Bristol Cable - Issue 30 by Bristol Cable

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Issue No30 - Summer 2022 Made free by members

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n i e lif e n w o d al ns

hange c r o f Calls e scene th from gedy ra of a t 4 Page 1

Area in focus

Interview

Feature

Culture

Inside the uphill battle for campaigners against developers in Barton Hill and Redfield

The Black mums fighting for healthcare equality

Are short-term lets making housing even less affordable?

The record label launching careers for ex-prisoners

Page 8

Page 13

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DEAR READER,

Opinion: 'Rwanda is just one part of the government's latest attack on asylum seekers' p.39

In this milestone 30th edition of the Bristol Cable, you’ll find public interest journalism about Bristol’s big issues and inspiring tales of people doing something about them.

Massive thanks to the 2,700 members who make all this possible! and to all contributors, sources and contacts.

There’s on-the-ground reporting from Barton Hill and Redfield about the campaigners who want to bring local assets into the hands of the community, rather than developers, and hopes and fears for Filwood Broadway, which could finally get a much-needed cash boost to bring its high street back to life.

If you have a story, or a tip-off please get in touch:

Our cover story is in-depth reporting from Lansdowne Court, the Easton tower block that was the scene of a young woman's tragic death. Reporter Sean Morrison has spent months speaking to residents about how they don’t feel safe and aren’t being heard. The other features dig into the issue of short-term and holiday lets in the midst of Bristol’s housing crisis, and damaging permanent exclusions for primary school kids.

Media team Matty Edwards, Aphra Evans, Sean Morrison

content@thebristolcable.org thebristolcable.org/got-a-story 07533718547 | The Station, Silver Street, Bristol, BS1 2AG

There are more hopeful reads for you too, on the people tackling inequality for young people in south Bristol and for Black mums receiving maternity care, as well as compelling stories about prisoners turning their lives around through music and the siblings spearheading the city's South Asian music scene. You don’t have to wait every three months to get high quality journalism covering both the light and dark of our city. We have new stories on a daily basis on our website (thebristolcable.org), where you can also sign up for our newsletter – which means you can avoid information overload by getting the week's essential stories straight to your inbox every Saturday morning.

The Cable team

Print production coordination Matty Edwards Production team Alex Turner, Arvind Howarth Design & layout Laurence Ware

laurence_ware_design

Print advertising Alison Fraser, Michael York Tech team Mat Alborough, Will Franklin Marcus Valentine - xtreamlab.net Special projects team Lucas Batt, Will Franklin, Matty Edwards, Sam Kinch Fundraising Lucas Batt, Sara Szakadat 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 Dave Marsden, Neill Talbot, Lucy Sessions, Matt Violet Workplace coordination People: Lucas Batt, Sara Szakadat, Mat Alborough Workplace: Sara Szakadat, Will Franklin Front page photo Julian Preece www.julianpreece.com

Special thanks to…

Contents 4-5 What the Cable has been up to 6 Data Homeless stats show the need for tighter reforms 7 News Nursery closures due to staff shortages 8 Barton Hill and Redfield In Focus Can campaigners save these assets of community value? 10 Filwood In Focus Can funding revive a neglected high street in south Bristol? 12 Feature The campaign to empower young people south of the river

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Hannah Vickers, Marianne Brooker, Mike Jempson

13 Feature The mums tackling racial inequality in maternity care 14 Cover Story Calls for change at Easton tower block at the scene of a tragedy 20 Photoessay Clubbing institution Lakota turns 30 22 Feature £4,000 a month for a flat on Fishponds Road? The landlords cashing in on short term lets 26 Feature Should permanent exclusions be banned in primary schools? 30 Feature The campaign to protect the Avon from pollution

32 History Bristol Gas Company sheds light on the city's industrial and social history

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

34 Culture 'Drill music can be used for positive good'

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

36 Culture The Bristol-born Pakistani siblings bringing representation, raves and revival 38 Opinion 'Why community action is needed in the cost of living crisis' 39 Opinion 'Rwanda is just one part of the government's latest attack on asylum seekers'

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This is the 30th edition of peoplepowered local media in print.

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Are you a fundraising manager, finance lead or entrepreneur with a great eye for numbers and opportunities to grow organisations? Do you fancy joining a passionate board and brilliant team as we deliver impactful, independent and community-driven journalism in Bristol? The Bristol Cable is looking for people with finance, fundraising and business development experience to join our board of voluntary directors. This role is a great way to help steer the Cable through our next chapter and make a real difference in Bristol and the wider media sector.

We’ve come a long way in the last eight years, especially when even surviving is an achievement in a precarious media landscape.

In recent months, we’ve said goodbye to two colleagues, Hannah Vickers and Annie Brooker, and will be welcoming three brilliant new people to the staff team who'll help us to keep delivering the quality local journalism that Bristol needs. We’re incredibly proud to have come this far and have many people to thank – members, directors, and collaborators – for supporting us in reaching this milestone. But nonetheless, we face a challenging financial situation and need more readers to chip in and support our independent local journalism. We can only keep going with your support. Join us.

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5 Co-op updates

Co-op updates

Bristol Cable directors at our AGM in 2019

Exciting new solutions series All too often, journalism focuses on the problem and stops there. Solutions journalism, which has long been a central part of the Cable’s ethos, is the opposite, so we’re thrilled to announce grant funding to give this kind of work the resources it needs. The Cable has been awarded £110,000 by the European Journalism Centre to deliver a year-long series of solutions journalism on how cities can be built for the future. Our Future of Cities series will identify, investigate and share solutions being pioneered here in Bristol and around the world which help develop more sustainable, equitable and democratic cities. It will focus on the three themes of how people move around cities, how space is organised, and they are resourced. Through the project, we will engage with experts, partner with media in other cities and create open source recipes for others to replicate our research. This exciting new project will launch in the next few months, so keep your eyes peeled!

Come to our 30th edition party! This edition of community-owned media is a milestone. From just an idea about how to do local journalism differently back in 2014, the Cable has now reached its 30th issue. Over the last eight years, thanks to the community of 2,700 members, we’ve published impactful investigations, helped aspiring journalists get into the industry, and changed the face of the local media landscape. To celebrate our 30th edition, we’re organising a party at Strange Brew in September. More details are coming soon but we'll have some great Bristol bands playing, so keep an eye out!

Calling for structural change in the media

Interested? Email workplace@thebristolcable.org for more details.

In May, we brought the voice of community-owned media directly to Parliament, as Cable co-founder Adam Cantwell-Corn went to Westminster to give evidence to a select committee on the sustainability of local journalism. Adam explained how the Cable’s unique approach is a viable new model for sustaining public interest journalism, because through membership we put the needs of the community at the centre of our work, rather than advertisers. With 83% of UK local newspapers controlled by just six companies, their advertising-driven models often lead to clickbait, the “fast food of journalism”. Asked on whether our model can be easily replicated, Adam said not in the UK right now, because there’s not enough support for organisations like the Cable to get set up. Adam called for support and funding to enable the emergence of the next generation of media in the public interest. This investment needs to incentivise innovation, sustainability and quality journalism across the whole sector – not a “patch up” job. Being heard is one thing, but the government taking action is another. With the turmoil currently engulfing Westminster, change might not quickly be coming. All the more important, then, that here in Bristol we continue to hold the torch for what quality independent local journalism should look like.

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Data

Hundreds of people in Bristol have been recognised as homeless in the last few years because a private tenancy ended Alex Turner

More landlords ending tenancies to sell or relet

The data shows that in Bristol, 28% (160) of these households became homeless because their landlord decided to sell or relet their home to someone else. But the rate increased to 37% in the second half of 2021, with almost a third (51) of the total coming in those six months. The government's new plans, if enacted, would outlaw section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions but make allowances 6 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 30 | Summer 2022

Renters made homeless Apr '19 to Dec '21

Numbers of people assessed as homeless due to private tenancy ending

Birmingham

Manchester

Bristol

Nottingham

Sheffield

Leeds

Liverpool

800

600

400

200

Proportion of people who lost their home because the landlord wanted to sell or relet

n June, the Cable reported on long-awaited government proposals to "redress the balance" between the nation's renters and landlords by ending 'no fault' section 21 evictions and fixedterm tenancies, and introducing new quality standards. Housing campaigners welcomed the plans while warning that they could still do more to protect renters. Analysis of homelessness statistics by the Cable underlines how badly the new measures, which are set to become part of a Renters’ Reform Bill are needed – and why they need to be tightened further. Between April 2019 and the start of this year, the data shows 5,369 households were assessed as being homeless by Bristol City Council. This means a local authority is satisfied someone is homeless and eligible for assistance, but has not yet agreed to make an offer of permanent housing. Of those households, 579, or 11% of the total, approached the council because of a private tenancy ending. This was a higher proportion than any other of England’s largest urban centres outside London. Meanwhile looking at the raw numbers for the same cities, only Birmingham (856) and Manchester (739) – both larger cities – assessed more households as having become homeless because of a private tenancy ending.

Few Bristol households offered duty to prevent homelessness

Besides capturing the numbers of people becoming homeless, the government stats also record those assessed as being threatened with it, meaning the council has a formal duty to help prevent that outcome. Nationally, about a quarter of these duties are because private tenancies are ending, with about 40% (29% in Bristol) of those due to a section 21 notice being served. Surprisingly, Bristol records few of these 'prevention' duties in comparison to many other major cities. Overall since 2019, Leeds assessed 12,364 households as being threatened with homelessness, while Bristol recorded just 1,403, of which 424 were in that position because of a tenancy ending. A council spokesperson said the local authority had recently changed the way it records homelessness prevention work. They added that early intervention support “had always been available at the point from which households reported the threat of homelessness”, but this had not always included formally offering a prevention duty. •

Tracey Miller, a Filton parent whose child was at the local Flying Start nursery until staffing shortages forced it to close

Parents and staff warn of post-Covid nursery placement shortage Bristol is struggling to provide nursery places for its children as post-Covid burnout and cost of living rises fuel a recruitment crisis, staff and parents have told the Cable Alex Turner

arlier this year the National Day Nurseries Association warned that nurseries around England have been downgraded by Ofsted because of problems staffing their sites, with many having to close rooms or reduce their place numbers. Local early years workers say they worry about children, especially those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), missing out on vital early-years development as a result of staff shortages. On Bristol Facebook groups, meanwhile, families have been sharing stories of how tricky it can be to find a nursery place. Their searches are often triggered by their existing nursery shrinking its provision. A letter sent to parents of children at one site that has closed completely – Flying Start in Filton – described "extreme recruitment and staffing pressures" as being key to the decision. The previously 'outstanding' nursery, which was taken

over several years ago by the national Just Childcare group, was demoted to 'requires improvement' at its last inspection in September 2021. The decision to shut Flying Start, until at least September 2022, came in May. It followed a series of part-closures, starting with its preschool room, earlier this year. Tracey Miller, a local mum whose two children have gone to Flying Start, told the Cable there had been staffing issues at the formerly "amazing" nursery since Just Childcare took it on. "After Covid started calming down, staff started to leave even more – March was when they first started closing [odd days]," said Miller, who works for the NHS. "It went like that for a while, and then all of a sudden it was, we're closing. "There were some nights I was logging off at two in the morning, and then I'm back on it at nine the next day," added Miller, who has had to juggle childcare with work and a part-time masters. "So it has had a massive impact."

