% owner of Bristol Airport and sole beneficiary of its expansion. While Bristol Airport made hundreds of redundancies in 2020, the Pension Plan registered record profits in 2021. OTPP has stakes in Bristol, Birmingham, London City, Brussels and Copenhagen airports, making it the largest private investor in European airports. Most of these airports have disputed expansion plans. It may

sugscott

ow much do you think a Bristol City Councillor gets paid? For your average local representative, the answer might shock you: £14.500 a year. Paying politicians more is a hard argument when opinions of politicians are so low, brought on by perpetual disappointments and self-serving scandals. But it matters. So, we’ll reach back into history for some perspective. Through to the 20th century: While the UK trumpeted itself as the birthplace of modern democracy, the House of Commons was anything but that. MPs were not paid and were expected to sustain themselves through private means. Inevitably, the only class able to do that were landowning and wealthy men, who overwhelmingly conducted politics in their own interests and world views. The majority suffered as a result. The Chartists, one of the most important radical working class movements in British history, agitated for change. Payment for MPs so that parliamentarians could be drawn from across society was one of six demands in the 1838 People’s Charter. It was furiously opposed by the establishment who feared that the election of ‘the lesser classes’ would disrupt their grip on wealth and power. It took until 1911, and the 11-year-old Labour party to get it over the line, helping to open the door to a generation of MPs that transformed Britain. Though parliament is still disproportionately occupied by men, landlords and a narrow elite, we’ve come a long way. Paying people properly has been an important part of that. But local representatives seem to be a forgotten part of that picture. Though the mayor of Bristol pulls in a large salary of £80,000 and many other councillors with extra responsibility get additional

39 Opinion

Opinion

claim to be a “responsible” investor but it’s clear that its actions are not in the interests of local communities, nor Ontario’s teachers. This case demonstrates the disconnect which enables the global economy to sustain short-term profits through exploitation. Like the UK, Ontario has seen many climate protests in recent years, and Ontario teachers are worried about how their pensions will impact their students’ futures. And yet, OTPP’s goal of endless double-digit growth is driving forward airport expansion plans across Europe, which local people have fiercely opposed. Therein lies an opportunity. When an investor pulled out of Heathrow, its expansion plans were thrown into uncertainty. I thought: what if OTPP publicly withdrew its support of airport expansions? Disruption like that can throw a project off for good. While this thinking isn’t particularly new, what is new is the collaboration between groups resisting OTPPowned airports: a united international front for coordinated actions and communications. We are building a global coalition of activists striving for a better world. From anti-expansion group CPH Uden Udvidelse and Bevar Jordforbindelsen in Copenhagen to HACAN East in London, we are building a global coalition of activists striving for a better world. We are demonstrating the interconnected, extractive features of capital – connecting geographically distant communities to acknowledge common enemies and support each other’s struggles. My head buzzes with the potential. This international collaboration is just taking off. We’ve got interested parties, a strong case, and the seeds of a compelling strategy. With the court case ongoing, we can’t know which mechanism will ultimately be successful. All we know is that the resistance won’t let up until Bristol Airport’s expansion is put to bed once and for all. Will you be a part of it? ■ TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 29 | Spring 2022 | 39

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