Mayor calls on housing board to tackle gentrification in Bristol

Marvin Rees has called on a city housing board to tackle gentrification in Bristol, describing the issue as a “ferocious challenge” which undermines stability and breeds resentment.

Gentrification happens when people from a higher socioeconomic group move into a lower socioeconomic area, often making the area too expensive for locals to live.

As well as changing the area’s socio-economic make-up, it changes its demographics, house prices, rental prices and general character.

St Paul’s, Easton and Bedminster have all felt its effects in recent years.

A two-bed flat at Factory No. 1 on East Street in Bedminster (pictured above) costs as much as £435,000.

St Paul’s is on the front line of gentrification in Bristol – photo: Martin Booth

Rees, who grew up moving between St Paul’s, Lawrence Weston and Easton, and now lives in Greenbank, has had gentrification in his sights since he was first elected to City Hall in 2016.

Now, re-elected for a second term, he appears more determined than ever to oppose what some see as an inevitable evolution of the city’s neighbourhoods.

Rees raised the issue with new members of the multi-agency Bristol Homes & Communities Board as they met for the first time after May’s local elections.

He told the group, one of six cross-sector thematic boards run by the One City Office, that he wanted them to use their “collective intellectual firepower” to tackle the “wicked challenges” related to housing in the city, such as gentrification.

Looking over Greenbank Cemetery and towards the Purdown Tower from Greenbank – photo: Martin Booth

He recently suggested the phenomenon may partly explain the surge in voting for the Green Party in racially diverse areas witnessed in the local elections.

Rees said: “I’ve been watching and listening to a lot of talks on gentrification in the last couple of weeks.
“The first people that raise their voice on gentrifiers are actually the first wave of gentrifiers.

“The people that get gentrified first are the voiceless people, and then people move in and then they run campaigns on gentrification when the next wave of people comes in and impacts on them.

“An African American friend said to me once that he was talking to a campaign against gentrification, and he said to them, ‘well, why don’t you ask the Puerto Rican family that used to live in your house’.

“People, they lack self awareness. It’s not blaming anyone. It’s about understanding. It is a ferocious challenge facing us, what’s happening to our communities, how it undermines stability, breeds resentment.

“I think we need a mature conversation around how the city can be on the forefront of tackling that challenge that is facing all cities around the world.”

Property prices on Portland Square in St Paul’s continue to rise, with boutique hotel Artist Residence due to open soon – photo: Martin Booth

The Bristol Homes Board was set up to get public, private, charity and volunteer organisations across the city to work towards the One City Plan goal for housing.

The overarching goal is that by 2050, everyone in Bristol will live in a home that meets their needs within a thriving and safe community.

Its goals for 2021 are three-fold: deliver a pilot programme with Bristol communities, particularly council properties, to develop and increase access to communal and green spaces; implement a project to improve refugee and migrant integration into communities and neighbourhoods and continue to build new net zero carbon homes and begin retrofitting existing housing stock to meet Bristol’s climate and ecological emergencies.

The board is co-chaired by Labour councillor Tom Renhard, the new cabinet member for housing, and Oona Goldsworthy, chief executive of Brunel Care, a housing association and social care organisation.

Amanda Cameron is a local democracy reporter for Bristol.

Main photo: Martin Booth

Read more: Rees on gentrification: ‘It’s not just a binary thing’