“Staff wore no masks during the pandemic, we didn't close – there was no thanks for it, now everyone’s exhausted and we’re losing people”

Another parent, who also works in healthcare in a frontline role, said she too had been affected by the closure. "I started crying when I got the email," she said, adding that she had phoned eight or nine other nurseries before eventually getting a place. A Just Childcare spokesperson said ongoing shortages of trained nursery practitioners, government underfunding and an "increasingly competitive recruitment market" had "impacted everyone in the sector". "To ensure children and staff remain safe we are required by law to maintain Ofsted’s statutory child/staff ratio, and as a result when short-term staff shortages arise we are left with little choice than to close a room," the spokesperson said. They added that the company recognised the "upheaval" this caused for parents, and that it was increasing salaries and taking other measures to attract staff. Many workers in the sector, which has long been underfunded, are paid at or just above minimum wage. The government is also considering relaxing rules around the number of children nursery staff can care for, as a way of lowering costs for parents, which would increase pressure on staff. Unlike schools, early years provision remained open for all children throughout the 2021 lockdown. Despite a petition arguing that staff deserved better protection, which attracted 103,000 signatures and was debated in Parliament, the government concluded the presence of other Covid restrictions justified the decision. "Early years staff wore no masks during the pandemic, we didn't close, [but there was] no thanks for it really," said one manager, who spoke to the Cable on condition of anonymity. "Staff morale is not great because of the stresses – everyone's exhausted," added the manager, who said her site was having to cut dozens of places. "We're losing people and can't replace them – some are not going to other nurseries [but to other sectors] like hair and beauty." The scale of the sector's recruitment problems is underlined by a leaflet distributed publicly by local nursery provider Red Bus, which operates three sites. It offers £999 to anyone who refers someone with an early years qualification to the company, who it subsequently employs. Red Bus did not respond to a request for comment by the Cable. A Bristol City Council spokesperson said the council was aware of "a couple" of closures but believed it was meeting its statutory duty to provide sufficient childcare capacity for the city. The council declined to comment further as it is beginning a new review of that citywide capacity. •

News

Data highlights need for renters to be better protected

for landlords to evict people in order to sell up or to let their property to a family member. The statistics illustrate why this proposal must be carefully policed if it's not to become a loophole for kicking people out. A recent article by Inside Housing cited research carried out by Generation Rent in Scotland, where no-fault evictions have already been abolished. This showed that in 28% of cases between 2018 and 2020 where a landlord was granted possession to sell their home, the property was yet to be sold one year later. Tom Renhard, the council’s cabinet member for housing, told the Cable that any legislation claimed to be for protecting renters needed to “do just that”. “We need to avoid creating new no-fault eviction clauses by another name with the pending renters' reform legislation,” he added. “Where additional clauses are brought in or existing ones updated, there need to be greater protections in place, [which] should include evidence from landlords on the need to sell or move in family, with checks that this is actually what happens.” Renhard added that there could be a role for a new property portal the government proposes to create – which could act effectively as a national landlords’ register – as acting as a check and balance in this regard.

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Brendan Tate-Wistreich (L) and Bianca Pardhy-Avis (R) are campaigning to keep a cinema hidden behind St George’s Hall, Redfield, from being developed. Green councillor Barry Parsons (C) has backed their efforts to save the venue

Photo: Aphra Evans

Brothers Alexander (L) and Aaron Smith (R) with their mother, Teresa, are members of the group battling to save Barton Hill’s last pub, The Rhubarb Tavern

Campaigners face uphill battle to save two BS5 pubs from redevelopment In Redfield, residents are trying to preserve a historic cinema hidden behind a Wetherspoons, while in Barton Hill, activists just want to keep their last local. They share common frustrations with how hard it is for communities to hang on to places that matter to them Alex Turner

alk down Church Road from St George Park and it feels as if this part of Bristol is bucking national trends towards pubs closing. As you leave the park there's the recently opened Red Church, then the Fire Engine, Dark Horse and George and Dragon. But wander through the sidestreets towards Barton Hill and a different picture emerges. Within 10 minutes you pass the former Three Crowns, Hauliers Arms, Hop Pole, Swan and Russell Arms. All have closed within the last decade or so, with most turned into housing.

Now, two of the area's most recently departed pubs face the same fate. They are St George's Hall on Church Road, and the Rhubarb Tavern in Barton Hill. Opposing the pubs' redevelopment are two community campaigns with very different ambitions. But the people involved say they highlight common concerns about how hard it is for communities to hang on to places that matter to them, and how processes and policies stack up in developers' favour.

A hidden cinema, and a last pub

The effort to save St George's Hall, until recently a Wetherspoons, has been easily the most high-profile.

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The chain's attempts to sell it in 2019 were shelved after criticism about the lack of affordable pubs in the area. But in 2021, Wetherspoons accepted an offer from a local developer, Landrose. Last orders were called on 19 September. That might have been that but for a conversation between local resident Paul Burke and a neighbour, who told him of a cinema hidden behind the Spoons, which has lain empty since 1961. A petition started by Burke to save the cinema for community use has attracted almost 10,000 signatures and, campaigners have said, investment

AREA IN FOCUS Barton H & Redlan ill d

offers. The campaign has won support from councillors across parties, and even Hanham-born comedian Stephen Merchant. "This building could serve the community in a way nothing else on this high street could," says Redfield resident Bianca Pardhy-Avis. She helps run the campaign's 2,400-member Facebook group. "Food and a bar, local access to culture, and giving people a space to showcase their own talents." But in January, Landrose, which also redeveloped the nearby Three Crowns, submitted plans for 44 bedsits at St George's Hall. While the developer proposed a potential new 20-seat cinema at the site, the original 1912 auditorium would go. The Rhubarb campaigners have simpler aims. They just want to preserve Barton Hill's final pub. "The Swan had always been a small 'wet pub' – a place to go and drink,"

says Alexander Smith, who leads the We <3 The Rhubarb Tavern group. "The Rhubarb, with its kitchen and big back garden, has more to offer." Besides being well-used by locals, the pub sometimes hosted outside events, including by the team behind long-running party Dirtytalk, who have opened the Strange Brew venue in town. It sits close to Silverthorne Lane, where plans for homes, offices and a school offer the potential for new trade. But when the Rhubarb closed in summer 2020, its last landlords claimed the business had become unviable. That's a position the owner, London-based Mona Mogharebi, reiterates to the Cable. Her company Natan submitted plans to redevelop the site into 14 flats – eight in a new building in the garden – before withdrawing them early this year. They were replaced by a fresh application offering the possibility of reopening a pub on the ground floor, while still converting the upstairs and building flats in the garden.

'No right to purchase'

During autumn 2021, both the Rhubarb and St George's Hall groups sought to get the buildings listed as assets of community value (ACVs). ACV status was introduced under the 2011 Localism Act to offer some

protection to communities whose amenities – including pubs – were under threat. At the time, the law, since tightened, allowed pubs' uses to be changed without going through planning procedures. Listing properties as ACVs was meant to make it "easier for local people to take over [by buying them] the amenities they love". If an owner decides to sell and close a business listed as an ACV, it must tell the council, triggering a six-week period during which the community can express an interest. "But that doesn't give you any right to purchase," explains Chris Faulkner-Gibson, a local CAMRA member who’s been supporting the Rhubarb campaign. "All it does is give a campaign group a six-month moratorium [during which the owner can’t sell to someone else]." To get their hands on the ACV, Faulkner-Gibson continues, the group must then form a body able to raise money and issue shares. But the owner isn’t obliged to sell to the community group and can negotiate with other parties during the moratorium. Even so, the process is worth going through, Faulkner-Gibson adds. "It means one part of the local authority has agreed this is an ACV – that's a material consideration for the planners." The Redfield cinema group nominat-

ed St George's Hall on 3 October 2021, when it still belonged to Wetherspoons. ACV status was granted on 28 November, which was unfortunately 17 days after Landrose completed its £800,000 purchase. Meanwhile the Rhubarb was listed as an ACV on 7 January 2022. Both owners fiercely appealed the decisions based on various arguments, including whether they met statutory requirements around listing the properties as ACVs. These say a property "must have been used for the purpose of furthering the social wellbeing or interest of the local community in the recent past". It adds that it "must also be realistic to think it will be used for the same purpose again in the next five years". While the debate over the Rhubarb hinges on its viability as a pub, the test represents trickier ground for the cinema campaigners. The purpose of the building they are trying to preserve is something it has not been used for in 60 years – hardly the 'recent past'. But in the end, both campaign groups' ACV awards were quashed in the spring, on an identical technicality and without the arguments being fully considered. ACV applicants must formally state that members will take no future profits in the event they manage to buy a building. Since neither campaign had ticked this box, council lawyers struck the awards out as invalid. Chris Faulkner-Gibson acknowledges the decisions were correct. But he suggests the council could scrutinise applications more rigorously and highlight possible flaws, to prevent applicants' time and effort going to waste. "To me, the spirit of [the ACV process] ought to be to enable communities to get their foot in the door," says Brendan Tate-Wistreich, who worked on the St George's Hall application. "If instead the experience is that people get bogged down in legalese and entangled in bureaucracy, then the developer wins every time."

