Anger at plans to develop two new complexes of totally unaffordable housing have prompted many people in Bristol to step up the fight for social housing in their city.
The developers in Easton and Fishponds, two working class and largely black areas, openly flout Bristol City Council’s own guidelines by refusing to include any social, or even ‘affordable’ housing in their plans for hundreds of new homes. Generator South West, the developers of the Easton site – a derelict chocolate factory – claim that including on-site social housing would make the development ‘unprofitable’ for them – despite the price of land in the area increasing by 25% in the last three years alone. As is so often the case, neither the council nor the company have permitted their viability assessment for the development to be made public.
A campaign spearheaded by the tenants’ union ACORN and supported by the Bristol branch of the RCG, is therefore demanding that planning permission be declined for all developments that fail to at least meet the council’s own policy of 20% social housing in any large house building project. Thousands of local people have signed in support of this demand. A successful campaign to put the pressure on the developers has also been waged on social media.
We also approached Labour Mayor Marvin Rees at a council meeting for an assurance that the council would stick to its policy on social housing when deciding planning permission for these sites. In a flustered and insulting response, Rees accused us of ‘grandstanding’ and of refusing to have ‘a mature relationship’ with the developers, and declared that our demand to have the viability assessment made public was tantamount to scaring investment away from Bristol! As once again Labour shows whose side it’s on, it is clear the fight for social housing in Bristol depends on the struggle of ordinary people. The results of our challenge to the planning application will be heard at the end of November and, if it is denied, we are more than ready to step up our campaign.
Luke Meehan
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 254 December 2016/January 2017