Planning policy row

While both groups weigh up reapplying for ACV status, the wider planning process has offered both trepidation

and hope. On 9 June, the Rhubarb application was pulled from Bristol's planning portal, with Landrose removing the St George's Hall one a fortnight later. Sources suggest the Rhubarb application's withdrawal may be temporary, due to errors. But as and when it returns, campaigners theoretically have a decent hand to play. Local planning policies state that for permission to be granted to change the use of a pub, there must either be "diverse alternative local provision" or it must be demonstrably unviable. "It looks simple – Bristol's planning policies relating to pubs, compared with many other local authorities, are very good, clear and comprehensive," says Faulkner-Gibson. But earlier this year, Bristol City Council's head of development management Gary Collins shocked attendees at a planning meeting when he admitted the authority routinely takes on trust owners' statements about whether pubs are viable. The Cable understands CAMRA is considering seeking a judicial review of the council's application of its own planning policies, which have been in place since 2014. According to Faulkner-Gibson, Collins agreed in April to begin the process of contracting an independent expert to examine future applications – including the Rhubarb's – where viability is disputed. Bristol City Council did not respond to a request for comment on the ACV process and on whether it is moving forward with seeking independent scrutiny of pubs’ viability. For St George's Hall, the outlook is more complicated. Because it sits metres from a number of other Church Road pubs, planning policy appears to offer little protection. But in a Facebook post announcing Landrose's decision to pull the application, Paul Burke struck a positive note. He said a phone call with the owner led to an agreement for a meeting "to go through realistic compromises to see if there is an outcome that works for everyone". Landrose did not respond to a request for comment. Local Green councillor Barry Parsons, who has supported the St George's Hall campaign, says he remains hopeful the venue can avoid becoming the latest in the area to disappear, despite the system “heavily” favouring developers. "You can keep the cinema, open up the frontage onto Church Road and still provide housing on the site," he says. "I can see a way forward [based on] communication between the developers and the campaign – beyond that, who knows?" •

Area in focus

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Zoe Goodman, Labour councillor for Filwood

Call out

FILWOOD IN FOCUS

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

Area in focus

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

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Filwood broadway

Scan the QR code or Text/ Whatsapp:

07533 718547 Tim Jones, chair of Filwood Broadway Working Group

Sprucing “T up the high street a decade late Filwood Broadway in one of Bristol’s most deprived neighbourhoods could get a much-needed makeover. But locals say they should be consulted again because the plans are out of date Hannah Vickers

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his should be the real hub for Filwood, the heart of Filwood. But it feels deserted, it looks abandoned… derelict.” Filwood Broadway in south Bristol, Filwood's high street, runs from the community centre to Creswicke Road on the Metrobus route. It has shops, a cafe, a library, a church, a multi-use games area (MUGA) and charities operating on it. Built in the 1930s, it was once a thriving district centre. Now, it looks neglected, with half the shops shuttered in the middle of the day, the swimming pool long demolished and the boarded-up cinema boarded due for demolition. Most recently, Filwood Hope, the local debt advice centre, was in danger of closing when it ran out of funds earlier this year, but managed to stay open after an emergency appeal. And crisis charity the Matthew Tree project, which operates at the top of the high street, has paused its services. I’m in Filwood Community Centre talking to Zoe Goodman, Labour councillor for the ward. Filwood is within the 5% most deprived areas in England. “It’s not easy for a lot of people,” says Goodman. “There are families struggling to make ends meet.”

Filwood doesn’t have a supermarket, pub or any major employment sites, aside from a few on the edge of the area, says Goodman. And despite having five primary schools, there isn’t a secondary school. “Everybody from 11 years old leaves Filwood to either go to school or go to work or to shop… Everybody goes out,” she says. “Which creates a real desert during the day.” But a regeneration project for Filwood Broadway that’s been on pause for a decade could finally begin in earnest after a recent council bid for government Levelling Up money. If successful, the council will get £12m to improve the high street, to which they’ve promised to add £1.2m. It would mean that plans for the area, made after consultation with locals back in 2012, will have the funding to finally become reality. Charlie Watts, communications coordinator for Filwood Community Centre, says: “If you speak to older people they’ll always say it was thriving... They've got fond memories of the cinema, bingo hall, swimming pool, a range of shops. They’re not memories I have because I wasn’t born, so it shows how long it’s been neglected.” “It’d just be nice to see that street regenerated and not to feel like a

“There's lots of money going around and lots of talk… But I will believe it’s being regenerated once I see it”

ghost town,” says Watts. One of the problems is the shuttered shops, which are used as storage for the charities that operate from them. Both Watts and Goodman question the placement of the charities on the area’s only shopping street.

A new masterplan?

The Filwood Broadway Framework, published in 2012, proposed several projects for the area. But a lot has changed since then – both in terms

of need and what developments are currently being planned. Watts says too much has changed for the framework to be relevant now. There's a disconnect between the plan and what’s actually happening on the high street. Residents, including members of Filwood Broadway Working Group (FBWG), a group of locals working on improving the high street, raised concerns about working to a decade-old plan. They’re calling for a new masterplan, one that takes into account the changed needs for the area and acknowledges the developments currently underway. “All these sites were earmarked since 2012 so they’ve sat there for 10 years, all these pockets of land,” says Goodman. And in the meantime, various developments have begun the planning process without an overarching plan, meaning there's no real consideration of how the whole thing will work together, she says. The framework includes plans for putting a supermarket where the cinema currently stands, turning the swimming pool site into mixed business and housing, moving the library into the community centre and turning that site into housing. But other developments, mostly housing, have reached various stages of the plan-

ning process during the 10 years the framework has sat gathering dust. Projects underway include 29 affordable homes on the old swimming pool site, and 30 council homes on the cinema site with community and commercial space, though locals have campaigned to save the 1930s art deco building. The housing development on the swimming pool site is paused until a location is found for a MUGA to replace the one that will be demolished – a win for the community after 80 residents complained about plans to demolish the play area without replacing it. There are also several regeneration projects taking place from various pots of money, including pandemic recovery funding, community infrastructure levy funds, money to improve the public realm and up to £300,000 for a new MUGA. “There's lots of money going around, lots of talk,” says Watts. “Which is great. But I will believe it’s being regenerated once I see it.” Goodman says the developments need to be planned as “a cohesive whole” that retains community, leisure, commercial and business spaces. She’s concerned that as they stand, the developments are a “piecemeal” approach to developing the area. In June, she and Michelle Tedder,

a member of FBWG, told the cabinet meeting approving the funding bid that council officers hadn’t been consultative enough in their approach. Goodman says she acknowledges that there's little time for a new consultation, given projects would need to have started this financial year to secure Levelling Up funding. But: “These are council owned bits of land, they could do it all together, they can give the community more control over what’s happening rather than [them] being done to.” Tim Jones, chair of FBWG, says residents should be included at the start of the planning process: "While there is opportunity to influence what the architects are saying, rather than leave it to the point when it’s too expensive to change.” He says the street needs retail and business: “The strong feeling of the local people is that we want a street that draws people here so it’s a street that’s worth coming to.” Labour’s Tom Renhard, cabinet member for housing, has promised to visit the area and talk to locals about their concerns. He said that while the framework is “somewhat outdated”, current plans are “broadly in line” with it and that all aspirations of the framework are expected to be fulfilled over time. •

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Bridging the gap: A campaign empowering south Bristol’s youth Youth Moves is addressing the cultural, social and economic divide that stops young people south of the river achieving their potential Billy Stockwell

rowing up in Knowle West, one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK, Levi Hodge struggled to get the support he needed to stay out of trouble. “I was on anti-social behaviour lists, out on the streets, not going to school,” the 26-year-old admits. “Organisations didn’t want to work with me. People tried but then gave up.” Thankfully, aged 12, Levi came across Youth Moves, an award-winning youth work charity based in south Bristol. They saw his potential, even when he didn’t. “If I was hanging around on a street corner, my youth worker would come up to me and say, ‘if you ain’t coming with me, then I’m going to cramp your style and stay with you’”, he says. The rapport Youth Moves built up with Levi during his early-teens would turn out to be crucial as he got older. Sadly, Levi’s mum – who had raised him on her own – passed away when he was just 16, leaving him with few positive

“There are a lot of young people who believe they ‘A divided city’ It’s this level of commitment that Levi don’t deserve these wants to give back to his community. Now a youth worker himself, Levi has things, but we recently helped launch Youth Moves’ new campaign ‘Bridging the Gap’, which believe they do” aims to address the economic, social role models. Youth Moves doubled up as a second family for Levi during these challenging times, helping him to see his strengths and get back into education.

and cultural divide in Bristol by providing disadvantaged young people with more opportunities. James Creed, a senior youth worker at Youth Moves, hopes this new campaign will empower young people to push themselves outside their comfort zones. “How do we make the city centre feel just a little bit closer?” he asks. “It’s about showing there is a reason to go, to experience new things and expand your horizons.” “There are a lot of young people who

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believe they don’t deserve these things, but we believe they do. They deserve the exact same opportunities as someone who was born in Henleaze or Clifton.” Last year, Knowle West was ranked among the 10% most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK, according to council data. Clifton, on the other hand, was in the 10% least deprived. For decades, there has been a gradual erosion of community services in Knowle West, including Filwood Broadway’s cinema and swimming pool. More recently, Filwood Library had to temporarily shut due to reports of anti-social behaviour. It may now be relocated entirely. “For me as a young person, you didn’t step foot out of Knowle West, you stuck with what you knew,” Levi says. He believes the solutions to this divide could be “as simple as taking young people to the city centre, where there are all these fantastic facilities that they can see from Knowle West but have never been to”. From the window of the Youth Move’s centre, Cabot Tower stands proudly in the distance, but Levi says most who attend the youth club would say that they’ve never visited it.

‘Expanding horizons’

Macy Lefeuvre first engaged with Youth Moves when she was 14. She had been struggling at school, not listening to teachers, and was kicked out multiple times. When not at school, her home situation was unstable and she found herself in a “toxic” relationship with an older boy. “Things started getting to me,” the 18-year-old admits. “I felt worthless and never thought I was going to get a job … I always wanted more going for my life.” Despite leaving school with no qualifications, Youth Moves managed to get Macy’s life back on track. “I really enjoyed it because it gave me something to do, to get me off the streets,” she says. “It really brought out ‘me’ and no one has ever done that before”. At 18, Youth Moves offered Macy an apprenticeship. She’s now a trainee youth worker and travels across the country in her new role. Earlier this year, she took her first trip to London, as part of a new initiative looking to fund youth projects across the UK. “I would never have had that experience if I wasn’t here,” Macy says. “They’ve opened up so many opportunities for me and they believe that I can do it.” She’s now part of the next generation of Bristol’s youth workers, giving back to the community like youth workers did for her. Levi is thrilled: “It takes just one person to believe in the young people… If I can change just one person’s life, get them on the right track, in my whole career, that’s my job done.” •

‘We’re expected to carry our babies while we also carry the burden of the statistics’ With black women four times more likely to die during pregnancy, the Black Maternity Matters pilot project launches in Bristol to address disparities in maternal healthcare

met at the University of Bristol, partly bonding through the experience of being Black women in a predominantly white space – and the same was true for their pregnancies. "I was expecting my third but for Aisha and Yomi, it was their first," Paton tells me. "We had good experiences with healthcare professionals overall, but we had the feeling that we were the ‘lucky’ ones. "Perhaps it was because we knew how to present in those spaces, the code switching you do to be taken seriously," she says. "But it’s energy that, as a pregnant woman, you really shouldn’t have to give." Having been a support network for each other, Paton, Davies

and Oluwatudimu decided to extend support to other women in their situation and founded Black Mothers Matter that same year. It's a platform and safe space providing reliable information and free support, where expectant mothers are paired with doulas, midwives and pregnancy advocates, while mental health advocates and health visitors can be accessed as required postnatally. As valuable as the practical support are the networks and friendships facilitated by Black Mothers Matter, where women can come together to share experiences and advice. •

Priyanka Raval

“A

s a Black woman, my children are twice as likely to be stillborn,” explains Sonah Paton, mother of three. It’s a sobering yet unsurprising statement, given how the pandemic unveiled deep-rooted health inequalities. And now, such inequalities in maternal healthcare specifically are slowly coming to the fore. A damning Ethnic Inequalities in Maternal and Neonatal Healthcare NHS review earlier this year found Black mothers often face stereotyping, disrespect, discrimination and cultural insensitivity in their interactions with healthcare staff. As the relationship between care providers and mothers is so central in maternal healthcare, a lack of good communication, trust and understanding can prove risky, and at worse, fatal. One of the systemic issues Black women face in healthcare is not being listened to. "Often Black women are denied pain relief when they ask for it," says Paton. "There’s still this stereotype that 'Black people don’t feel pain' or have a higher pain threshold – it's ridiculous." As well as this, much of the care and literature is based on white bodies. "Leaflets telling you to check for the pinkness of your baby just aren’t gonna be relevant to me!" Paton jokes. This exclusion again puts non-white bodies at risk: parents are told that their baby looking blue is a sign of low blood oxygen – a test only applicable to white babies. Black women are also at higher risk of developing postnatal depression, but are the least likely to be identified as depressed. Paton was unsurprised to learn this: "It gets to the point where

some women say if a Black midwife walks into the room, you're so relieved, it's like 'Thank God.'"

Interrogating unconscious bias

Paton is a director of Black Mothers Matter, a Bristol-based group founded in 2020 supporting Black women through pregnancy and the first year after birth. Her hope for the future is clear: an adequate, equitable level of care for Black mothers as standard. Paton was therefore thrilled this year to become a partner in Black Maternity Matters, a new pilot project developed by the West of England Academic Health Science Network (AHSN). Over the six month programme, up to 15 midwives, maternity healthcare support workers and maternity care assistants will learn about unconscious bias and examine the role of the individual in perpetuating unsafe systems of care for Black women. Participants will then be supported to design and deliver improvement projects in their own maternity units. Black mothers are invited to get involved by sharing their own experiences in order to inform and enrich the programme. If successful, the Bristol-based pilot could be rolled out across the country, creating positive change at the grassroots. For Paton, it can't come soon enough: "We are expected to carry our babies while we also carry the burden of the statistics."

Sonah Paton

Photo: Aphra Evans

Bristol youth workers, Macy and Levi

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Interview

"We had the feeling that we were the ‘lucky’ ones"

In 2020, Paton and her two best friends Aisha Davies and Yomi Oluwatudimu were delighted to discover they were all pregnant at the same time. They’d TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 30 | Summer 2022 | 13

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LIFE IN LANSDOWNE

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15 Cover Story

Cover Story

COVER STORY

Easton high rise tenants tell how the death of a young woman has heightened their concerns about safety and mental health in the block Sean Morrison

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lice Conduct also launched an investigation after it was revealed that officers had contact with Shannon the evening before her death. While inquiries continue, tenants of the council-owned tower block have been speaking to the Cable about how the incident has amplified their already serious concerns about their safety and wellbeing. Their concerns are set against Bristol’s wider housing crisis, with 17,000 people on the council’s housing waiting list and more than 1,000 more in temporary accommodation waiting for somewhere suitable to live. There is also an ongoing debate – in the city and across the UK – about the viability of high-rise living, and its role in helping solve the crisis. Mayor Marvin Rees is on record saying the local authority will prioritise “building up” to tackle the growing demand for homes.

It’s a basic thing, a safe place to live

“I feel trapped up here,” says Oksana, who has lived in Lansdowne for four years with her partner Igor and their two young children, aged four and 10. “It’s like we’ve been put here and just have to deal with it because there is nothing else.” “It is a basic thing, a safe place to live,” she tells the Cable, saying police visits to the block are all too common, with loud arguments regularly breaking out in the corridors. “There is always something in this place and I don’t feel safe at night.” The 41-year-old reflects on a better life her family had renting privately in Barton Hill. That was until a worsening spinal condition that affects her mobility meant she had to quit her job and take social housing.

Photos: Julian Preece

hannon Beirne plunged to her death from the window of her flat in Lansdowne Court. The tragic incident sparked a murder investigation and sent a shockwave of grief through the residents of the Easton high rise. “My kitchen window faces where she fell from, and every time I’m there I see her image staring back at me,” says Julie, one of the building’s tenants, adding that almost three months on she’s struggling to sleep. “It’s still hurting me, her death. She was a lovely girl.” The 25-year-old worked on the bar at The Berkeley, a Wetherspoon pub by the Triangle. Her colleagues were not informed of what happened and only discovered she had died when police named her in a press release more than a week after the incident. “She was one of the sweetest souls you’d ever meet,” a staff member tells the Cable, fighting back tears. “She only worked here for about two months, and seemed like quite a private person, but everyone had a good opinion of her.” “Shannon was so lovely, and liked by all the staff and the regulars,” another says, adding that she would have a drink with the customers after work. “It’s so tragic – you just don’t expect things like this to happen to anyone.” But question marks remain over how the young woman died in the early hours of 19 April. A 43-year-old man known to Shannon was arrested on suspicion of murder but later released under investigation. An inquest into her death was opened in June and adjourned until later this year. Police watchdog the Independent Office for Po-

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“We didn’t want to leave our home, we just couldn’t afford it with Igor’s job alone. But I didn’t expect the next place to be as bad as this… This property is not acceptable for my health.” The severity of Oksana’s condition means she often needs to use a bedpan by her bedside. Her flat doesn’t have supportive equipment in the bathroom, which she sometimes struggles to use when her partner Igor isn’t around to assist her. She says she also often becomes stuck in the building, as its lifts regularly break down and she can't take the stairs when she’s in pain. “The lift is a problem for so many people… it is broken, out of service, two or three times a week.” Several other tenants have also raised concerns about the lifts. Among them is Lala: she lives on the 15th floor with her 10-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy and suffers from panic attacks. “The fire brigade will be coming or someone will set the alarm off,” she says, adding that loud noises trigger her daughter’s attacks. “We need to come all the way down from the 15th floor to calm [my daughter] but if the lift’s not working it’s impossible.” The building’s lifts were also the scene of one of a series of indecent exposure incidents in 2020 and 2021 in Lansdowne’s communal areas, in which a man exposed himself to women and children, who live in the building. Alan Cox, 68, was in June convicted of three exposure offences and issued with a sexual harm prevention order that bans him from entering the tower block’s lifts and its laundry room if a woman or someone under 18 is present. The judge, despite imposing the order, said its conditions would be “unpolicable” and suggested that the council had the option of rehousing him. One of Cox’s victims told how she was scared for her children, and for those of the many other families who live in the building. She questioned why he was allowed to continue living in the building after being arrested. “I don’t understand,” she told the Cable at the time. “He should not be living in an area where children are.” Since the Cable reported on Cox’s conviction, the council confirmed he no longer lives at the property but it is not clear if this is a result of its action to rehouse him. The victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, says she was not informed of this, was still anxious that Cox lived in the building, and has received no form of support. “I feel like we’re not important because the council hasn't spoken to me… I don’t know if they have taken any action.” The council says it reviews the tenancy of anyone found to be guilty of an offence in the block where they live. A spokesperson tells the Cable that ensuring the safety of its tenants is always its “primary aim”. Child safety in the building is a common concern among residents of the block, which is home to many families. Samuel, who previously spoke to the Cable about antisocial behaviour in the high rise, says he feels Lansdowne is no place to be bringing up his two young boys – aged four and eight – but that he has no choice. The building was effectively shut down by police in 2019 under rarely-user order that functioned to tackle drug dealing and use in and around the high

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Oksana has lived in Lansdowne for four years, with her partner and two young children

17 Cover Story

Cover Story

“If we’re living here without a choice then they need to look out for us”

Samuel and his two sons share a one-bedroom flat in the tower block rise. The partial closure order lasted for six months but was not renewed.

‘Daddy, what’s it like to fall?’

Samuel was one of the first Lansdowne residents to speak to the Cable after Shannon’s death. He says the tragedy has had a profound impact on him and his sons. “Daddy, what’s it like to fall,” his eldest asked him as he stood at their kitchen window, a few days after the incident. Samuel says he told the boy’s school what had happened and that his teacher said he had “not been himself ”. Samuel shared footage with the Cable of a woman – not Shannon – climbing out of a window high up in the tower block, shouting and screaming, clearly in distress. We have not been able to verify when the

video was taken or who the woman is. “This isn’t uncommon,” Samuel says. “There are people living here who seriously need help and they’re not getting it. People are suffering with their mental health, with all sorts of things, and living somewhere like here doesn’t help that.”

‘The options are slim’

All of the tenants who spoke to the Cable for this report told how their living conditions have a negative impact on their wellbeing and are searching for somewhere new. Samuel and Oksana are among the thousands of people on Bristol City Council’s housing waiting list. Both say when it comes to bidding on a property, they’re reluctant to go for another high rise as they’ll likely experience the same problems they

do in Lansdowne. However, they’re often the only option. Tom Renhard, the council’s cabinet member for housing, acknowledges the “options are slim” for those who need a change of property amid the city’s housing crisis. More than 17,000 people are on the waiting list, Renhard points out, and over 1,000 people are in temporary accommodation in the city waiting for a permanent home. “The council must do what it can to help people maintain tenancies whenever possible,” Renard adds. “My expectation is that anyone whose needs change which makes their accommodation less suitable than when they entered it should have those needs listened to. “Where possible we should support people into alternative accommodation but with almost all of

the 27,000 (approximate) council owned homes and the thousands of others available for social rent occupied, it’s difficult to support a move.” Samuel, who shares a one-bedroom flat with his two sons, tells the Cable he’s practically given up hope of finding more suitable accommodation and that his attention has now turned to pushing to make Lansdowne more liveable for its tenants. “We’re gathering a lot of support now to make a joint effort to get the authorities to listen… I’m preparing a petition,” he says. “It should be a given, shouldn’t it, that if we’re living here without a choice then they need to look out for us.” “And things like this, it just makes us more worried,” he says, referring to Shannon’s death in April. The day after the fatal incident, Avon and Somerset Police chief inspector Deepak Kenth said

the force’s priority would be to establish how the fatal incident occurred, adding: “This is a closeknit community and we know a tragedy like this will cause a great deal of concern among those living nearby.” A spokesperson for the force says its neighbourhood police team continues to hold events in the building’s community room where residents are encouraged to raise any ongoing concerns. “These meetings will continue to be held on a regular basis and we’d encourage anyone living in Lansdowne Court to contact their local neighbourhood officers to raise any further issues directly,” they add. “We’ll also continue to work alongside our partner agencies to ensure residents are listened to and supported.” • TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 30 | Summer 2022 | 17

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21 Photo essay

Photo essay

Roni Size djing in a Lakota side room. Roni Size set up Full Cycle Records in Bristol in 1994, one of the most iconic drum and bass labels of the early 90s. He then won a Mercury Music Prize in 1997 with his band Reprazent for the album New Forms

LAKOTA AT 30

The Bristol institution, which has hosted internationallyrenowned DJs, celebrated its 30th birthday last month with a night headlined by Bristol's own drum and bass legend Roni Size Photos by Mark Simmons

Goldie, with the distinctive haircut, is a graffiti artist, DJ, producer and owner of record label Metalheadz, considered one of the best in drum and bass. On his left is possibly DJ Krust, from Knowle West, who found fame releasing on Full Cycle Records

The sprawling Stokes Croft club opened on 7 June 1992 during the heady days of the rave scene. Lakota went on to survive plans to develop the venue into flats in 2020, with the team stating they are "invested and as passionate as ever about securing the legacy of the club for the next decade and beyond". The venue saw through the pandemic by hosting sit-down events dubbed Lakota Gardens, before reopening to sold-out nights last July. These archive photos were digitised in June by the Lakota team. • 20 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 30 | Summer 2022

Rob Del Naja, one of the founding members of trip hop collective Massive Attack, who started out as a graffiti artist pioneering the stencil graffiti style that Banksy later became known for TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 30 | Summer 2022 | 21

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Feature

he didn’t act to fix the problem. “We should have never been put in that position, it wasn’t liveable. But the landlord didn’t want to spend the money.” Jasbir and Gurdip Baryah did not respond to the Cable’s request for comment on their use of short-term lets and previous examples of their tenants living in poor conditions.

Laurence_ware_design

‘A very attractive option for landlords’

Bristol landlords are cashing in on lucrative short-term lets As properties are advertised at eyewatering prices, there have been calls for regulation of short-term and holiday lets in Bristol Matty Edwards 22 | TheBristolCable.org/join | Iss 30 | Summer 2022

group of experienced Bristol landlords have been found to own flats being let out at extortionate prices on shortterm lets, the Cable can reveal. According to Land Registry documents, four members of the Baryah family own a building adjacent to an off-licence they run on Fishponds Road, which contains five flats recently listed for a combined total of £18,500 a month. This is just one example of Bristol landlords cashing in on short-term lets at inflated prices, a worrying trend meaning renters struggling to cope have access to even fewer affordable homes. The swanky serviced apartments, advertised on Rightmove by agency Keller Williams for between £3,500 and £4,000 a month, are described as "perfect for a break in the city, or for professional working in the area". Research by the Cable has found

that Jasbir and Gurdip Baryah have 21 licences to rent out properties between them in Bristol alone, and there have been past examples of their tenants living in poor conditions. Most recently, in 2020, Jasbir Baryah became the target of a campaign by community union ACORN after his tenant allegedly had to deal with extreme damp. One of those tenants, who spoke to the Cable on condition of anonymity, said they endured a “complete nightmare” when she and her partner moved into a flat in Clifton during the pandemic that was so mouldy that it made them ill. They only moved in based on the promise from the letting agent, Phoenix Properties, that the issue would be sorted, but had to move out months later when it wasn’t. With the help of ACORN, they eventually got a refund on their rent totaling nearly £1,000. The tenant said they had no direct contact with their landlord, but that

One of the flats listed for short term let on Rightmove

The Baryahs, who have been letting multiple properties in the city for years, are now dabbling in the short-term let market. With nightly rates quoted from £85 up to £135, their flats on Fishponds Road are listed on Rightmove for short- and long-term lets, as well as Booking.com for holidaymakers and Mia Living, which markets luxury properties on short-term lets. They aren’t the only ones. Cable analysis of Rightmove listings from the first half of 2022 showed more than 100 properties were listed as short-term lets. Unsurprisingly, they feature heavily among the most expensive properties, with many going for more than £2,000 a month for one- and two- bed properties. Most of these listings are via estate agents Hopewell, which claims landlords could be making 20% more money by letting their property out on a short-term basis. The self-proclaimed experts in this area say this “very attractive option” is “becoming increasingly popular”. Other examples of properties advertised by Hopewell as short or midterm lets include £2,650 for a two-bed house in Whitehall and a two-bed apartment for £2,700 in Filton. Airbnb listings in Bristol compiled in June showed that two-thirds were entire properties rather than private rooms, indicating that the site is overwhelmingly being used by people with second homes, or businesses offering short-term or holiday lets. A total of 37% of listings were by hosts with multiple properties. There have been recent calls for greater regulation of this. In 2016, London banned Airbnb hosts from letting out entire properties for more than 90 nights in the year, citing

the need “to protect London’s existing housing supply, for the benefit of permanent residents”. No such rules exist outside the capital, but Bristol’s mayor Marvin Rees has recently called on local authorities to be given more powers to combat the “wicked challenge” posed by property owners turning their houses and flats into Airbnb rentals. “We’re concerned – anything that undermines the ability of people to have an affordable, stable home in the city concerns me,” he said. Bristol West MP Thangam Debonnaire has also expressed her concern about short-term lets and second homes being advertised on Airbnb, saying these are “messing with our market”. She said that large parts of the city centre are full of homes that lie empty most of the time, that Airbnb’s self relegation isn’t working for Bristolians and that councils need greater powers to regulate this issue. In January, politicians in Scotland approved a national short-term accommodation scheme that will require landlords to register properties from October. And now the UK government has released a consultation on the impact of short-term lets and the potential introduction of a tourist accommodation registration scheme in England. Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director at Generation Rent, said: “Holiday lets are a lucrative business and landlords can often get more income from letting their property to tourists over the summer than letting to tenants year-round, so that’s sucking homes out of the long-term market and pushing up rents. “It’s welcome to see action from governments in Scotland and England on registration,” he added. “We need those systems to block criminal landlords from continuing their business, and local councils should have the power to set a limit on holiday lets in their patch.” Wilson Craw also stressed the need for taxation that encourages landlords to make homes available for people who need one to live in, such as higher council tax for holiday homes, and closing the loophole that allows holiday let operators claim tax relief against their mortgage interest. When flats in Bristol are being rented out for £4,000 a month, but thousands of renters in Bristol are struggling to afford to live or find somewhere in the first place, it’s clear something has gone badly wrong. •

Feature

“Holiday lets are sucking homes out of the longterm market and pushing up rents”

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Lost learning: My grandson’s being failed by a broken education system The grandmother of a nine-year-old boy repeatedly excluded from Bristol primary schools speaks out, amid experts’ calls for a ban on the practice Sean Morrison

Photo: Julian Preece

“I

t’s like we’re on an island by ourselves and I’m just left to think ‘how do we get through this,’” says Jean, whose grandson has been permanently excluded from primary school for the second time. “I’m surprised I’m not in the loony bin.” The nine-year-old, who has ADHD and a rare neurological condition that can cause long-term behavioural and learning difficulties, started Year Five in September at a facility in Bristol that provides alternative learning provision for children with specialist educational needs and disabilities (SEND). He was referred there last year by a mainstream school that he had been attending on a reduced timetable. Before this, when he was just six years old, he was permanently excluded from another school after being excluded on a fixed-term basis – for up to three days – on a number of occasions. “I thought [the alternative provision] was going to be the fresh start he needed,” says Jean, who has been the boy’s guardian since his mother died when he was an infant. “We were promised so much – promised that his needs would be met – but that wasn’t the reality.” He was excluded from the facility in February, meaning he will be without a school place for eight months before starting somewhere else in September. His experience of repeated exclusions comes at a time when the issue is facing intense scrutiny, with a report from former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield in April calling

for exclusions from primary schools to be banned in the UK within the next four years. Bristol has a low permanent exclusion rate – nine across all schools in 2018/19. But its fixed-term exclusion rate is high – 4,483 in the same year – compared with other local authority areas. Official data on exclusions for 2020/21 has not yet been released. ‘He’s missed more learning than he’s been given’ “There’s been so much disruption to his learning,” Jean says. “I don’t know how he will catch up… It’s got to the point where he’s missed more learning than he’s been given. It’s heartbreaking. There’s been so many missed opportunities… The system is failing him again and again and I just have to sit and watch it happen.” Bristol has in recent years become engulfed in a SEND crisis, with long waits for additional support and a lack of spaces at alternative facilities. Jean isn’t alone in feeling that, amid this crisis, her child could continue to be let down by the education system. From five years old the boy has been on an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP), which sets out the education, health and social care needs of children who need extra support in school beyond what the institution can provide. As part of the plan, at school he received one-to-one tuition and assessments by an educational psychologist, who Jean says had identified an attachment trauma in her grandson that was triggered by his mother’s death. The boy struggles to regulate himself at school, Jean says, adding that he

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“He’s missed more learning than he’s been given. It’s heartbreaking”

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“His needs haven’t been met... there’s clearly a problem here” has been excluded for several reasons, ranging from being disruptive in class to “lashing out” and becoming violent towards staff or fellow pupils. He was permanently excluded from his first primary school in 2019, when he was just six years old. The school said it couldn’t provide the additional support needed to keep him and his fellow pupils safe, or cope with his disruptive, sometimes violent behaviour. The permanent exclusion came when he returned to school after being hospitalised with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). The rare neurological condition can cause long-term behavioural and learning difficulties and, while she doesn’t yet know for sure just how ADEM has impacted her grandson, Jean says his behaviour got worse quite rapidly after he developed it. He received one-to-one tuition at home while he waited for a place at a new school, which he then attended through much of 2020 on a reduced timetable of half-days due to his behaviour. Part-time timetabling for school pupils is a practice that can be unlawful, but is increasingly being seen across Bristol, according to Lib Dem councillor Tim Kent. After being excluded in February after just six months, the boy is now back at home again, largely isolated from children his own age. He attends a placement with a council-run alternative learning group two days a week while he waits to join a new specialist school in September for the final year of his primary education. The disruption, Jean says, means he’s falling further behind. The school does not deny that the boy had been permanently excluded but says it will continue to support him alongside its partners at Bristol City Council.

because they don’t feel they have an obligation or responsibility to do so,” she said in the report. The report also highlighted how Black children are more likely to be excluded. She has called for race-equality training to be a core part of teacher training, and for the school curriculum to be reformed to make it more inclusive. Asked about her grandson’s experience of the education system, and being excluded as a Black boy, Jean says: “I don’t always want to be jumping on the race thing… But what [he has] been through, it doesn’t give me the impression that much is changing. “There’s all sorts of factors – lack of funding, resources, training – but race, this is the reality of the situation, you have to understand, that we have faced for generations,” she tells the Cable. Lana Crosby, a teacher in Bristol who campaigns for the abolition of school exclusions, says the practice – both permanent and fixed-term when children are excluded temporarily – is wrongly used to manage behaviour and as punishment. “Schools don’t always look at ‘behaviour’ as a form of communication, they just see it as misbehaviour that needs to be punished, and children are unfairly targeted. Exclusions

should only be a last resort, which they aren’t. “There needs to be a greater focus on vulnerable children in primary education, with more creative ways to help them engage.” On how school exclusions disproportionately affect Black children, and boys in particular, she tells the Cable that educators “can still get it so wrong” and fail to admit it, despite being confronted with evidence such as Longfield’s report. “How many reviews do educators need to see before they admit that they’re part of the problem? Some people call it unconscious bias… but we need to call it what it is. It’s racism.” On this case specifically, which she says will have been particularly harmful for both the boy and his grandmother, Cosby adds: “His needs haven’t been met, not necessarily because the schools didn’t want to do that, but it just shows there’s clearly a problem here.” Jean says she can’t understand how, despite the assessments her grandson has had since starting school, the school system has continued to fail him. “I don’t know if it’s a lack of empathy, patience or understanding, but someone needs to take responsibility.”•

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Feature

Campaigner Becca Blease collects a water sample from a popular swimming spot

Should rivers be given the same legal rights as humans? After pushback from the council on preserving waterways, one campaigner is now looking to test the waters of British law in an effort to protect the Avon from further pollution Billy Stockwell

erched on the dusty bank of the River Avon at Conham River Park just a few kilometres east of Bristol city centre, Becca Blease points to the treeline above her head. A green woodpecker flies past, its characteristic ‘bouncy’ flight pattern making it easy to spot, while two damselflies skim the surface of the glossy water in front of us. Blease is an environmental campaigner who has been working to get this section of the Avon, which carves its way between Conham River Park and Eastwood Farm, a type of classification called Bathing

Water Status. If approved, this status would place a legal duty on the government to monitor the river quality in this area and publish information to the public about how safe it is for wild swimming. But Bristol City Council have recently cast doubts on the campaign, citing local by-laws to justify blocking Becca’s application. These laws, which ban wild swimming between the harbourside and Hanham Locks near Keynsham, will be reviewed, but not for a couple of years, according to the local authority. Due to this uncertainty, Blease is changing course by exploring other

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ways to protect the Avon from further pollution that don’t just focus on river pollution as an issue for human health, but also the river’s health. “I’m now looking for a recourse to stand up for the river itself, to give it a voice and to stop the damaging practices against it,” she says.

‘A cocktail of pollutants’

Untreated sewage and farmland run-off entering UK rivers has climbed up the political agenda in recent years. Last year, the Cable revealed that utility company Wessex Water spilt untreated sewage into the Avon for more than 100,000

hours in 2021 alone, with E.Coli levels at Conham 20 times the acceptable level for swimming, according to standards set by the World Health Organization. The solution to this pollution crisis, Blease believes, is to radically change how we see rivers, not as an extension of the wastewater network, but as a living, dynamic and fundamental part of the natural world. Becca believes that the logical, but admittedly radical, next step in this journey is to afford the Avon legal personhood, giving it the same legal rights as a person. This might seem questionable, but as Becca points out, corporations have already been given legal rights, even though they clearly can’t speak for themselves. “In my mind, I think of it like the rights of a child. It's someone, something, that is obviously deserving of a voice, but currently doesn't have it,” she says. But this isn’t just blue sky thinking. Other rivers around the world have already been granted this status, such as the Whanganui River in New Zealand, which in 2017 became the first river in the world to be given legal personhood. Like with young children, the Whanganui clearly cannot represent itself, so it was given two legal guardians – one

“I think of it like the rights of a child. It's someone, something, that is deserving of a voice” from the government and one from the indigenous Māori tribe. If damage is done to the river, these guardians can sue those responsible on behalf of the Whanganui. India, Ecuador, Columbia, Australia, the US and Bangladesh have all begun to review their own legal systems following this historic decision.

‘Are rights of nature too radical for the UK?’

Even in the UK, Frome Town Council tried to pass a by-law that would give a section of the River Frome legal personhood. However, this was rejected by the government on the

basis that it would duplicate current environmental laws, a claim that Paul Powlesland, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers, calls “spurious”. Powlesland, who co-founded the group Lawyers for Nature, believes deeply in legal rights for nature, which he says would completely change our relationship with the natural world from one of domination to one of balance and respect. But he says that there is little prospect of change in the UK round the river bend anytime soon. “The UK is one of the hardest nuts to crack,” Powlesland admits. “We are where the idea of nature as a resource originated, we are also one of

the countries who is most disconnected from nature.” A more realistic step that community groups are already starting to do across the UK is to declare the rights of the river themselves. Even though the law would remain the same, Powlesland believes that ordinary people deciding to act as guardians of nature would result in rivers like the Avon being better protected. “People on the ground who love and care for the river, who know the river, that has real power,” he says. Community groups like Cambridge’s Friends of the River Cam and Yorkshire’s Ilkely Clean Riv-

er Group have already done this, producing a list of rights that they believe should be afforded to UK rivers, including the right to be free from pollution and the right to sustain biodiversity. “The rights declaration has inspired others to get more involved in caring for the river,” says Tony Booth, who is on the steering group for Friends of the River Cam. “We were talking with school children about the idea of river rights only yesterday, invited because of the focus of our group.” Blease agrees that these types of declarations would be a great way to bring the community together in Bristol, but she says their success should only be measured with a real change in the health of the river. And this change is needed fast. “We seem to be at a crucial time,” she admits. “Some people say it's a crucial decade to act for rivers, others believe it’s just a few years.” Thankfully, guardianship is a solution that can be put into play today, Powlesland says. In terms of full legal personhood, however, he concedes that we are still some way off. He continues to campaign towards that goal, but it will be a turbulent ride. “Never say never,” he adds, in a slightly tentative, but excited, tone. •

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The Gasworks in 1919, Samuel Loxton, Bristol Library

People's History

Avon Street employees from 1910, Bristol Archives

Avon Street gasworks: shedding a light on Bristol’s industrial and social history The Bristol Digital Futures Institute has published new research into Bristol Gas Company, which has had a hand in the city’s major industries, from aeroplanes to tobacco Dr James Watts and Lena Ferriday, University of Bristol

he history of Bristol Gas Company is the history of industry in the city over the last 200 years. From the Filton Aeroplane company using gas to heat-treat metal, to Wills Tobacco using it to dry tobacco leaves, and Fry & Sons in processing cocoa. The Avon Street gasworks, built in 1821 in a corner of St Philips, became a hub of innovation. Fittingly the site will become the first building opened as part of the University of Bristol’s Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus. The new research hub will become home to Bristol Digital Futures

Institute, which will bring together expertise from across every faculty to pioneer new approaches to digital innovation. Our new report into the history of the gasworks, which builds on excellent research into the gas industry in Bristol by Harold Nabb, Mike Richardson and Michael Painting, highlights its importance to Bristol’s economic and social history. Initially, the most important use for gas was lighting. Its volatile nature meant John Breillat, the man who first demonstrated its use in 1812, was seen by some as “a man having unholy dealings with an infernal power”.

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But by 1820 Bristol’s central streets were lit. This allowed the extension of what might be considered a ‘nighttime economy’, with theatres like the Old Vic being lit far more easily and safely than before.

Gas goes domestic

Gas lighting continued to expand. It entered many homes in the 19th century, extending into those of many working-class people by the 1890s and 1900s, with the appearance of pre-payment meters allowing people to use only as much gas as they wished. They were also given to consumers who were unlikely to get cred-

it in order to receive gas. Towards the end of the 19th century, gas cooking began to take off. This created a new time of peak demand on Sunday morning as people prepared Sunday dinners. Newspapers from the time often included adverts which were directed at women promoting gas as a useful labour-saving device for cooking as well as washing. The gasworks represented a reasonably good, steady source of employment. There seems to have been an atmosphere of solidarity and fellowship for many there, with a company brass band and football clubs. Nevertheless, the work was physically demanding, the conditions hot and smoky and the hours long. Accidents happened frequently and workers had to abide by strict rules. Yaou could be fined sixpence for “wasting time in the water closet” or five whole shillings, the daily wage for a stoker in 1891, for “tearing or defacing any copy of these regulations”. Industrial unrest was common during the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1889, there were widespread strikes across Bristol, involving gas workers demanding an eight- rather than 12-hour shift. The company attempted to bring in blackleg labour by train, but the trains were besieged by the strikers and returned, leaving the Bristol Gas Company with a large bill from Great Western Railway. Bristol Gas Company workers also went on strike in 1920 over the national pay deal, temporarily halting gas flow. This was an unauthorised strike, because the deal was made nationally with the union, and was unsuccessful.

33 People's History

“The Gas Company was a major employer for 150 years. It brought innovation into the lives of most people in the city through lighting and heating public and private spaces.”

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Wartime bravery

The gasworks were also a target for bombing during the Bristol Blitz. On the night of 24 November 1940, two incendiary bombs lodged on top of the gasholder in St Philips. George Daniel Jones, a gas holder attendant, “immediately climbed to the top of the holder and succeeded in knocking the bombs off the crown with his steel hat”. This averted a major fire at the gasworks and meant gas supply could continue. For his bravery Jones was awarded the George Medal. There is now a plaque on Folly Lane, and nearby George Jones Road is named after him.

The Gas Company was a major employer in Bristol for 150 years. It brought innovation into the lives of most people in the city through lighting and heating public and private spaces. It is a history of industrial work and life, of the heavily industrialised area of Bristol in St Philips. It brought changes in domestic life and work as well as a more easily lengthened day. We would like to dig deeper into the ways all of these elements changed people’s lives. The archives can tell us many things, but we would like to hear the personal stories that are often missed. Did your grandfather work at the Gas

Company? Do you have any historical photographs of the Avon Street gasworks? Are there stories about the gasworks during the Second World War? If so, we would love to hear these memories either through our online survey or in an oral history conversation. Details about signing up for this are held in the ‘Further Information’ section of this page: www.bristol. ac.uk/bristol-digital-futures-institute/ news/2022/history-of-the-sheds.html If you’d like to get in touch another way, or know anyone who might, please contact avon-street-project@bristol. ac.uk •

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Eight years, 2,700 members, from £1 a month. Join us: thebristolcable.org/join some of them from going inside." Changing Tunes allows the people they work with to choose what kind of music they make. But this has led to difficulties for the organisation around drill music, a genre so often associated with gang culture and violence that there have been calls to ban it. "If you'd asked me a year ago, I would've said there's no link," says Jones. "We don't expect the same standard from other genres of music." Jones believes the outcry has a racist bent, as drill is made predominantly by young Black men. But on its links with violence, he's changed his mind: "I think there is something slightly different about drill. It comes from a place of message-sending. It started on the streets and its roots are very much in the turf war, postcode stuff." Changing Tunes has brought in drill rappers and people from the industry to help ensure they can be responsible and avoid proliferat-

E R U T L CU Photos: Gaz Hamer

Your community newspaper. Become a member: thebristolcable.org/join ed by Changing Tunes, through working as wing rep and mental health rep, and going to chapel "just because the singing made me feel better". There he noticed not only the benefits of music therapy, but that some people were brimming with talent – enough for a career on the outside. "You come across people in there who have massive talent and perhaps have lost focus of their lives and the direction they're going in," says Bailey. "I met somebody who was unbelievably brilliant. He stopped the whole wing dead when he picked up the guitar." Bailey is now one of the people with lived experience of the criminal justice system running Red Tangent Records, a record label linked to Changing Tunes that supports people to make careers of their musical talent after release. First set up in February 2021, a roster of five artists are currently signed to the label and releasing music. As their initial funding from the National Lottery comes to an end, Bailey hopes the label can find the funding to take on 10 artists every year, as well as develop relationships with bigger labels who could take on talent found and fostered by Red Tangent. The label hosted its first annual showcase at the Bristol Beacon at the end of last month (see pictures). But behind the music and the parties remains a focus on challenging the failures of the criminal justice system. Alongside performances, the showcase hosted panel talks asking what prison is for and what needs to change to achieve its aims. The label enables its signed artists to speak out on their experiences of the criminal justice system, in the hopes that this will deter people from committing crime and spark systemic change. It believes in tackling trauma and inequality, the root causes of crime. "If we were truly committed to reducing crime – and that's the one thing people seem to be able to agree on – the best way to do that is to deal with the reasons why people go into it in the first place," says Jones. Unfortunately, this is not the UK's current approach, given our prison population rate ranks alongside

DRILL MUSIC FOR M POSITIVE CHANGE Signed artist Noble1BOF at the Red Tangent Records showcase

Content warning: This article contains references to suicide.

any people going into prison will have had pretty traumatic lives. They'll be going in with adverse childhood experiences and trauma in their DNA. And if you didn't go in with that kind of stuff, you'll come out with it." David Jones runs Changing Tunes, a charity that provides prisoners with the instruments, tuition and space to create music on the inside. It's one of the few therapeutic activities available in prison, which became particularly vital during the pandemic when many prisoners were locked up in their cells for nearly 24 hours a day. The flipside of mental health in prisons deteriorating and suicide attempts “going through the roof " during the pandemic, Jones says, is that the government and prison service had to wake up to the fact that “mental ill health is abysmal within prisons". As a result, the need

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For 35 years, Bristol has been home to a charity which lets prisoners create music on the inside. Now, a sister record label is supporting them to launch music careers after release

Aphra Evans

for services like Changing Tunes became increasingly recognised. Since the charity started working in HMP Bristol 35 years ago, it has expanded to support people post-release, those recovering from addiction and young offenders in Vinney Green, a secure children's unit in Emersons Green. This year, a project is beginning at two pupil referral units in Bristol to put the idea of early intervention to the test. "There is a conveyor belt between school exclusions – certainly from anti-social behaviour and gang related stuff – and ending up in prison," says Jones. "So hopefully, if we can get in earlier and provide other opportunities to engage and energise young people, we can prevent

ing violence through music. But for Jones, it's ultimately about getting the right people in the room, which means keeping drill on the table – because it's often what the people they work with want to make. "We've seen amazing examples of when drill music can be used for positive good," he adds. "It's a jumping-off point for discussing what's happened to them and their fears and their lives – where they've been, where they're going."

Music with a reformist agenda

Mike Bailey was in prison in Bristol for a short sentence over the roasting hot summer of 2020. He kept himself sane with a guitar provid-

35 Culture

Culture

Wak Therapists, a band who formed while inside, perform at the showcase

Noble1BOF, who after the showcase launched his first album in Brixton authoritarian nations like Russia and Turkey. In 2020, England and Wales incarcerated 138 people per 100,000 and in Scotland this rose to 147, according to stats from human rights organisation Council of Europe. In further grim reading, the same report revealed the prison suicide rate in England and Wales was twice the European average. Jones can't say the criminal justice system or its ability to rehabilitate has improved in the 35 years Changing Tunes has existed. "It needs much more investment in therapeutics, and psychologically-informed interventions," he explains.

The latest statistics show the British reoffending rate was 25% within the first year of release, rising to 34% for under-18s and to 58% for adults released after sentences of under 12 months. But, says Jones, "On a rolling three-year average, less than 6% of people who engage with us will reoffend." Changing Tunes uses music as a means to foster trust, confidence, and a sense of identity. Despite the challenging context, Jones believes these factors are what allows prisoners and ex-prisoners to build resilience and the ability to desist from crime after release.•

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E H T F O D N U SO N A I S A H T SOU D N U O R G R E UND After the explosion of the South Asian music scene in recent years, the Cable sits down with the Bristol-born Pakistani siblings who are bringing representation, raves and revival to Bristol Priyanka Raval

nowing how to give your parents the slip is a prerequisite for many South Asian children. As a teenager, while my white schoolmates merrily waved their parents goodbye on their way to a house party, I had to conduct a mission akin to The Great Escape. Education, good career prospects – these are the reasons our parents came to this country, not so that we could go to jungle nights at Lakota (as my mother often reminds me). Such is the plight of us second generation British Asian youth, navigating life between two cultures. I call it the ‘Desi dilemma’ (Desi meaning from the South Asian subcontinent) – how do you enjoy your life in the UK, without disrespecting your family and the sacrifices they made? Nothing encapsulates this intercultural struggle so well as the underground music scene of ‘the Daytimers,’ which spanned the 1970s to the early 1990s. Forbidden from going out at night, young British Asians would put on parties on a Wednesday afternoon which they had off school. These daytime raves would play bhangra, Bollywood, UK garage, filled with people desperate to socialise, party and maintain a link to their culture. Best of all, they could be home in time for dinner, with their parents none the wiser. Despite its cultural importance, the Daytimers scene went largely undocumented – until 2020 that is, when revivalist Daytimers burst onto the scene, wanting to platform and celebrate the new generation of artists from the Desi diaspora. Since then, there has been an explosion of South Asian collectives, festivals and club nights. As it stands, however, it has been a very London-centric movement. So I was overjoyed to find out there were two Bristol-born Pakistani siblings putting on nights and producing a podcast called RepresentAsian.

Photo: @fussion.events

Why the lack of RepresentAsian?

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Locked down in their parents' house in the Christmas of 2020, the pandemic having claimed their jobs, Safiya Bashir, 28, proposed the idea for the RepresentAsian podcast to her older brother Yusuf, 31, who warily agreed after feeling jaded from his years of experience in the music industry. The siblings describe themselves as “big music heads”. Safiya, now based in Amsterdam, is a writer and budding DJ. “And I have a radio show on SWU FM, I’m a booking agent and I've been a failed DJ for

Join us in reinventing local media: thebristolcable.org/join the past 11 or 12 years!” jokes Yusuf, deprecating his credentials. With two cheap mics and an attic studio, the Bashir siblings have produced eight podcast episodes to date, featuring a variety of guest interviews, discussion and characteristically sibling banter – Safiya describes Yusuf as a "BTEC Riz Ahmed", while Yusuf teases his sister for her novice DJing ability. In a comedic callback to Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, each episode ends with the interviewee picking a track for their Desi Island Discs. Their first episode interviews Mark Machado from South Asian Audio Creatives, whose research found only four presenters of South Asian origin across the major commercial national stations. “We just didn’t see ourselves in the music industry, there’s no-one who looks like us,” Safiya says. “There’s a real frustration of looking at lineups and finding them so white,” Yusuf agrees. We discuss what might have led to this disparity, and identity keeps cropping up as a reason. “For so long we (South Asians) haven’t been comfortable with ourselves and what we can bring to the table,” says Yusuf. He recalls a line from Machado’s interview: “We have let this happen, we have let ourselves be othered. There’s a generational thing as well: feeling like the creative industries were not for us. Our elders didn't feel like they should have their stories told or their songs played.” Structural issues are also at play, too. Episode 2 begins with Yusuf talking about his reaction to the Sewell report, which concluded there was no institutional racism in the UK. “It’s gaslighting on an industrial scale,” he says. “Drum and bass and house music were started up by black working class people,” he explains. “But now they’ve been totally white washed – the lineups and the audiences of those scenes are 99% white. “Ethnic groups are the originators of the scene and as soon as it becomes mainstream and profitable, the originators are pushed to the side. The narrative has changed so much now, that people push back when I’ve said these are Black genres – it makes you feel so unseen,” he continues. On top of this, a theme discussed in the podcasts is the pressure for Desi musicians to perform their Asianness if they are given a public platform. “It’s great if you want to bring that to your music," Safiya says. "But we don’t want to feel like BBC Asian Network is your only option as a DJ!”

But things are changing. In 2021, South Asian collective Diet Paratha were the face of a campaign for Burberry, Boiler Room had its first ever appearance in Pakistan and this year’s Glastonbury had the largest South Asian lineup in its history. As the three of us discuss the recent revival and energy of the new South Asian underground music scene, we cannot contain our excitement. We relate to the feeling of shame around our heritage, and seeing young people putting their South Asian culture front and centre of their work feels profoundly empowering.

Safiya and Yusuf

Bringing bhangra to Bristol

In February this year, Yusuf and Safiya put on their first sold-out RepresentAsian club night at Crofters Rights. I was in the crowd, deeply moved by seeing an all-Brown lineup in Bristol. “It was fun, and really special,” says Yusuf. While the duo certainly want to continue doing club nights, they anticipate it as a challenge in Bristol. “I think the gentrification and the migration of ethnic minorities out of Bristol has affected the music scene here,” says Yusuf. “Didn’t used to be the case at all, places like Lakota had a real edge to them, now they feel like completely pacified places for white kids.” Compared to the scale and diversity of London, the duo have their work cut out bringing the South Asian music scene to Bristol – where the Desi community is very dispersed with few places or occasions for young people to gather. Nevertheless, the energy from London is certainly inspiring British Asian communities across the country. “We’re playing the long game,” Safiya says. “Making collaborations and ensuring permanent South Asian spaces and representation – even if the ‘hype’ dies down.” •

Culture

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Rwanda is just one part of the government's latest attack on asylum seekers

Why community action is needed in the cost of living crisis Bristol Energy Network reports from the front line of community concern around rising energy prices, which are set for another hike in October

The Nationality and Borders Act fully came into force on 28 June, and the impact it will have on asylum seekers is stark

Rachel Moffat, Bristol Energy Network

hen Ofgem announced the energy price cap rise in April, anxiety levels also rose for many across the UK. With the average £700 per year increase, everyone is feeling the squeeze. With further rises likely in October we need to prepare for winter by finding ways to understand and reduce our energy use. Bristol Energy Network (BEN) is an organisation with a varied membership base, working towards the shared vision of a city where clean, green, affordable energy is delivered to the community by the community. We have been working in community energy and fuel poverty in Bristol for 10 years and have witnessed concerns firsthand. A surge in wholesale gas prices has been driving our bills up. It has been a huge problem for energy suppliers, many of whom could not afford to keep trading. As a result, Ofgem have raised the energy price cap. The wholesale cost is the biggest portion of our energy bill and now it is impacting our cost of living, leaving many people in, or at risk of, fuel poverty. Before the pandemic and recent price rises, almost 10% of Bristol residents were in fuel poverty. With national charities predicting a 50% rise in that number nationally this year, this could mean up to 30,000 households in Bristol struggling to keep warm.

How we’ve been taking action

BEN has been working with communities on our ‘Energy Help Desk’ project. It involves running information sessions for communities and support staff on how to reduce energy bills through small behavioural changes, minor DIY adjustments at home, info on financial support, and how to communicate with your energy company. In partnership with Bristol City Council, Energy Tracers, a Community Interest Company using thermal imaging technology, and Re:Work, a charity working in Filwood and Knowle West, BEN has been piloting the ‘Warm Up

Skill Up’ project. The community-led approach to improving energy efficiency in homes teaches DIY low-cost energy efficiency measures such as insulation and draught-proofing, and helps to find grant money for larger improvements. The project starts and ends with a thermal study (‘Energy Trace’) to find out where heat is being lost and how well the improvements are working. We have also applied for funding to run DIY draught-proofing workshops in community centres this autumn so that people can reduce bills in winter.

Tom Daly, Bristol Refugee Rights

mand and think about it in a new light: doing our best to use what we need to stay healthy and warm, but not wasting it. Understanding which of our appliances use the most energy, making sure our heating systems are efficient, and taking care of draughts in our home will cut bills drastically. If we talk about and understand energy use more, it gives us more power to reduce usage and bills.

Structural problems

This crisis was a long time coming. Our system in the UK is not resilient to global price shocks due to our reliance on gas. Expanding our renewable energy systems not only reduces our emissions but brings more security too. But creating a resilient, renewable system will need the help of community energy projects to both meet and reduce demand. This will help us out of the grip of volatile fossil fuel companies. Community-owned energy generation, such as in projects by Bristol Energy Cooperative (BEC), Low Carbon Gordano and the impressive Ambition Community Energy, offer new opportunities for clean, fairer energy. Community share offers create the opportunity for people to invest money and have a say in the organisation. Co-ops such as BEC offer discounted energy for community buildings and a community benefit fund which gives grants to many Bristol organisations. Harnessing new structures of energy generation and distribution for community benefit is empowering both socially and environmentally. We need to reduce energy de-

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39 Opinion

Opinion

The best way to significantly reduce energy use in our homes is to make energy efficiency improvements such as insulation. Many homes are poorly insulated and draughty, which is how we lose the heat that we are paying so much for. Community initiatives such as the C.H.E.E.S.E project help reduce energy consumption through identifying heat loss in your home and suggesting where to make changes to both improve efficiency and save cash. The winter is going to be difficult with another price hike coming in October so we need to be ready to support our communities. We have opened our Emergency Winter Fuel Fund, raising money to be distributed through our community partners when people can no longer afford to heat their homes, or food. If you are struggling with your bills then please seek help from advice and support agencies (nea. org.uk/ cse.org.uk/ contact). If you are not struggling with your bills, then please help out a fellow Bristolian who is! • To get involved with community energy, you can visit Bristol Energy Network's website or get in touch to see if there is a project happening near you:

joewatsonprice

www.justgiving. com/campaign/ BristolEmergencyCovidWinterFund

t's hard to imagine the feelings of the seven asylum seekers whose removal flight to Rwanda was cancelled on 14 June. The government, which is still determined to go ahead with deporting migrants there, is planning a second flight which could take off before the courts have ruled on whether the whole project is lawful. Horrifying as it is, the Rwanda asylum plan is just one part of the government's latest attack on refugees and other migrants. The Nationality and Borders Act (NBA) is an attempt to make our asylum system even more hostile and to punish those who arrive outside of legal channels. However, the UK has made sure there are no safe routes available for most refugees – with the exception of specific schemes for Ukrainians and Afghans. The logic underlying the NBA is that asylum seekers should be punished for coming to the UK through irregular routes in order to deter others. Unlawful entrants to the UK – meaning most asylum seekers – will face up to four years in prison. People who have passed through a ‘safe’ country en route to the UK will not be allowed to claim asylum here. The Rwanda plan means that now the Home Office will try to remove those people on a one-way ticket, and they are expected to claim asylum there instead. There is, at present, just one Rwandan official whose job it is to assess all these claims. If people win their case, they still won't be able to return to the UK and will have to make a life in Rwanda instead. We don't know whether this plan will go ahead, as legal battles continue. Even if it does, there are many who can't be sent to Rwanda, including unaccompanied children, meaning eventually the Home Office will have to process their claims in the

UK. In the end, most of them will be accepted as genuine refugees, because they are. The Home Office accepted 75% of asylum claims in the year ending March 2021 and for the remainder, chances of success at appeal are 50-50. However, the government still plans to take revenge on those who have broken the immigration rules,

homelessness, playing into the hands of traffickers and exploiters. There are provisions to reduce support for victims of human trafficking, punish late submission of evidence, and target unaccompanied children and victims of trafficking. Assessing age is a difficult and sensitive job currently being done by

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even after accepting they were fleeing persecution. Under the new act, they will be offered a much worse status with only 30 months of leave before they have to apply again, a 10year route to settlement and a much reduced right to family reunion. On the 10-year route, refugees will have to make four applications before they finally get indefinite leave. Many will miss deadlines or submit the wrong paperwork and end up losing their status, despite being recognised as a genuine refugee. This will likely leave them facing destitution and

social workers. The NBA gives the Home Office new powers to carry out their own age assessments, to overrule local councils and to use discredited ‘scientific’ methods. Bristol Refugee Rights (BRR) has been working with dozens of frightened children housed alone in adult accommodation, and this situation will only intensify with the transfer of powers from social workers to a biased Home Office. The government says it is bring-

ing these brutal new rules in to deter people traffickers and dangerous channel crossings. But by sowing fear and confusion, politicians create ideal conditions for more exploitation. Many asylum seekers will be driven underground and be afraid to claim asylum or go to the police. Children will be subjected to unnecessary and scientifically worthless X-rays or dental examinations, told they are adults and then be removed to Rwanda. Many of them will run away instead and be easy targets for abuse. Another focus of the act is asylum housing: the NBA lays the groundwork for increased use of large reception centres such as army barracks. There are also proposals to rehouse asylum seekers at each stage of the asylum process. This would be cruel and destabilising for traumatised people who would have to start again each time with finding support networks. The NBA does nothing to solve existing problems in the system. It will not deal with the dysfunction and long delays in the asylum process. It doesn’t create safe routes and is unlikely to deter desperate people, smugglers or traffickers. It doesn’t address the causes of forced migration. What the act does is allow the government to abandon responsibility and hand it over to Rwanda, to the UK’s voluntary sector and to migrant communities to try to reduce harm and suffering. BRR will be looking closely at its likely impacts and planning our response both in terms of services and campaigning. • If you would like to support the work of Bristol Refugee Rights, you can make a donation online: www.bristolrefugeerights.org/ support-us/donation/

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